Governing Humanity Part 1 - Democracy - by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Governing Humanity Part 1
Democracy

by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

In connection with this topic, you may want to look at Jack Campbell's THE LOST STARS series entry titled IMPERFECT SWORD, which is in the same universe as his THE LOST FLEET series (both highly recommended). 

The worldbuilding behind these two series has to do with scaling up historical governing structures to manage interstellar civilizations.  The discussion is entirely "off the nose" and constitutes excellent writing craft (and there's a love story!)

http://www.amazon.com/Jack-Campbell/e/B001H6W4PU/

In October 2014, Allan Cole posted this on Facebook and comment to a news item which started an interesting discussion.

-----Allan Cole Quote---------
That's because there is no chance for democracy under the Chinese system, where there really is no "rule of law," because the Party makes - and breaks - the rules as they please.
 http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2014/1016/Hong-Kong-leader-confesses-that-real-democracy-is-impossible-video

-------END QUOTE--------

To which I commented:

----quote-------
Democracy can be seen as just "mob rule" -- High School Clique dynamics writ large (gangs, tribes, petty-Kings). The fudge factor thrown into USA constitution adds in elements of a Republic (then modifies the Republic model with a bit more mob rule). My contention is that the advent of "crowd-sourcing" via internet, blog, social media, etc. can now be creatively applied to the problem of governing humans, but I think we just won't figure out how to govern humans until we meet up with some non-humans and study them. There are unthinkable thoughts that need thinking on the issue of governance.

--------end quote ---------

Allan answered with links to two books I suspect could be vital resources for Romance writers doing Paranormal Romance -- time travel or fantasy or SF.

http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Political-Order-Prehuman-Revolution-ebook/dp/B00457X7VI/

http://www.amazon.com/Political-Order-Decay-Industrial-Globalization-ebook/dp/B00IQOFS7M/

If you read the biographies of Allan Cole which I've pointed you to in previous posts here, you will discover where he gets his political savvy.  His recommendations for these two sources should be taken seriously.

Here are some of my posts mentioning or focusing on Allan Cole.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/career-management-for-writers-in.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/worldbuilding-from-reality-part-2.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-9-use-of-co.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-10-use-of.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/06/theme-character-integration-part-1-what.html

All of the theme and worldbuilding posts depend entirely on your understanding of the use of Conflict as a story component.

We will no doubt revisit the entire concept of CONFLICT as a component of Romance in future posts, so you have some time to catch up on this worldbuilding topic of governance theory.

Politics is always part of Romance -- and breaks up more couples than it welds into one.




Next week we'll look again at Depiction of  Money and Wealth in Depiction Part 6.

Depiction Part 5 is here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/01/depiction-part-5-depicting-dynastic.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com