the Confederation of the Sea of Flowers is the general overarching government institution that loosely covers a sizable chunk of the known world. it slowly formed from various alliance structures and efforts by major polities (especially Loëz) to create a medium for inter-polity cooperation as a way to fend off potential conflict.
the main organ of the confederation is the Confederal Assembly, a legislative body comprised of a somewhat high number1 of assemblydudes2 from the various constituent polities. each polity is given a number of seats roughly proportional to its population (giving each polity a seat and then allocating the rest using largest remainder), and are generally left to decide how to fill their seats on their own, leading to a lot of variation in how people get in office and how long they stay there. alongside the regular members are 51 separately allocated seats for major guilds, given proportionally to the "largest" of them (purely by largest remainder), tho the way in which that's measured is kinda intentionally vague.3 being an assemblydude only grants a minimal gift salary and is intended to be treated as volunteer work, tho the extent to which it actually is varies.
business in the assembly is handled though consensus, with each member being given little colored indicator cards to hold up to note their positions. the threshold for actions to be passed is around 66-75% depending on the issue, and members usually form vague support and opposition coalitions around certain actions. all members have the same powers, but per informal standards, guild assemblydudes aren't supposed to join coalitions, and are encouraged to vote with other representatives of their guild as a bloc. functions such as calling for consensus, stenography, etc. are managed by independent staff hired by the assembly for the duration of its meetings. violence flares up during meetings occasionally, sometimes resulting in procedure to stall out or actions to be dropped.
assemblydudes usually sign on to a number of shared policy lists called manifests, which constitute a pseudo-party system. manifests range from more broad lists like the Agrarian Manifest4 which essentially make up what we'd call a party, to things like the Prohibition Manifest which act more like a statement of voting intent on a single issue. many manifests have little (if any) organized structure behind them and have terms agreed on by their signatories, which leads to a tendency for them to splinter when disagreements arise. some assemblydudes choose to completely forego joining any manifests, often making a point of being explicitly "Non-Manifest". they tend to be kinda wealthy and in favor of more technocratic policies, and a good number of them are either connected to guilds or are guild assemblydudes outright.
every two years, the current Confederal Assembly nominates, discusses, and elects a slate of 17 people to serve as the Operator Council, the executive panel of the Confederation. while the operators are selected by the assembly, there's no requirement for them to be assemblydudes themselves, and it's standard practice for a majority of the Operator Council to be members of the public. at the end of each two-year term, a feedback period is held where the public is able to lodge complaints against the outgoing operators and potentially have legal action taken against them for misadministration.
alongside these two bodies is the General Council, another legislative body formed from the entire adult population of the Confederation. a meeting of the General Council is announced annually at the end of the year, and further meetings can be call for as needed during the annual meeting, through petition, or by the Operator Council. during these meetings, members of the public are able to propose and submit actions similarly to the Confederal Assembly, though there are some unwritten limitations on what can actually be enacted. attendance to the General Council isn't mandatory, and its meeting place rotates through different settlements annually.
beyond the meeting of the General Council, people are also able to submit potential actions through a petition system, if they can get a sufficient number of signatures from a sufficient number of polities. this can either take the form of a direct petition, which would submit the action to each constituent polity in a special election5, or an indirect petition, which would submit the action to the Confederal Assembly to be discussed at their next meeting. the petition system can also be used to recall assemblydudes, with the requirement that most of the signatories are from the polity that assemblydude represents, with the mandate that a special election has to be held to replace them within a year.
parallel to the main organs of the confederal government is Congress, a collegiate body composed of the various leaders of the constituent polities. while its role in governance used to be more important, in the present day its power has shrunk to mostly just entail sending advisory statements to the Confederal Assembly6.
applications for membership within the confederation are officially open to any polity with either "historical presence"7 or some minimum population. in practice, most applications presently come from small frontier settlements that don't really meet either requirement, but are allowed to join as part of Camp, the administrative division encompassing "the outlying areas of the Sea of Flowers". the issue of whether or not Camp settlements are properly represented has repeatedly come up recently, and multiple manifests pertaining to Camp sovereignty have gained traction.
