Politics. They are horrible and everyone hates them. That’s why I have an MA in International Relations.

Maybe you, like me, have decided to torment yourself by representing politics in your book. You may even be an extreme masochist and decide to have international politics.

Well, firstly, I’m sorry for your loss, and secondly, let’s do a birds-eye view of what politics really is and how to represent it in your book.

This isn’t perfect and it’s not a full-course Political Theory 101, just some ideas for political representation geared toward writers. Alas, I cannot cram my entire MA into a post.

It’s highly unlikely that you will need to elaborate all of this in your book, unless you are writing a purely political novel.

Please do not put all of this in your book. This is all about worldbuilding and can hum along in the background to create depth without boring everyone to tears.

Remember, you do not need to put every single thing that you create for your world into your book; a lot of it is just to help guide you. A few hints here and there can do a lot of work but not overwhelm the reader with things they don’t care about.

And if you are writing a purely political novel, I would hope you would not need this little overview.

Basic theories of politics

Politics is, at its very essence, about balances and transfers of power.

This is true of every political system; the power is just distributed in different ways.

I know Wikipedia’s not an academic resource, but this page lists all the many types of government structures to give you an overview of possible systems to use. Many of these can be mixed and matched; for example, you can have a representative democratic system that also has a monarch as a figurehead, like Great Britain.

Or you can have a “shadow” theocracy where a religious community has the greatest influence over government, even as the government claims to be a republic with representation from each region of the country.

Oh hey! That’s the High Poet Society!

Power shifts can come from a variety of sources, both internal and external.

If you’re looking at international relations, the power balance inside one country is easily impacted by the balances in other countries, especially if that other country has greater influence.

For example, assume one government has decided to wage war against another country, but they’re getting their asses kicked. Because war is expensive and people may have had to send their beloved children off to fight in another country, a government that can’t get the job done quickly and easily is very vulnerable to a popular uprising. This will then weaken them and cause them to lose the war.

Or, let’s say that one country has won a war, but in doing so, they have created a power vacuum as some of their greatest generals were killed. Now another country can exploit that weakness through espionage, soft power, or even bullying the country through the guise of “peace.”

Revolutions can also be contagious, even in an era without social media. If a neighboring country has an uprising, unless all countries are totally cut off from one another, citizens of other countries will see what’s happening and take a good hard look at their own conditions. Then they may overthrow their own government and look to examples of others nearby to see what to do next.

Political decisions are about satisficing.

Satisficing means choosing the most optimal solution from an array of choices, most of which will involve some loss. No solution is perfect, and all require sacrifice.

A good leader must decide how much loss they are willing to take and what will lead to the least amount of harm for their people.

And what appears to be the optimal solution may have unforeseen side effects that could cause even greater harm.

For example, appeasing an aggressive nation right now might stop potential war, but it could also allow the enemy to become emboldened and strike later with greater force.

What a country funds tells you what it values.

Pretty simple. A government has only so much money to go around and only so many resources to distribute it. If a country spends, oh, 13.3% of its entire budget on military spending, we can kind of assume that they don’t care particularly much about their people.

You are a victim of government propaganda whether you recognize it or not.

How you perceive the world has been subtly or not-so-subtly shaped by the government your entire life. Sometimes, this is a positive thing, like Public Safety Campaigns that tell you not to drown yourself or how not to die in the worst ways imaginable.

Other times, the government is telling you who and what to value by the way that it forms public opinion, what it funds or doesn’t, or what opinions it allows to be seen.

Here are just some of the many, many ways that you are indoctrinated, for good or worse, your entire life.

Government regalia and rituals. Listen to your national anthem. What does it say about your government? What’s the state animal? What does that say about your country? Do you have to do a pledge of allegiance?

School curriculums, particularly state and world history. What are children taught? How is it framed? What’s emphasized and what isn’t?

Benefits programs. What are the means-testing processes for these programs? Who can receive it and who can’t? How are they framed in public discourse?

Infrastructure. What areas get roads? Where do those roads go? Who gets electricity first during a blackout? Who gets public transit? These are what the country considers the most important.

Government departments. Which departments are the government’s darlings, allowed any funding they want? Which ones are fighting for their lives all the time? Which ones are seen as inept or efficient? This tells you what the government values and, therefore, what you are expected to value.

State interference in the media. We all know by now that the Department of Defense spends millions of dollars a year to glamorize the US military. But think deeper. What press outlets get a seat at the table for government conferences? Why or why not?

Public Service Announcements. Look closely at the the types of Public Service Announcements you see. Who is represented and why? Where are these PSAs placed? Who sees them and who doesn’t?

State-funded news outlets. Are there any state-funded news outlets? What do they say? How do they frame issues? How independent are they perceived to be by the public?

Government discussions around foreign powers. Who is your country’s enemy? What does the government say about that country? Why are they considered an enemy? How is this country portrayed in the media, in popular culture, in press conferences? Is any of that true?

Government Systems

Government systems represent the history of a nation as much as the present.

Much as it would be fantastic if government systems kept up with the times cough cough America cough cough, in many ways, they are a time capsule of what a country used to be rather than what it is now.

This is because most governments have checks and balances in place to prevent rapid change and protect the equilibrium of the system; otherwise, they are vulnerable to coups and can be wiped away in an instant.

They also grow out of certain necessities and are shaped by their culture. So, for example, in my own world, Breme is a republic that has representatives from the different provinces and the tribespeople that make up part of the country. This is because the country started as a collection of disparate tribes that were forced out of their homeland and had to coexist in the smaller space they now controlled.

Tribal leaders would meet to discuss the welfare of their tribes and, as the centuries passed, this coalesced into a large council with sorta-representative figureheads for each area of the country.

Geography also plays a role in a government system.

Smaller countries are more likely to have a highly centralized power system because, well, it’s easier and simpler. When most of the populace is close to the capital, you don’t need a lot of goverment mouthpieces spread out through the region, and it wastes precious resources to do so.

A large, spread-out country is going to need a more elaborate system of government representatives in each region, which is how you get republics with intricate local governments.

Large-scale representative and democratic governments are a relatively new invention.

Now, it is true that there are small historical societies, mostly tribes, that did practice forms of democracy, but these were small.

Democracy as we know it now has only come about in the last 300ish years. So if you have a medieval society, it’s very unlikely that you’d have a democracy.

If you want to figure out how to make it that work in a fantasy novel, go off, but it might be challenging depending on the history of your world.

For example, is most of society functionally illiterate? Very unlikely that you’ll have powerful people willing to let the masses participate.

Is this a huge empire made of multiple tribes and societies absorbed into the hegemon? Well, even less likely you’ll have a democracy, as the empire wouldn’t want these smaller protectorates getting too feisty, am I right?

International Relations

A good international system relies on sovereignty.

Note that I say a good international system, not necessarily the one that we have in our modern world.

Sovereignty basically means that each government has the right to self-administer within reason. Of course, if they turn machine guns on their citizens and violate human rights, then it is a moral imperative to intervene.

If they are not doing that, then other countries (theoretically) do not have the right to force regime change just because they don’t like it. This does not mean that certain countries cough cough America cough cough don’t do that, simply that they are not supposed to.

International relations requires a blend of cooperation, aggression, and deterrence.

Even in a system where it appears that the girls are fightingggg, there is still some cooperation going on with someone because warfare is expensive. (We will put aside the United States post WWII for the moment because that is a whole other issue.)

When two countries have no diplomatic relations, they are still cooperating with someone to get messages through. We see that with the US and North Korea; the US relies on Sweden and some other states as a mediator when dealing with North Korea. There’s many of these triangulations that occur, particularly in regions with a lot of hostility.

A well-functioning country must decide when to use the carrot, when to use the stick, and when to sit back and hope no one bombs them during tense situations. The world is an interconnected system, so it behooves a government to improve trade relations, protect their borders, and ensure no one violates their sovereignty.

Governments use both hard and soft power to control their own people and shift international balances in their favor.

Hard power is exactly what you would expect: your ability to bankrupt another country or bomb them into oblivion. That includes some of the following elements.

• Police forces
• Military investments
• Blockades or outright warfare
• Provision or withdrawal of trade agreements
• Trade embargoes and tariffs
• Directly manipulating the economic system of another country through investments or removal of investments

Soft power is about persuasion rather than coercion: building a positive reputation for your country and making people want to work with you. This often involves cultural exchanges, media, and “philanthropy” on behalf of the country, such as the following.

• Work visas
• Tourism agencies
• Economic funds or microloans
• Conferences and consortiums
• Supporting non-governmental organizations
• Colleges and universities, particularly with student visas
• Entertainment industries, including literature, movies, and music
• State-funded study abroad scholarships, either welcoming students or sending citizens abroad
• Cultural exchanges, like state-funded dance troops traveling the world
• In Ye Olden Dayes, marriages between nobles or royals to create greater political alliances

While hard power is more obvious, and therefore more discussed, soft power is more diffuse and more prevalent.

For example, what do you think of when you think about China? You probably think of Chinese food, ancient culture, dances, pretty bridges, the Great Wall, etc. Those are the first things to come to mind, even if you know more about the country.

After that, you might talk about how they have a socialist system, execute billionaires (rad!), and invest a lot in public infrastructure.

But what you first think about is a conscious choice by the Chinese government to fund certain cultural schemes, influencing how people see their country and what they associate with it.

Every country does this. The Nordic countries represent themselves as a clean, peace-loving people; Japan represents itself as a forward-thinking yet traditional society that has massive technological innovation. And those things can certainly be true, but they have also been pushed as the narrative for said country, with more unpleasant things swept under the rug.

Soft power has become much more difficult for countries to manage now in the world of social media, but it still holds an important role, and it certainly would be more powerful in certain eras, particularly before people could instantly get information from anywhere in the world on their phones.

Every government on Earth engages in espionage.

Yes, I know you think of the CIA, MI7, and so on, but these are just the ones that are more well-known. Every government wants advance knowledge of other countries’ behavior so that they can make rational decisions in the best interest of their people.

In the modern world, this looks a lot more like hacking rather than the ol’ cloak-and-dagger stuff, but that also happens too.

Politics Gone Bad

Political theory is based on rational actors, which does not always reflect reality.

If you’ve ever wondered why Trump took everyone by surprise, it’s because of this idea of rational actors. This is an almost delusionally optimistic belief that every politician or government will do things that are based on pragmatic decision-making.

These decisions may not necessarily be the best ones, but with a rational actor, those decisions will be reasonable and based on a solid thought processs.

The underpinnings of this decision could be self-interest on the part of the leader, national defense, expansionism, public welfare, or staying neutral during a war. But it’s a reasonable decision based on the information the leader had at the time.

As such, when an irrational actor joins the system, this assumption goes out the window, and now no one knows what the hell to do anymore. Dangerous and scary.

Alas, I think we’re going to see far more irrational actors with the creeping age of politicians, especially in the United States. Someone with dementia is not going to make rational decisions because they can’t anymore.

What a government claims to be and what it really is are not always the same thing.

The label slapped onto a given government system does not always elucidate how power actually works in the country. This can be due for a variety of reasons:

• Rampant (and sometimes government-sanctioned) corruption has overtaken the system
• The goverment was set up in such a way that it cannot be easily changed, leading to archaic structures that no longer reflect reality
• Migration patterns or demographic changes mean that the government no longer reflects its populace
• In an autocracy, an uprising has made the current leader unpopular and though they continue to cling to power, the real political work is done beyond their purview
• The government was made to reflect an ideal that is not being played out in the actual system

There are more potential reasons, of course. You have a lot to play around with here.

Corruption is present in all governments; it is the form and prevalence that matters.

Governments are made of people, and people can be shitty. A good government has systems in place to equalize power and prevent bad actors from taking over, but it can never fully eradicate corruption.

Situations outside of government, such as poverty or famine, can also worsen corruption even in systems that have robust anti-corruption safeguards.

What does corruption look like, exactly? There are quite a few different forms.

• Government interceding on the behalf of specific private actors, especially when based on personal relationships
• Lobbying by large corporations or industries
• Bribes, such as if someone slides a bit of money under the table to get a worker to complete an illegal task
• “Grease payments,” which are bribes given to get work visas, permits, etc, faster
• Propanganda to push governmental interests, particularly in the private sphere
• Using the military or police to suppress unpopular opinions at the behest of powerful private actors
• Using the media to cover up scandals, unpopular opinions, and so on
• “Manufactured consent;” shifting public opinion ahead of a large event through cooperation between the public and private sphere
• Insider trading between members of government and private institutions
• Manipulating the stock market to advance personal interests
• Offering gifts to public officials to sway their opinions
• Government entities refusing to disclose conflicts of interest
• Hiding information from the public that would damage a person or organization’s reputation with no genuine public safety reason to do so

The Paradox of Tolerance is a crucial consideration for governments and politicians.

Essentially, the Paradox of Tolerance says that you cannot tolerate intolerance and must do what you can to eliminate it if you want a well-functioning system that benefits all constituents.

As soon as you get lazy, intolerant people will begin to infiltrate and make decisions to the detriment of the populace.

There you have it! I hope this has given you some plot worms you can cultivate into a bountiful harvest.