Worldbuilding 101: Governments
There are two certainties in life, death and taxes.
Since the early Mesopotamians, ancient Egyptians, and early Chinese, humans have had governments of all kinds. In this post, I will discuss their general purpose, why they arise, what they are, how they work, and all in very broad strokes. For details, I will make other blogposts about the specific topics.
Disclaimer: What this post will not do is argue in any way, shape, or form the political stands on government or how it relates to actual real world politics. Examples are provided for illustrations but in no way endorse or condone any form of government or system.
Definition
With that out of the way, let us get into the meat. When I talk about government for worldbuilding I mean “an institution by people to coordinate the community and its resources.” Why do I choose this definition? Humans and humanoid species (which are humans with extra steps) live in small communities and have for ages, and in small groups, it is quite fine as we all know each other, we share, keep track of things and know who is a cheater! Looking at you, Bob. But when we go beyond 200 in a community, keeping track of people and resources in our minds individually is simply no longer feasible. This will mean that a large group of people can do a lot of work that benefits the community but that slackers can take advantage of, the free-rider problem, aka The Bob problem. This is about the time when a ruling class starts emerging in order to coordinate and make certain every member of the community is doing their fair share and that the resources are used properly. This is also often where the early stages of writing comes about, but that is for another blogpost.
Purpose
I have already eluded to this in the definition section by the very definition itself, but things is not always this easy. Primarily because as society grows, what was initially fairly simple becomes a lot trickier and harder and morphs in nature. We can divide these purposes governments take on into several stages where each one does more than the previous. These are rough estimates and guidelines, there are exceptions in all eras and times.
Proto-civilisations
The earliest stages are primarily resource management and cooperation that is needed when societies settles down and starts growing. Fixing what the town needs, sharing food, planning long term for all and so on. In these, the rulers often have personal relationships with all the members of the early town.
Early civilisations
At this stage, the civilisation often has a large central community, as we in modern time would call the capital, with smaller communities around that coordinate and work together. The local ones will have their own local governments that answer to the central one, but they often have a lot of free reign. One job the central government often take up historically at this stage is the religious aspect. Religion and government are often early on intertwined as the clergy often have the know-how and skills required. Two Bobs with one stone! General military starts to be added at this stage as there are other civilisations nearby that can pose a threat. Keep in mind in this era, land is wealth and everything for every society so expansion is often inevitable. Taxes are often not in currencies but rather in resources and labour at this stage.
Boundary civilisations
This is when the central governments tend to view certain areas as definitely their own. This is technically the case before, but here I mean more hard lined. A lot of things will be in general military for the central government to defend (and expand) the land that it claims while local governments deal with the day to day operations. The regions closer to the “borders” are generally the least protected and have the greatest autonomy. In the medium to later stages of this type, you can start seeing the central government starting to dictate things for the local governments to do that are more relevant to local life other than taxes and military. Taxes at this stage are, due to the sheer size and population, in some form of currency—a topic I will visit at a later date. Legal systems do exist here, but outside the central region, they rarely matter as much as the local system which can differ heavily from the central ones.
Nation civilisations
At this stage, borders are becoming increasingly more important for governments and what is and isn’t theirs. Nations have expanded and often (but not always or even most of the time, Germany, Austria and Italy are examples of this not being the case), contain one entire cultural and linguistic family. This one culture is usually the one in charge of the government. At this point governments either start, or did before, having laws and rules in place for how commerce is to be done. Contract rules and more can emerge, and the government has a form of judicial system in order to judge on the laws made by the government. Judges come early on, but this is roughly when they start getting so important that a class of people, lawyers, starts to emerge to deal with them.
Industrial civilisations
During the industrialisation of a nation, everything transforms very fast and very quickly. The governments often do not have the time to understand it all, as things happen and can severely lag behind. This is one reason why a lot of tension can arise here between the people and the government, as they are no longer in sync with each other. I won’t go into revolutions and such here, that is for another time! But for now, I will talk about after when the government has caught up, and we essentially reach up to modern times. At this point, the religious part of it is often gone and no longer part of the job of the government. Military and taxes remain. Infrastructure becomes a much more centralised effort as the things—railroad, wires, pipes and much more—are enormous projects that can stretch extremely far across the nation. Legal stuff and what rights, obligations and more people have becomes a larger part as well. Healthcare becomes part of it directly or indirectly. Maintaining civil order is another thing. In short, at this point, the government can take up any job that the people think it should do. It has the resources of machines, large amounts of people, and methods to deal with information and more.
Internal machinations
Now we know what kind of jobs we can expect it to do at various stages. It is easy to be a ruler and rule supreme as you gain taxes! Right? Not so fast there! Remember the cardinal rule of ruling! No man rules alone. You may be the supreme ruler of your land, but no matter how big and grand you are, you cannot do all the jobs even at the earliest of stages. You need people to help, and you are gonna need a lot of them. These crucial people that help you I call “keys”, because they are the key to your success as a ruler. Every government has these, no matter how they work. Autocratic to democracy, all have them. These keys can be individuals, such as in dictatorships often, or groups of individuals, such as democracies. Not all keys are equal in importance to your rule either. This is what creates the drama, the tension, the divisions within a government. Back scratching, favouritism, bribes, tax-exemptions and many more things are all symptoms of the government and its machinations trying to control and maintain the keys. This is also why there can be puppet leaders because someone else is the one controlling the keys. Ever seen what is meant to be someone with absolute power, yet have someone that is a thorn but does not disappear? That is because this person has enough control of enough keys that said leader cannot afford the potential fallout.
Another thing that arises with governments over time is that their structure changes. The most radical change from early to later happens anytime a new government is established is that it changes to reinforce itself. It becomes over time a way to secure its own continued existence and maintain power for the people within it. In some governments, this can be fairly light and innocent, in others, it can detract it entirely from its foundation and it becomes obsessed with this singular purpose. This can even happen in democracies. In most democracies in the world, this takes the shape of placating the masses and their current desires near and around election times. Some democracies have gone further to the point where almost-control over voting results take place, such as gerrymandering. In dictatorships, this can take the shape of divide and conquer tactics by the dictator so the keys, and their keys in turn, are too busy fighting each other for the favouritism of the leader, than potentially looking for alternatives.
Legitimacy
Legitimacy for a government is a way to say what right it has to do what it does and the power it is wielding. In modern times, it is considered “by the consent of the people”, which is always true. People unwilling to be ruled cannot be ruled as they will do everything to work against the government over time. Keep in mind however that this just means the vast majority of people has to consent, not everyone. If a small group does not consent, the rest gives the government enough power to ignore it. This is why individuals may disagree, but it ultimately is of no relevance to the government or society at large.
How the consent is acquired is through many ways. It can be by anything and can be strongly tied to cultures and history. In old Europe, it was acquired by Divine Right. Kings and queens were chosen by God to rule. In China, Mandate of Heaven was it. As long as things went well, the gods and spirits were happy, and thus the emperor had the mandate to rule. When semi-solidified biological byproducts hit the rotating air circulation device, the mandate was lost and often the dynasty was replaced. All societies have this kind of story and reason why their system is legit and should rule, and a worldbuilder can be very creative when making it up.
Summa Summarum
These are some rough things about governments, and details will be discussed in future posts. In other series, I will go through how one can consider all of these things step by step. Think on what era your government is, what legitimises it, what are the keys and how do they interact, and you’ll start getting a government that is not “just there”, but has a life on its own.
Want to dive into a discussion about Stellima or the art of writing on Discord? We’d love to have you! And if you have any topics you struggle with or that you would like to suggest for a future blogpost, we’re open to suggestions!
Interested in supporting our work? Join our Patreon and become a part of Stellima as a citizen of Mjatreonn! Or would you like to give us some caffeine to fuel our writing? Consider buying us a coffee at Ko-fi! Every contribution inspires our creativity and keeps us going. Thank you for your support!
Copyright ©️ 2023 Vivan Sayan. Original ideas belong to the respective authors. All general concepts are copyrighted under Creative Commons with attribution, and any derivatives must also be Creative Commons. However, all specific language or exact phrasing is individually copyrighted by the respective authors. Contact them for information on usage and questions if uncertain what falls under Creative Commons. We’re almost always happy to give permission. Please contact the authors through this website’s contact page.
We at Stellima value human creativity but are exploring ways AI can be ethically used. Please read our policy on AI and know that every word in the blog is written and edited by humans or aliens.
