Throughout its thousand-year history, Roma has changed its political systems multiple times. The current Roman state, in theory, is an an association of 25 independent republics. In practice, its member states do not enjoy a high degree of independence, and thus, the Roman Union is classified as a moderately decentralized federal republic. Although claiming to be a non-partisan democracy as described in all versions of the constitutions since 1891, factions within the democratically-elected lower house (Senate) serving as de facto political parties, commonly referred to as ante (front).
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The Praetoriumpopuli ("The People's Hall") in Rome, built in 1769 by Adolphus Hitler's architect Albert Speer, was the headquarter of the Nazi regime and its rubber-stamp legislature, the National Assembly. Abandoned for more than a century after the fall of Nazi Rome in 1786, the building is now home to the Assembly, the upper-house of Roma's legislature that represents the interest of the Union's republics. The Praetoriumpopuli also seats the Senate when Rome is the rotating capital.
Due to Roma's high degree of decentralization, most of the member republics' proposed legislation in terms of economic policy, fiscal policy, education, welfare state, etc. are handled by their respective local governments and legislatures. The federal government is responsible to foreign affairs, judiciary, banking standards and composition, product standards, rights of movement, defence, the currency, etc for all member states. The federal cabinet (executive branch), which is elected by the lower-house Senate, proposed legislations on these matters to the Senate before sending it to the upper-house Assembly for ratification. Since 1941, the Roman Senate (whose congressional apportionment is population-based) has been dominated by the National Romanic Front and the Social Democratic Front. The Assembly, however, acts as a check on the Senate (which is dominated by populous republics) and the federal government as each member republic send three members to the Assembly regardless of their population size.
The Senate, along with the executive branch, moves to a new capital every 5 years. This coincides with the cycle of election at the federal level. The Assembly, however, retained its permanent seat in the Praetoriumpopuli ("The People's Hall") in Rome.
The judiciary of Roma is independent of the executive and the legislature, while it is common for leading members of the executive to be members of the legislature as well. The political system is laid out in the 1961 constitution. Since then, it has undergone minor modifications twenty-five times.
The Hill-Capitol in Dominus Angelus (Los Angeles) is the former location of the National Congress of the American Roman Republic before it changed its capital to Nova Eboracum (New York). Currently serving as the seat of the province of California's legislature, the Hill-Capitol will also house the federal Senate as the city becomes Roma's rotating capital in 2021.
The constitution emphasizes the protection of individual liberty in an extensive catalog of human and civil rights and divides powers both between the federal and republic levels and between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
Timeline of Roma's political system[]
1. Roman Kingdom (753 BC - 509 BC)
- 753 BC - 509 BC: Elective Monarchy
2. First Roman Republic (509 BC - 27 BC)
- 509 BC - 49 BC: Constitutional oligarchy
- 49 BC - 27 BC: Constitutional dictatorship
3. First Roman Empire (27 BC - 2 BC)
- 27 BC - 2 BC: De jure constitutional monarchy, de facto absolute monarchy
4. Second Roman Republic (2 BC - 105)
- 27 BC - 0 BC: Constitutional oligarchy
- 0 BC - 105 BC: Constitutional republic
5. Second Roman Empire (105 - 1751)
- 150 - 273: Principate (de jure constitutional monarchy, de facto autocratic elective monarchy)
- 273 - c. 313: Dominate (absolute despotic monarchy)
- c. 313 - 631: Coregency (de facto separate monarchies in East and West)
- 631 - c. 759: Unitary absolute monarchy
- c. 759 - c. 1290: Decentralized absolute monarchy
- c. 1290 - 1720: Unitary semi-constitutional monarchy
- 1720 - 1735: Federative semi-constitutional monarchy
- 1735 - 1751: Absolute monarchy
6. Roman Commonwealth (1751 - 1766)
- 1751 - 1764: Unitary parliamentary republic
- 1764 - 1766: De jure constitutional republic, de facto elective dictatorship
7. Nazi Rome (1766 - 1786)
- 1766 - 1767: Nazi multi-party elective dictatorship
- 1767 - 1786: Nazi one-party totalitarian dictatorship
8. Allied-occupied Roma (1786 - 1816)
- 1786 - 1816: Military occupation
9.a. East Roma (1816 - 1891)
- 1816 - 1890: Unitary Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist republic
- 1890 - 1891: Unitary parliamentary republic
9. b. West Roma (1816 - 1891)
- 1816 - 1850: Unitary liberal autocracy
- 1850 - 1891: Unitary parliamentary republic
10. Roman Federation (1891 - 1961)
- 1891 - 1920: De jure unitary non-partisan democracy. de facto unitary parliamentary republic
- 1920 - 1961: De jure federal non-partisan democracy, de facto semi-federal parliamentary republic
11. Roman Union (1961 - present)
- 1961 - 1971: De jure federal non-partisan democracy, de facto federal unitary parliamentary republic
- 1971 - present: De jure association of independent non-partisan democratic states, de facto decentralized federal parliamentary republic