01
● Active Arc
The G7 + Russia
The world's most powerful democracies plus the most instructive autocracy. Eight countries that between them account for roughly half of global GDP and two of the world's five nuclear powers — and between them represent almost every flavour of how power actually works.
🇬🇧 UK ✓
🇷🇺 Russia ✓
🇺🇸 USA ✓
🇩🇪 Germany
🇫🇷 France
🇯🇵 Japan
🇮🇹 Italy
🇨🇦 Canada
🇪🇺 EU (bonus)
02
◎ Next Arc
Expand to G20
The G7 plus the rising powers, regional giants, and constitutional experiments that round out the picture. Where the interesting structural diversity really begins — theocratic monarchies, emerging democracies, military states, one-party systems.
🇨🇳 China
🇮🇳 India
🇧🇷 Brazil
🇦🇺 Australia
🇰🇷 South Korea
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia
🇿🇦 South Africa
+ more
03
○ Future Arc
The Full World
All 196 recognised countries. The strange corners, the micro-states, the collapsed states, the hereditary theocracies and the Nordic social democracies. No timeline on this — just a direction of travel. Refreshed whenever an election changes the picture.
196 Countries
No Deadline
Living Atlas
🇬🇧
Constitutional Monarchy · Parliamentary
Crown, Cabinet, Parliament, City of London, media barons, the Establishment pipeline — ten tiers deep into who really runs Britain.
🇷🇺
Federal Republic (De Facto Autocracy)
The vertikalnaya vlast — Putin's power vertical, the siloviki, FSB, GRU, oligarchs, Kadyrov, the Orthodox Church. The constitutional structure is largely decorative.
🇺🇸
Federal Republic · Presidential
Three branches, 50 state governments, PACs, the military-industrial complex, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, evangelical networks — the most complex power map of any democracy.
🇩🇪
Federal Republic · Parliamentary
Bundesrat, Bundestag, the Bundesbank, coalition politics, corporate co-determination, and the memory of what happens when democratic institutions fail.
🇫🇷
Semi-Presidential Republic
The Fifth Republic's powerful presidency, the Élysée Palace, the grandes écoles pipeline, the Conseil d'État, and France's peculiar relationship with technocratic power.
🇯🇵
Constitutional Monarchy · Parliamentary
The LDP's near-permanent dominance, the bureaucratic ministries, Keidanren (business federation), the Imperial household, and the post-war US security architecture still shaping it all.
🇮🇹
Parliamentary Republic
The most governments of any Western democracy, the Vatican, the North-South divide, Confindustria, the 'ndrangheta, and the curious durability of Italian political dynasties.
🇨🇦
Constitutional Monarchy · Parliamentary
Westminster model under the Crown, ten provinces with real power, Indigenous governance, energy sector influence, and a continental relationship with the US that shapes everything.
🌍
G20 Arc · Planned
China · India · Brazil · Australia · South Korea · Saudi Arabia · South Africa · and more
Coming after the G7 arc is complete. Each country will follow the same interactive atlas format — map, tiers, official + shadow power, detail panels.
◆ How Goverlicious Works
Each country map shows two things at once: the formal constitutional structure (who officially holds power) and the shadow power architecture (who actually shapes decisions). Every node is clickable, with a detail panel covering the real story — budgets, who controls what, notable incidents, power assessments. Filters let you toggle between formal and shadow views.
Maps are updated at significant electoral events, or at New Year's Eve as a general refresh. The goal isn't comprehensiveness — it's honest clarity about how power actually works in each country. The formal tier and the shadow tier are equally important. Sometimes (Russia, Saudi Arabia) the formal tier is almost irrelevant. Sometimes (Germany, Canada) it mostly works as advertised.