Alternative forms of polyarchy

In our Western-dominated world, the way we think about distribution of power within countries is based on Western nations of democracy and autocracy. At one end, we have absolute monarchies; at the other, we have countries with parliaments, regular elections with universal franchise, an independent judiciary, and strong protections for civil liberties. Whereas absolute monarchy is approximately the same everywhere, a lot of what we think of as liberal democracy is grounded in Western experience, especially voting.

My question is, could there be alternative forms for popular rule, polyarchy, or whatever you call the opposite of absolutism?

Some examples from recent-ish history:

1. In an article rejecting the association of Asia with despotism, Kim Dae-jung notes that Europe figured out democratic voting first, but that other aspect of modern liberal democracy, including a civil service with merit-based promotion, rule of law, and the concept (if not the practice) that the people have the right to overthrow bad governments goes back to Imperial China. In a Chinese-dominated TL, is it plausible that many states would be polyarchic without voting? For example, there could be strong separation of powers between a variety of bureaucracies - the courts, the civil service, the military - with strong freedom of speech protections, without any voting.

2. Modern liberal democracy was developed in places in which there was very little diversity among the politically empowered population: 17c England, late-18c America, 18-19c France. Diverse countries have gone in a somewhat different direction with power sharing, as in modern Belgium and Switzerland, or the Dutch consociational model; additionally, Israel and India, which otherwise have an English-style judiciary, do not have juries. Conceivably, a polyarchy that developed in a diverse place would've placed more emphasis on group rights and collective rights. We see an element of that in standard lists of civil liberties with freedom of religion, which is a collective right: Judaism, Lutheranism, etc., are defined collectively, and there exist political conflicts, resolved collectively, on issues like circumcision or Scientology. We also see this emphasis on collective rights in the activism of black Americans and Muslim Europeans.

3. Owing to the experience of territorial nation-states and the humiliations of the Scramble of China, we think of extraterritoriality as an imposition rather than a right. But potentially, a timeline in which polyarchy emerged out of a highly mobile merchant class (for example, medieval and Early Modern Jews) would view polities as non-territorial, and might consider extraterritoriality a fundamental right for migrants of all classes.

4. Democracies have direct voting, for political parties or individual candidates. But we do see occasional exceptions with indirect voting: in the US, the most important modern example is the Iowa caucuses, in which at each stage people elect representatives to the next stage of the caucuses, and there are 3 or 4 stages before you get to the selection of the state's delegates. I imagine that in highly local, highly clannish societies, voting could emerge along the same principle: you choose your clan's representatives, and then the clan chooses the local village or town representatives, and then the village or town representatives choose the county representatives, and so on.
 

Polemarchos

Banned
In our Western-dominated world, the way we think about distribution of power within countries is based on Western nations of democracy and autocracy. At one end, we have absolute monarchies; at the other, we have countries with parliaments, regular elections with universal franchise, an independent judiciary, and strong protections for civil liberties. Whereas absolute monarchy is approximately the same everywhere, a lot of what we think of as liberal democracy is grounded in Western experience, especially voting.

My question is, could there be alternative forms for popular rule, polyarchy, or whatever you call the opposite of absolutism?

Some examples from recent-ish history:

1. In an article rejecting the association of Asia with despotism, Kim Dae-jung notes that Europe figured out democratic voting first, but that other aspect of modern liberal democracy, including a civil service with merit-based promotion, rule of law, and the concept (if not the practice) that the people have the right to overthrow bad governments goes back to Imperial China. In a Chinese-dominated TL, is it plausible that many states would be polyarchic without voting? For example, there could be strong separation of powers between a variety of bureaucracies - the courts, the civil service, the military - with strong freedom of speech protections, without any voting.

2. Modern liberal democracy was developed in places in which there was very little diversity among the politically empowered population: 17c England, late-18c America, 18-19c France. Diverse countries have gone in a somewhat different direction with power sharing, as in modern Belgium and Switzerland, or the Dutch consociational model; additionally, Israel and India, which otherwise have an English-style judiciary, do not have juries. Conceivably, a polyarchy that developed in a diverse place would've placed more emphasis on group rights and collective rights. We see an element of that in standard lists of civil liberties with freedom of religion, which is a collective right: Judaism, Lutheranism, etc., are defined collectively, and there exist political conflicts, resolved collectively, on issues like circumcision or Scientology. We also see this emphasis on collective rights in the activism of black Americans and Muslim Europeans.

3. Owing to the experience of territorial nation-states and the humiliations of the Scramble of China, we think of extraterritoriality as an imposition rather than a right. But potentially, a timeline in which polyarchy emerged out of a highly mobile merchant class (for example, medieval and Early Modern Jews) would view polities as non-territorial, and might consider extraterritoriality a fundamental right for migrants of all classes.

4. Democracies have direct voting, for political parties or individual candidates. But we do see occasional exceptions with indirect voting: in the US, the most important modern example is the Iowa caucuses, in which at each stage people elect representatives to the next stage of the caucuses, and there are 3 or 4 stages before you get to the selection of the state's delegates. I imagine that in highly local, highly clannish societies, voting could emerge along the same principle: you choose your clan's representatives, and then the clan chooses the local village or town representatives, and then the village or town representatives choose the county representatives, and so on.

1. Confucianism

2. Democratic Confederalism

3. Guilds

4. Soviets?
 
Most traditional systems are based on an idea of unequal representation. Would those count? In that case, you could easily have all manner of systems where standing in politics depends on group membership. The HRE was designed like that following the Allgemeiner Landsfrieden. An individual might be included in several separate jurisdictions of his guild, his parish, his city and his Reichskreis, with appeals respectively to the assembly, bishop, council and Reichskammergericht.

Another way of splitting up power would be through separating the religious and political sphere very decisively. Christianity wasn't very much into this in practice, but it is considered a key element in combating tyranny in Islamic political thought. A non-monotheistic (or nonexclusive) society could even make this work across a religiously diverse population.

A society based on extended family structures as legal entities would also be thinkable, though I'm not sure this was ever done in an advanced context. You would be subject to your family, sept and clan, and have a say in its affairs through representation at the next higher level.
 
1. In an article rejecting the association of Asia with despotism, Kim Dae-jung notes that Europe figured out democratic voting first, but that other aspect of modern liberal democracy, including a civil service with merit-based promotion, rule of law, and the concept (if not the practice) that the people have the right to overthrow bad governments goes back to Imperial China. In a Chinese-dominated TL, is it plausible that many states would be polyarchic without voting? For example, there could be strong separation of powers between a variety of bureaucracies - the courts, the civil service, the military - with strong freedom of speech protections, without any voting.

2. Modern liberal democracy was developed in places in which there was very little diversity among the politically empowered population: 17c England, late-18c America, 18-19c France. Diverse countries have gone in a somewhat different direction with power sharing, as in modern Belgium and Switzerland, or the Dutch consociational model; additionally, Israel and India, which otherwise have an English-style judiciary, do not have juries. Conceivably, a polyarchy that developed in a diverse place would've placed more emphasis on group rights and collective rights. We see an element of that in standard lists of civil liberties with freedom of religion, which is a collective right: Judaism, Lutheranism, etc., are defined collectively, and there exist political conflicts, resolved collectively, on issues like circumcision or Scientology. We also see this emphasis on collective rights in the activism of black Americans and Muslim Europeans.

3. Owing to the experience of territorial nation-states and the humiliations of the Scramble of China, we think of extraterritoriality as an imposition rather than a right. But potentially, a timeline in which polyarchy emerged out of a highly mobile merchant class (for example, medieval and Early Modern Jews) would view polities as non-territorial, and might consider extraterritoriality a fundamental right for migrants of all classes.

4. Democracies have direct voting, for political parties or individual candidates. But we do see occasional exceptions with indirect voting: in the US, the most important modern example is the Iowa caucuses, in which at each stage people elect representatives to the next stage of the caucuses, and there are 3 or 4 stages before you get to the selection of the state's delegates. I imagine that in highly local, highly clannish societies, voting could emerge along the same principle: you choose your clan's representatives, and then the clan chooses the local village or town representatives, and then the village or town representatives choose the county representatives, and so on.

1) I could imagine as a stable system - at least when combined with some sort of democracy on the local level. Bureaucracies that keep each other in check - it´s not as if we were very far away from that scenario anyway. The focus of political debates would be on the selection process of bureaucrats, the suitability and performance of the highest-ranking magistrates, and the balance between the institutions, while most of actual politics would be done by the professionals and dressed up as some sort of inevitable technocratically necessary consensus policies.

2) Group rights beg the question of what defines the groups. Its essentialist and traditionalist tendencies have often led to an aristocratisation of such systems, and thus to the abandonment of "polyarchy" as you put it. Group rights combined with other elements might work, though, and they do in the present to some extent.

3) Exterritorial statehood requires complicated conflict-solving mechanisms between polities and begs the question of whom the control over resources belongs to. Again, it might work as an element among others (as in the HRE example), though.

4) This is OTL`s federal principle. I don`t know of a place where it´s radically implemented because in today`s world of easy global communication, there`s no longer a need for that, but in past centuries, this was about the only viable model for a large territorial federal democracy. Basing it on clans is dangerous, though. In clans, people don`t tend to "vote", but to trust one`s "elders", who don`t necessarily have to be the oldest, just the patriarchs. Wherever upper levels have consisted of assemblies of such clan elders, the result had a strong tendency towards aristocracy (not all clans are likely to do equally well), and thus away from polyarchy.

Different parts of the world have brought forth different combinations, and could have brought forth even more. The bureaucratic solution looks predestiend for imperial China; a combination of the other three models might look suited for India, but that`s just a very superficial estimation. It all depends on what departures from OTL´s dominance of monarchic-oligarchic-aristocratic structures throughout later antiquity, the Middle Ages and early Modernity you envision.
 
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