Another ideology I thought about was inspired by this
setting I came up with, serving as a kind of canonical system of government for the pan-asian nation South America became in it
I dub it "Parliamentary Absolutism" though in universe they would try to call it a prettier name like "Republican Monarchy" "Enlightened Imperial Government"
Essencially it is a parliamentary system where the monarch is
nominally ceremonial with no powers, not even parliament dissolution, identical to the Westminster Model in every way...except for one little key difference
They can pick every single person in the government
So people still vote for candidates who usually get the mandate they were elected for because no one wants to contradict the people and give them reasons to become republican
But if the monarch wants they can go "Nah" and instead appoint someone else for the job and nobody can say no to that
Besides that, there's another trick up their sleeves to keep the system popular and make the people not question the ruler's ability to completely ignore their votes and appoint whoever they want
The monarch will take one day every month(or year? Depends on the schedule) and go in public..
Initially in front of a big crowd in the capital but after the invention of TV they go in live television
Where they read
every single complaint submitted to them by the people themselves and in the next hours of the day address and talk about as many of them as they can, speaking about any and all plans they can conceive right then and there to address these issues and better the quality of life of the nation
Of course with so many complaints coming from almost every person and city there must be something to "filter" these complaints in order to not overwhelm the poor monarch
And that's where municipal and provincial federalism kicks in
The complaints are also read and "filtered" by every mayor, who then pass them to their governors who also reads and "filters" them before sending the rest to the monarch, all pf which have to speak to their subjects how they'll address these issues
So if one complaint didnt make to the Emperor/Queen it is not because they are ignoring you, its because either the mayor or governor didnt submit your fair and just cause to the ruler, how dare them!
So any anger building up in the system is targeted not at the always benevolent and paternalistic crown that genuinely is always speaking about everyone's issues and working on solving them but instead those darn local rulers that lost their right to rule instead of the Crown
Thus when it gets too much, the people simply kill off the local mayor or governor that they probably elected and the very kind ruling person appoints someone better to replaces them
"See the Emperor addressed all our problems and did their best tp help us, I SAW IT
They only didnt know we are suffering here in Townsville because that sick governor didnt submit our complaints! Lets kill him so the monarch can hear us!"
"Didnt you say you complained about the lack of representation in the city council? Where did that end?"
"The Queen would have addressed it, I mean she did that for Avocadopolis so she would've done it for us...if that idiotic mayor sent it to her as he was meant to!
You know, the one ~democratically elected~
But no worries he lost the mandate of Heaven so we'll off him and she'll appoint a better one"
Thus the perfect illusion of popular participation and democratic rule is created when the country is
de facto under the absolute and utterly complete control of a single person who, unfortunately for them,
actually has to deal with every single problem the nation is facing and talk about it live!
Combo that with a rather efficient succession system where rather than the Crown going to the first child with a penis it goes to whatever kid out a couple dozen the ruler had during their "priv time" they picked as the best successor(Han Dynasty style)
Or, should the monarch die before electing a desired heir publicly, the parliament made up of people that
de jure were elected but de facto were appointed by the monarch themselves chooses the best suited successor(British Style)
Thus avoiding crazy or obviously incompetent rulers as well as highly damaging civil wars over different heritage claims to the throne
That means such a highly centralized if not super authoritarian system could
potentially remain popular forever even among liberal democracies and kill the desire for popular representation on the bud, because so long it works as intended(and Im aware no system does so forever) the population would believe they are already well represented and the ruler has their interests in mind more so than any elected representative
"The Queen personally sent a letter to my employer telling him to give us fair wages
And you want us to rebel to put a Republic???
And for what, one of those corporate bastards to get elected and not give a fuck about us?
Im sure the executioner will love to hear your complaints, I mean the Queen would've heard it but you want to overthrow her instead! Ungrateful bastard"
Edit:
My reasoning was that such a nation if it existed would have been born in conditions similar to Brazil's - aka a monarchy wanting to retain it's powers while being heavily influenced by liberal constitucionalism
The OTL solution for that by Pedro I was to create a representative government but with a "Fourth Power" held by the monarch where he could dissolve the parliament if things got out of hand, but besides that the brazilian monarch also could appoint the prime minister, usually following the electoral results
ITTL there's no Pedro I to do that, so I scrapped the Dissolution Power, which would be redundant anyway here as I kept the notion of it keeping the appearance of a liberal democracy where the monarch appoints the Premier but with that expanded now to cover the entire government being appointed by them as this nations looks up to the models of Imperial China & Korea instead of european kingdoms due to their heritage
Then I figured the monarch would need some kind of stunt to remain popular and I remembered how Qin Shi Huang had hundreds of bamboo scrolls all around his place, being obsessed with handling every single issue that was happening
So I imagined the monarch of TTL might have done something similar in public as a way of getting PR, with it slowly evolving into a integral part of the system that is vital for it's stability