Comments are a flurry of confusion over what I tried to make a very simple exercise, the question is rapidly gaining VTC.
My intent was to define the political and moral characteristics of my society, and ask help in fitting that description with a government structure.
A fly on the wall perspective is requested to help me see the apparent confusion.
Thanks
The question uses unexplained terminology.
For example: "empirical monarchy", "heterogeneous government", "separate factions". What is an empirical monarchy? Is it the opposite of a theoretical monarchy? In what way is the government "heterogeneous", and how is is different from a homogeneous government? What are "separate" factions and how are they different from ordinary factions, or, for that matter, from political parties?
The question assumes that words are magical.
For example, the question asks whether the form of government would include an "emperor", a "dictator" and a "senate". Well, it would include them if their consitution or custom would specify or expect roles named "emperor" and "dictator" for individual magistrates, and would use the word "senate" to refer to all or part of a deliberative or legislative assembly.
The words themselves are not magical.
An emperor is whatever the constitution or the custom calls an emperor. Consider the form of government of the United States of America: absolutely nothing would change if the position called a "president" would be called an "emperor". There have been political structures with elected emperors, for example, the Holy Roman Empire; the HRE lasted for many many centuries, and its emperor had very much less power than the president of the U.S.A.
If you want to call the head of state "emperor", call them emperor. There is no rule that you may not call them "emperor". It does not have any implication related to the form of government, or to how much or how little power the role actually has.
The word "dictator" is very ambiguous. In the Roman republic it referred to a perfectly legal position; there have been close to one hundred Roman dictators, usually appointed for a very specific purpose. Nowadays, the word "dictator" means an authoritarian head of government of a country which we do not like. (A Roman dictator was most usually not a head of government. A dictator was almost always appointed for a well-defined purpose, and he had no time to deal with actually governing the state. The only exceptions I know of are L. Cornelius Sulla Felix and C. Julius Caesar, the last two and the most out-of-the-ordinary dictators.)
A "senate" is usually, but not always, some sort of deliberative or legislative assembly. Some countries use this word to refer to the upper chamber of their bi-cameral parliaments (for example, the U.S.A. and France); other countries use the word to refer to their uni-cameral parliaments; the German city-states of Bremen and Hamburg use the word to refer to the executive branches of their governments.
Your political organization will have a senate if there is a deliberative, judicial, legislative or executive body called a senate. Nothing more.
The question makes rather peculiar and unexplained assumptions about the hypothetical society.
Specifically, the question asks whether there would be a "parliment [sic] of Lords" and a "parliment [sic] of Commoners", making the peculiar and unexplained assumption that there are lords and commoners, and avoiding to tell the readers what is a lord and what is a commoner in that polity.
(The British United Kingom used to have a bi-cameral parliament with a House of Commons and a House of Lords. Neither of them was a parliament, but only one of the chambers of a bi-cameral parliament. Nowadays, the U.K. still has a bi-cameral parliament, with one of the chambers being called the House of Lords; but the structure of that chamber has changed very much in the last decades, and only the name links it to its feudal predecessor.)
Some of the hypothetical elements of the hypothetical society have very unclear meanings.
For example, the question asks whether the hypothetical society would have "elected courts". What exactly is an elected court is presumably left as an exercise to filter out potential respondents with limited imaginations, because for my life I cannot fathom a meaning of this phrase. Does the question mean that the courtiers surrounding the emperor, or the king, or the president, etc. are elected magistrates? Or maybe there are periodical elections to decide where the court will reside for the next n years, sort of how the International Olympic Committee chooses the venue for the Olympic Games? Or what?
The question states that "citizens have freedoms much like a modern first world nation". What exactly are those "freedoms"? Does the question mean rights, and the word freedoms is a typo? Since the citizens of Germany and those of the U.S.A. have very different rights, are we to assume that at least one of them is not a "first world nation"?
The question makes sweeping declarations in total contradiction with all known history of mankind.
For example, the question says that the "government has established social norms". Nope, there has never ever been a government who had it in its power to establish social norms. Legal rules, yes. Social norms, no.
Note 1. The question misuses the word "nation" to refer to a "state", "country" or "polity". But this is very common with Americans, and we are all sufficiently acculturated to understand what it is meant.
Note 2. I didn't vote either to close or to re-open the question.
Bad word choices will make people think you aren't good at writing. Occasionally we've had users who felt that it was important to be good creative writers when posting a question. It's the worst possible choice. When asking for help, you need to be a good technical writer, not a good creative writer. In other words, we don't want you to spend pages elegantly explaining why your lobster has fur, wags its tail, and begs for bacon. We expect you to call it a dog.
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I've had a lil' chat with Vogon Poet in the Factory Floor; I'll sum up my viewpoint here :
It was a tough one to choose. I first thought to close for lacking clarity and details. Indeed, we're basically lacking any context that is personal to the people that forms your government : The notion of equity, or heritage doesn't really tell what government it could reasonably be. On top of that, the question tends to get lost in defining what it is and what it isn't about. I can sort through this, but it's harder to track of.
So why did I choose to close as being story-based instead?
In a standard post-apocalyptic world, I consider there's few people left, and that the government choice is left to those few indivduals, so there's a lot of character choice "noise" in there. The children will most likely carry that choice and don't change it until much later. It's not enough alone, but it doesn't help, either.
But most importantly, since no context was given to the people themselves, at least none that can reduce the available choices of the government, it's up to them to choose. It's a bit like if you were given an empty page, you can do whatever you want with this. Some people will draw on it, some will write their grocery list, and so on. The same freedom happens to you and your people : With nothing before you can freely choose what you want!
It ended up in a 51 to 49 in favor of being story-based. A very close match, but it ended up with story-based because I found that, as it was currently written1, it's more about making choices as an author than being unable to clarify what it is about.
First, it's not about 1 government, it's about 4 of them uniting into one, 4 countries with 4 different cultural origins instead of none. It's a very different situation from the initial question which implies there might be other major differences.
Then your trouble is a bit different from the question as stated; There is a worry that it'll feel "weird" (a recurring word), or put more contextually if pirates attack the country, calling the "President" would feel "weird". I believe this weirdness is more likely to come from how you write your story rather than the world, but with a second thought, it could be that what your government is is still too blurry in your mind so that any official title feels wrong.
In any case, if some of the discussion's content was written in your question, I would have certainly closed for lacking details instead.
First and foremost, make 6 turns on yourself, sit on the sofa and have a drink to think throughly what you want to ask and what people needs to answer your question. Indeed, there is a clear difference between 4 countries uniting into one and one being made by a bunch of ragtag people, as much as there's a difference between asking for title names and title positions and hiearchy.
Then as Otkin joined in the discussion, I'd take her advice and choose a government you wish to test, and make us confront it with your characters' culture and society. It'll help you focus your mind (and the question), comfort in what will work and what won't, and it'll help in moving away the question from the final choice you'll have to make. reality-checks questions are just that good when it's becoming difficult to ask.
You're putting toooo much value in tags. If you can find a tag that describes what you want to ask, indeed it is an hint you can ask this kind of question, but in the end it's mostly the question's content that is reviewed against what is considered acceptable and not acceptable. For instance, the weapons tag tells that you can ask about weapons, but see, some questions which asks what ammunition is better can be considered as being off-topic, too!
1 : I emphasize this. If the question was reworded, it could fall into another category.
The tag is fine — the question is messy
I tried to read the background of the question multiple times, but there's a lot of it and it's a lot more distracting than you probably realize. E.G.:
But people in the government have some parts, and since I don't have a government I don't know what a non-prejudiced title they may have. Conversations needed details eventually.
Except that asking what a title would be is off-topic for this Stack. But you also try to explain what you're looking for (I think...):
If it just stopped there, I could just pick anything at all for a government. It would just be some insignificant world backdrop decision. It is all backdrop—until you say something contradictory.
and...
A simple republic structure ignores the Chinese and the British heritage. An empirical monarchy with executive ministers ignores the heritage of constitutional Republics and monarchies. A sort of government stew seems to be needed, I'm trying to concoct it with the least amount of inadvertent cultural appropriation.
Except...
It's just deciding which of these officials could comprise a heterogeneous and respectful government designed by these diverse people?
At this point, I don't have the slightest idea what you're asking for...
In regard to this question, you spent so much time writing it that you forgot why you were writing it. The question is not specific, not clear, not well defined... it's a mess.
If you're asking what type of government would be the natural successor to those four governments, then I believe you have a valid question.
If you're asking what type of government would be the result of those four governments experiencing an apocalypse that left the lengthy conditions you listed, the question should be closed for needing more focus, not because there are too many questions, but because it's so broad and so vague that you violate a number of rules (answers all being equally valid, high concept question, story based, take your pick).
If you're asking how four (or more) individuals, one from each of those governments, could be brought together to form a new government, the question should be closed as too story-based.
If you're asking what individuals from those four governments could be brought together to form a new government, the question should be closed for needing details (exactly what individuals? What skills? What goal do you, the author, have for the result?)
If you're asking what titles any individuals in the new government may have, that's just plain off-topic.
So...
Frankly, you need to create a single sentence that asks a specific question. You need to write that sentence before you write anything else in the post. Anything else you do include in the post needs to not interfere with anyone's understanding of that single sentence.
And Finally...
I strongly advise that you remember the following statement from the Help Center:
When asking questions keep in mind that the goal of the site is to help you build your world, not to tell your story.
It's easy to identify questions relating the the physical rules of a world as worldbuilding. It's much more difficult to say the same when asking questions about the development of cultures, philosophies, and governments. Whether or not such a question is easily identified as within the rules of the Stack often boils down to a single issue: are you asking a specific question, or not?
People who are trying to overcome, e.g., writer's block or who are simply exercising an idea almost never ask a specific question.
I skimmed your question, but found so many problems with the underlying foundations that I honestly think you should have used a "Reality Check" tag rather than anything else!
That said, and leaving apart the whole and completely unrealistic notion of a government setting out to establish a country's moral characteristics, it looks to me like your question is related to "government" and thus my answer is that you were in fact using the "Government" tag properly.
The pertinent reference to What Tags Are and How Do We Use Them.
A tag is a word or phrase that describes the topic of the question. Tags are a means of connecting experts with questions they will be able to answer by sorting questions into specific, well-defined categories.
Tags can also be used to help you identify questions that are interesting or relevant to you.
Is there a policy against putting tags in questions?
Not really a policy per se, but SE does suggest that querents not put tags into question titles.
You should not force a tag into your title. Because the tags appear below the question and tags are indexed by search engines along with the content of your question, you can trust that other people will be able to find your question based on tags they follow or search for. Additionally, tags appear on the question page, so other people will take them into account when answering your question.
I don't see any reason why you can't put tags in the question body, but I don't see a strong reason to do so either. That's not really how actual tags work. If you're just making a list of key words so that people will find your question, a sort of private tagging system, I don't see any reason why you can't.
