@Ninjacow
I've added a new religious ideology called Edenism that acts as a half-ludditite/half-antitranshuman ideology. I don't think I will be adding ideologies specifically for pluralism and atheism because a religious ideology isn't a required pick and, in the case of state atheism, can be filed under moralism anyway.
[YOUTUBE=1]HLUX0y4EptA[/YOUTUBE]
There are two major components of a government: Power Base and Legitimacy. Power base deals with what institutions the state relies on the most within its borders, while legitimacy deals with on what grounds justifies itself.
Power Base
There are three power bases in IU: The Military, Corporations, and Bureaucracy.
A military power base would be a country where the military leadership is the highest authority in the country, and where the arms of the military enjoy immense political power. Because the military enjoys immense power and support, conventional military units (armies, fleets, and air wings) have a greater positive effect on stability.
A corporate power base is where government and private sector corporations have little separation. In a corporate state, bribing influential persons and journalists within the country to praise the government has greater effects on stability. Secondly, the intelligence units of the country have a greater effect on stability.
A bureaucratic power base is one where the state relies on a trained, civilian bureaucracy. This power base grants a base increase in stability.
Legitimacy
Legitimacy is likewise divided into three groups: Hereditary, Elective, and Appointment.
Hereditary legitimacy means that familial ties and bloodlines are key to gaining power at the highest levels of government or society. Rulers with this type of legitimacy tend to rule for life, and power is passed down to a heir. Base stability in hereditary states increases the longer a ruler reigns, but this bonus vanishes upon succession. If the successor is a minor (defined as being under 17), a regency council is put in place. The longer a regency council reigns, the lower base stability becomes, but once the ruler becomes of age, base stability starts ticking upwards again.
Elective legitimacy is one where power, whether nominally or actually, is in the hands of the people. In this election, the longer a ruler reigns, the lower base stability becomes. However, ordering elections will give a moderate boost to base stability. The GM is the one who determines election results, and this can result in a change of parties and government ideology. Unless, of course, the player behind the curtains has a specific ideology and party in mind. This can result in negative events, but it is an option.
Appointed legitimacy is one where authority is bestowed upon authority by authority. This means that leadership is selected by the core of the power base. With this legitimacy, a player can choose/create whatever leader with whatever ideology he or she pleases. However, this legitimacy has no stability bonuses associated with it.
Centralization and Government
Different countries have different needs in 2190. Some countries, dealing with separatist and anarchist agitation and general popular unrest, may decentralize in order to boost stability. Stable countries may opt to increase centralization in order to increase tax efficiency. At low levels of centralization, tax collection becomes increasing ineffective.
Unitary: A unitary state is one where the central government holds most or all nominal power within the state. Unitary states have the highest tax collection efficiency, but have the only centralization level with a negative effect on base stability.
Hegemony: A hegemonic state is where there is, on paper, state or provincial governments, but most real power is held by the central government. Hegemons are less effective at tax collection, but don't have stability penalties.
Federation: Federations are a collection of states or provinces with combined powers nominally matching those of the central government in terms of checks and balances. From here on out, tax inefficiency grows, as does base stability.
Confederation: Confederation are a collection of states that work together under a weak central government.
Coalition: Coalitions are a collection of states that simply work together. There is no real central government at this level.
Anarchy: This level of government grants the highest bonus to base stability but the highest tax inefficiencies, with a little under .5 EP being lost for every 1 EP of tax revenue created.
Besides tax collection, other sources of state revenue also experience increasing tax inefficiencies, state as state owned enterprises and tariffs.
Stability
Stability is a combination of several factors: Base Stability, Military and Intelligence Capability, Bribes, and Ideological Support/Opposition. Stability itself runs from 0% to 100%, only able to go over or under depending on base stability. Base stability is the foundation of your stability and is influenced by the above stuff as well as events.
Military and Intelligence Capability provide the coercive side of things. The greater a country's capability in these categories, the higher stability will be. Keep this in mind when going to war, because if the only thing keeping a full scale revolution is your army, invading a neighbor may not be the best decision.
Bribes are simply payments to influential persons within the country to, if not side with the government, to at least not oppose it. The effects of a bribe diminishes over turn, meaning a government reliant on these payments will need to maintain these payments to avoid repercussions.
Ideological Support/Opposition is based on how strong ideologies are in your country, and their support or opposition to you. Each ideology has parties and factions associated with it, and support will determine whether they're fanatically loyal or fanatically opposed to your government, or more likely somewhere in between. The more opposed a faction becomes to your government, and the more powerful the faction, the greater the pressure on stability.
Legislative Branches
A country can have a legislative branch. The legislative branch will be populated by roughly a 100 representatives of the various ideologies in the country, although the government can create laws that increase the share of seats the largest ideologies gain, or laws that favor specific ideologies.
With a legislative branch, however, you don't have full control of the budget.
Depending on faction support and who controls what seats, you (the leader) will have a level of Legislative Support. Legislative Support is, as you can imagine, the level of support the executive has in the legislative branch. The higher the support, the more money that executive will have to spend as he or she sees fit.
The legislative will spend the money available to it automatically on education, infrastructure projects, military spending, and set some of the money aside in the treasury. Some ideologies are more predisposed to certain kinds of spending than others.
Legislative support increases the Base Stability.
Edit: Bonus
*Military spending is divided between the branches and includes procurement of equipment, training/logistics/soldier benefits, and military research development. Factions will increase the share of the budget going to military spending during wartime.