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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Given "political systems have changed only modestly ..." and "... systems vary so much around the world", the answer would seem to most likely be history ('path dependency').

I found this post to be a little too abstract to properly consider. Could you provide some examples of radically different political systems "around the world"? Would you consider the political systems of the USA and Saudi Arabia to be (almost) maximally different? I would imagine that regardless of how leaders are chosen, both systems are largely similar in how they operate at the level of bureaucracy, i.e. the actual people and organizations that perform the concrete functions of the system.

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Christian Kleineidam's avatar

I don't think the US political system didn't change much in the last 100 years. It still has congress the senate and a president.

However you know have congressman spending most of there days raising campaign funds to pay for TV spots to be relected.That's a systematic change.

In the past congress used to declare wars. Now the president acts like he has the authority. He also acts like he has other power that he didn't have in the past.

Federal Income taxation.

Blacks are now allowed to vote.

Political systems change frequently.

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