Small States With Unusual Political Systems

Two co-princes: the Bishop of Urgell and the President of France Andorra's heads of state are the bishop of a neighboring diocese in Catalonia and whoever France elects as president, so one of them is chosen by French voters rather than Andorran ones. The 1993 constitution, approved by referendum, turned the medieval arrangement into a parliamentary co-principality: an elected government holds executive power, while the co-princes act through personal representatives and keep a few real functions, including a say over treaties touching internal security and defense. It is the clearest surviving case of a state whose headship is shared between two outsiders.

Two Captains Regent, replaced every six months San Marino never trusts one person with the top job for long. Its parliament, the Great and General Council, elects two Captains Regent from among its own members to serve together as heads of state for six months, with new pairs taking office on April 1 and October 1, and a Regent cannot hold the post again for three years. A pair of consuls appears in a document from 1243, and since 1499 citizens have been able to lodge complaints about the Regents' conduct before the Regency Syndicate. The result is a living lesson in how a republic can guard against any one person accumulating power.

An elected absolute monarchy under the Pope Vatican City's monarch is chosen by election, not birth: the cardinals in conclave pick the Pope, who holds the fullness of the state's legislative, executive and judicial power. Day-to-day government is delegated to the Governorate and its Pontifical Commission, which since 2023 has been open to members other than cardinals, appointed for five years. A 2025 change, carried into the new Fundamental Law signed in July 2026, lets someone who is not a cardinal lead the Commission, and a religious sister now does. For anyone sorting the world's monarchies, it is the clearest case of absolute rule combined with an electoral college.

A powerful prince whom voters can abolish Liechtenstein reversed the usual European story of monarchs losing power. In a 2003 referendum, about 64 percent of voters approved the prince's proposal to keep his power to veto laws and dismiss the government, after he had warned he might leave for Vienna if they refused. The same constitution lets 1,500 citizens force a vote on abolishing the monarchy, with no princely veto over the result, and a 2012 attempt to remove the veto was rejected by about 76 percent. It is a rare system in which a strong hereditary ruler and direct democracy each hold a check on the other.

A prince who alone proposes laws, and a parliament of citizens only Monaco's 24-member National Council is elected only by Monégasque citizens, roughly 7,500 of whom were called to vote in 2023, a minority of the people who live there. The Council votes on laws and the budget and ratifies treaties, but only the Prince can initiate legislation, and he may dissolve the Council provided fresh elections follow within three months. Government is run by a Minister of State answerable to the Prince rather than to parliament. It shows how a constitutional monarchy can keep the monarch, not the legislature, at the centre of lawmaking.

A feudal parliament that voted itself into democracy in 2008 Until 2008, Sark's parliament, the Chief Pleas, was mostly made up of landholding tenants who sat by right of their property rather than by election. Islanders backed a fully elected chamber in a 2006 referendum, and the first democratic election was held on December 10, 2008. The hereditary Seigneur survives with a largely ceremonial role: he cannot vote in the Chief Pleas but can temporarily veto its ordinances. For anyone studying how feudal structures give way, this small Channel Island made the change within living memory.

Tynwald, where new laws are still proclaimed from an open-air hill The Isle of Man is a self-governing Crown Dependency, and its parliament, Tynwald, keeps a ritual that predates most legislatures. Tynwald Court normally sits in Douglas, but once a year, on Tynwald Day in early July, its members process from a chapel service to Tynwald Hill at St John's, where new Acts are proclaimed in English and then in Manx. The first recorded use of the hill to promulgate laws dates from 1417. It is a vivid reminder that law once had to be announced in public to count.

A self-governing republic of monasteries inside Greece The Athos peninsula is governed by its 20 Orthodox monasteries, which together form the Holy Community and run its administration from Karyes, while a governor appointed by the Greek state looks after public order. Its special status is written into the Greek constitution and was preserved when Greece joined the European Union. The most famous rule is the avaton, a centuries-old ban on women entering, which extends to female domestic animals. It is a rare case of territory inside a modern democracy that is run collectively by religious houses.

The Landsgemeinde, an open-air assembly that votes by show of hands Appenzell Innerrhoden is a small Swiss canton rather than a country, but its government is one of the most instructive anywhere. On the last Sunday in April, voters gather in the town square and decide laws and elect officials by raising their hands, a practice held in the open since 1403. Only Glarus, which meets a week later, keeps the same tradition among Switzerland's 26 cantons. Watching it is the nearest thing to seeing direct democracy as ancient Athens imagined it, with all the trade-offs of voting in public.

A democracy introduced by its own king, with a retirement age for the monarch Bhutan's move to parliamentary democracy came from the throne rather than from protest, and the 2008 constitution builds in safeguards found almost nowhere else. The king must step down at 65 in favor of the heir, provided the heir has reached 21. National Assembly elections run in two stages: every registered party may contest a primary round, and only the two parties with the most votes go through to the general round, so a two-party parliament is designed in rather than left to chance. The first National Assembly election was held on March 24, 2008.

The Tinkhundla system, elections without political parties Eswatini holds regular parliamentary elections in which political parties cannot take part. Under the Tinkhundla system, built around local constituencies, candidates stand as individuals, which the government presents as election on personal merit. Local chiefs carry real weight over who may stand, and the King appoints up to ten members of the House of Assembly himself. The arrangement traces back to a 1973 proclamation by King Sobhuza II that suspended the constitution and banned parties, and the African Union's observers at the 2023 election recommended that parties be allowed to compete. Set beside Tuvalu, it shows how differently a partyless parliament can work.

A parliament with no political parties at all Every member of Tuvalu's 16-seat parliament stands as an independent, so there is no governing party and no official opposition, only shifting groups of members. After each election the members choose a prime minister from among themselves by secret ballot, which means a government is built from personal alliances rather than a manifesto. In 2024 the incumbent prime minister lost his own seat, and the new parliament then elected Feleti Teo unopposed; he remains prime minister. For readers who assume parties are essential to parliamentary government, Tuvalu is a working counterexample.

The Dowdall count, a ranked ballot invented for the island Nauru elects its 19 members of parliament from eight multi-member constituencies using a method devised in 1971 by Desmond Dowdall, an Irish official serving as the country's Secretary for Justice. Voters rank every candidate, and each preference is worth a fraction: a first choice counts as one, a second as a half, a third as a third, and so on, with the highest totals winning. That is why Nauruan results come out with decimals, such as the 349.617 votes one winning candidate received in 2010. Voting is compulsory, which makes it a neat case study in how the counting rule, not just the ballot, shapes who gets in.

Universal suffrage, but only chiefly title holders may stand Every adult Samoan can vote, yet in practice only holders of a matai title, the chiefly titles conferred by extended families, can sit in parliament. The rule blends a Westminster-style legislature with the fa'amatai system that organizes village life, and electoral law has added further tests, such as a requirement to have served one's village, which have disqualified candidates before the courts. It makes Samoa one of the clearest examples of a modern parliament deliberately anchored in customary authority, with real consequences for who can enter politics, including women.

Nine seats reserved for the nobility, elected by the nobles themselves Tonga's Legislative Assembly has 26 elected seats, and nine of them are chosen only by the kingdom's nobles, the holders of its 33 hereditary noble titles together with a handful of life peers. The other 17 are elected by the general public in single-seat constituencies, a number raised from nine by the 2010 reforms, which let commoners elect a majority of the assembly for the first time at the election that November. The result is a parliament in which a few dozen people elect about a third of the seats. It is a living example of a monarchy part-way through a transition to democracy.

A head of government who rotates between three atolls every year Tokelau, a territory of New Zealand made up of three atolls, has no single leader for long. Each atoll elects its own leader, the Faipule, every three years, and the office of Ulu-o-Tokelau, head of the government, passes among the three Faipule for a year at a time. Tokelau has also twice voted on self-government in free association with New Zealand and stayed as it was both times: the 2006 and 2007 referendums won about 60 and 64 percent support, short of the two-thirds majority required.