Political systems vary widely

Political systems vary widely

Chapter 12 — The government • 12.01 — The political system • Paragraph 2 • §12.01.02.00

Although political systems were applied as soon as governments (and thus the state) emerged (see §12.00.07), their forms varied widely, challenging categorisations even as broad as Plato’s distinction among monarchies, oligarchies and democracies (the rule of one, of a few or of all, thus covering any conceivable alternative in the analogue world). How else can the hybrid systems of modern constitutional monarchies, the presidential system, or representative democracies be interpreted? In other words, writing (and political philosophy) merely formalised (and continue to do so—in modern times, in constitutions, see also §22.00.03) what was, and is, practiced in the analogue world by governments in order to control the(-ir) states according to need and opportunity.

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