Points of divergence concerning the development of various political thought, ideologies and practices in the history of human civilisation and human cultures. Organised by historical eras and topics into sections, with each section having its POD entries sorted as chronologically as possible.

If you are adding new entries to this page and the topic at hand is too wide and abstract to be assigned to a specific historical period, please list the the entry under a separate 'thematic' heading (e.g. the already existing “General musings” section).

• Challenge: Musicracy
• What if Sargon of Akkad lost against Uruk and never formed an empire ?
• Challenge: Stoicism bringing the downfall of slavery in Rome
• Amerindian States
• Challenge: Other ethnicities "survive" like the Jewish people
• Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.

• Amerindian States
• WI: No feudalism
• Alternate empires in the medieval era
• Challenge: Carolingian 'nationalism'
• A surviving house Hohenstaufen
• Challenge: Patron Saint of Democracy
• Challenge: With a POD after 1453 AD, create a less balkanized Europe
• Challenge: With a POD after 1453 AD, create a less balkanized Asia
• Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.

• Challenge: Keep Scandinavia United
• Alternate Tory Names
• Plausibility check: How long could feudalism have survived?
• Mercantilism or Free Trade for Industrialization ?
• Challenge: Socially liberal authoritarianism
• Challenge: Other ethnicities "survive" like the Jewish people
• Challenge: Make Africa the most developed and stable region in the world (with a POD in the 16th century at the earliest)
• Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.

• Challenge: European monarchies become republics (and vice versa)
• DBWI: Republican Europe ?
• Challenge: Directly-elected prime minister in monarchy
• Challenge: Major Benthamite social movement
• Plausibility check: Industrialization without liberalism ?
• Challenge: Alternate 19th/20th century world powers
• Challenge: Alternate 19th-Century Alliances
• Probabilities of World Domination (once we reach the Industrial Age) ?
• Challenge: Weirdest 19th century
• WI: A world without nationalism as a political movement ?
• Nationalism never becomes prominent
• How inevitable is nationalism ?
• Nationalism on a smaller scale
• Victorian devolution in the UK (after 1830)
• A union of hispanic colonies ?
• Could the 1848 German revolutionaries have gotten more organized and more successful ?
• WI/Challenge: Stirner influential, Marx obscure ?
• How likely was the emergence of Communism or a similar political philosophy ?
• Consequences of a succesful Paris Commune ?
• WI: Earliest possible country with Communist revolution before Russia
• Challenge: Make most nations in the world Communist with a POD in the mid 19th century
• A Communist CSA ?
• Communism with Christianity ?
• Alternate ideological strains of proto-fascism
• Challenge: A Mormon Fascist State
• Challenge: Disunited Arabia (with a POD after the 1880s)
• Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.

• Alternate major ideology for the 20th century ?
• Challenge: Alternate 19th/20th century world powers
• Challenge: Save the monarchies
• Political Atmosphere of World without Communism, Fascism & Zionism
• Challenge: Earlier European Integration
• Challenge: Modern day absolute monarchy in Europe
• Challenge: Green politics dominant
• More post-WWI nations
• Challenge: A country self-isolates itself during the interwar period
• Fascism without nazism
• Plausibility check: Nazism as a artistic movement
• WI a Fascist International ?
• ATL "cool bad guys" in lieu of nazis ?
• Plausibility check: How far could communism spread ?
• Challenge: World's first communist revolution in Latin America
• Challenge: Countries other than USA and USSR become superpowers
• WI: Theocratic, anti-feminist USSR
• Challenge: Draw the ideal map of post-WWI Europe
• Plausibility check: Actual Islamic Fascism (1)
• Plausibility check: Actual Islamic Fascism (2)
• Plausibility check: Powerful UN with a POD after 1945
• Challenge: First World sub-Saharan country (with a POD after 1948)
• Challenge: Strong non-Tunisia/Algeria/South Africa/Ethiopia/Egypt African nation
• Challenge: Christian head of state in an Arab Country besides Lebanon
• Challenge: A Christian Objectivist Movement
• A smaller but tighter-knit European Comunity ?
• Why wasn't EFTA that "successful" ?
• WI Sweden had joined NATO ?
• WI: France transfers Foreign Legion to UN
• Plausibility check: French neo-fascist movement in the late 1960s/early 70s ?
• Make up your own terrorist group
• Challenge: Create a feminist terrorist group
• Complete collapse of communism in the late 1980s
• WI: Arab Spring in the late 1980s and early 1990s
• Alternate post-Soviet breakaway states ?
• WI: No reconciliation in 1990s South Africa
• What could the eventual post-communist flags of the presently remaining communist countries look like ?
• Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.

• Challenge: Entirely original alternate ideologies
• Challenge: Ideologies based on psychology instead of economics
• Invent your own ideology...
• Most loosely governed state possible
• Challenge: Biggest possible empire
• Alternate little countries, like OTL San Marino and Andorra ?
• Challenge: Europe comprised of many small countries and city states (with a POD after 1000 AD)
• A world composed of city-states
• Alternate permanently neutral/unclaimed territories on Earth other than Antarctica
• Challenge: "International waters" concept not created or not in use
• Make up your own terrorist group
• Last minute dictatorships
• A religious national communist state
• Challenge: Biggest abdication crisis possible
• Challenge: Make absolute monarchy last longer as a dominating political trend
• WI: Successful Arab Union State
• Challenge: Tiny countries become empires
• Largest possible country ?
• Alternate states and provinces
• Challenge: Christian Socialism popular in the US
• Challenge: Logical Central Asian Borders
• Plausible expansions of tiny countries
• Countries that could have successfully united but didn't
• Try to come up with the most evil AH regime you can imagine...
• European regions that just couldn't quite unify
• PODs for a United Europe
• An African Superpower ?
• Plausibility of a united Africa ?
• In-Exile/Remnant States
• Challenge: A dystopia based around unexplored philosophies
• United World Assembly
• Plausibility check: Slavic/Panslavic Union
• Challenge: Make World Pro-Totalitarianism
• Challenge: Weirdest possible powers
• Challenge: Single party dominance in your country
• Challenge: A "Singapore of the Caribbean"
• Plausibility check: "African Century" ?
• AHC: Aromanian state in Epirus
• Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.

Points of Divergence : Society and Societal Norms

Points of Divergence : Famous People

Useful Resources on Political Science, Diplomacy and Protocol

Useful Resources on Political Lists and Election Results from OTL

Points of Divergence Main Directory