Political Mechanisms

The recurring mechanisms and instruments of governance a political system may use, considered independently of any one country or era: electoral systems and voting methods, checks and balances between branches, how governments form and relate to their legislatures, direct-democracy instruments, succession and continuity arrangements, and territorial or diplomatic arrangements. Organized into six subcategories by the mechanism's own governing function, cross-checked against Arend Lijphart's and Giovanni Sartori's comparative-institutions literature, the same authorities this atlas's government tree already draws on.