{ "model": { "rank": 18093, "code": "thing-q1063239", "model_id": "vr.tr.polity", "name": "polity", "purpose": "Let an agent explain the polity as a general concept, describe kinds across history, relay how political science classifies polities, and distinguish polity from state, government, nation and regime.", "family": "Thing Registry", "category": "Society, people and institutions", "status": "research-draft", "kind": "thing", "plane": "SOC", "domain": "SOC.ORG", "industry": "", "version": "", "url": "/models/thing/q1063239/", "tier": 2, "score": 30, "payload": { "layer": "wikidata", "aliases": [ "political entity", "former or current state", "national geopolitical entity" ], "aliasCount": 3, "merged": 3, "knownIn": 30, "facets": null, "markers": [], "lexicalClass": "", "senseRank": null, "alsoRegisteredAs": "vr.tr.polity", "source": { "dataset": "wikidata", "item": "Q1063239", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1063239", "license": "CC0 1.0" } }, "research": { "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-13T01:51:10Z", "providers": [ "Claude" ], "breadth": "written by Claude from model knowledge without web access - no source was read, every claim is a lead to verify", "pass": 2, "wave": 3, "engine": "claude" }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q1063239", "registryId": "vr.tr.polity", "name": "polity", "version": "0.2.0-wave.3", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "SOC.ORG" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q1063239/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.polity", "name": "polity", "purpose": "Let an agent explain the polity as a general concept, describe kinds across history, relay how political science classifies polities, and distinguish polity from state, government, nation and regime.", "definition": "An organised political entity with a recognised identity and capacity for collective decision, such as a state, empire, city-state, tribe, federation, chiefdom or supranational union, whether current or former, and including sub-state and non-state political organisations; polity is the general term used in political science and history to compare forms of political organisation across time and place without assuming the modern state.", "what_it_is_for": "Not applicable; a category of political organisation.", "affordances": [ "explain the concept", "describe kinds across history", "relay classification", "distinguish related terms" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "General comparative term", "Covers historical and modern forms", "Identity and decision capacity", "Scale from local to supranational" ], "appearance": "Not a visible object; an organised political community.", "visual_identification": [ "Organised political entity", "States, empires, city-states, tribes, federations, unions, former and current", "A state is one kind; government is the apparatus; nation is a people; regime is a form of rule" ], "physical_properties": [], "families_and_kinds": [ "sovereign states and former states", "empires and kingdoms", "city-states and chiefdoms", "tribes and band societies as polities", "sub-state polities such as provinces and autonomous regions", "supranational and international polities", "non-state political entities such as movements controlling territory" ], "related_models": [ { "relation": "is a kind of", "target": "political organization", "why": "in registry terms" }, { "relation": "includes", "target": "state", "why": "as the dominant modern form" }, { "relation": "is studied by", "target": "political science", "why": "and history" }, { "relation": "is contrasted with", "target": "nation", "why": "a people rather than an organisation" } ], "identifiers": [], "standards_and_regulation": [ "International law on recognition of states", "No regulation of the general concept" ], "failure_modes_and_hazards": [ "Assuming the modern state as the norm", "Confusing polity with state, nation or regime", "Contested status of some entities" ], "in_scope": [], "out_of_scope": [], "characteristics": [] }, "sources": [], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "understand", "name": "Understand", "description": "What a polity is.", "rationale": "Definition.", "layers": [ { "id": "definition", "name": "Definition", "description": "Definition and distinctions.", "findings": [ { "id": "definition-finding", "name": "Definition", "description": "Definition.", "questions": [ { "text": "What is a polity, and how does it differ from state, government, nation and regime?", "kind": "definition" }, { "text": "Is the question about polities in general or a specific state or entity?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "kinds", "name": "Kinds", "description": "Kinds.", "findings": [ { "id": "kinds-finding", "name": "Kinds", "description": "Kinds.", "questions": [ { "text": "What kinds of polity have existed, from chiefdoms and city-states to empires and unions?", "kind": "definition" }, { "text": "Which entry fits the specific kind?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "classify", "name": "Classify", "description": "Classification and comparison.", "rationale": "Research.", "layers": [ { "id": "classification", "name": "Classification", "description": "Classification.", "findings": [ { "id": "classification-finding", "name": "Classification", "description": "Classification.", "questions": [ { "text": "How do political scientists and anthropologists classify polities?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which references are standard?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] }, { "id": "datasets", "name": "Datasets", "description": "Datasets.", "findings": [ { "id": "datasets-finding", "name": "Datasets", "description": "Datasets.", "questions": [ { "text": "What datasets such as the Polity project and Seshat record polities and their characteristics?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which sources are cited?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "history", "name": "History", "description": "Polities in history.", "rationale": "Attribution.", "layers": [ { "id": "evolution", "name": "Evolution", "description": "Evolution of polities.", "findings": [ { "id": "evolution-finding", "name": "Evolution", "description": "Evolution.", "questions": [ { "text": "How did polities develop from early societies to modern states, as historians and archaeologists describe?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which entry fits state formation?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] }, { "id": "contested", "name": "Contested", "description": "Contested and former polities.", "findings": [ { "id": "contested-finding", "name": "Contested", "description": "Contested.", "questions": [ { "text": "How are contested, unrecognised and former polities treated, with positions attributed?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Is the presentation neutral?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "context", "name": "Context", "description": "Theory and usage.", "rationale": "Context.", "layers": [ { "id": "theory", "name": "Theory", "description": "Political theory.", "findings": [ { "id": "theory-finding", "name": "Theory", "description": "Theory.", "questions": [ { "text": "How does the concept of polity figure in Aristotle and modern political theory?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which entry fits political theory?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] }, { "id": "usage", "name": "Usage", "description": "Usage.", "findings": [ { "id": "usage-finding", "name": "Usage", "description": "Usage.", "questions": [ { "text": "How is polity used in different disciplines and in knowledge bases?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which entry fits political entity in data modelling?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "Should state and empire be the primary linked entries?", "How should political science classifications be linked?", "How should former and contested polities be recorded?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 4, "layers": 8, "findings": 8, "questions": 16 } }, "draft": { "generator": "vr.draft.v3", "status": "draft-generated", "researched": false, "archetype": "organisation or institution", "method": "Written from the archetype playbook - what this kind of thing needs beyond identity and provenance - and from the structure that recurred across 6,333 models already researched by two engines. Applied to this entry by rule. No source was read for this thing and no claim here is researched. This entry carries no facets of its own, so they were inferred from its domain - a guess about a whole domain applied to one thing.", "facetsInferred": true, "nextPass": "A researcher replaces this draft with a sourced specification. Treat every sentence below as a proposal to argue with.", "purpose": "Give an agent a durable, checkable way to recognise a polity, record what state it is in, and decide what may be done with it.", "whatItIs": "Let an agent explain the polity as a general concept, describe kinds across history, relay how political science classifies polities, and distinguish polity from state, government, nation and regime.", "characteristics": { "substance": "social", "origin": "conceptual", "agency": "collective" }, "whatYouCanDoWithIt": [ "observed and measured" ], "distinguishingFeatures": [ "Names folded into this entry, which a task may need to split apart again: political entity, former or current state, national geopolitical entity.", "3 finer distinctions are held as aliases rather than separate entries, because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it.", "Described in 30 Wikipedia languages, which is a measure of how widely the thing is known, not of how important it is." ], "openQuestionsForResearch": [ "Which of the bundles below does a real task actually need, and which are ceremony?", "What does this thing have that the facets do not capture at all?", "Which neighbouring kind is most often confused with a polity, and on what evidence are they told apart?" ], "whatItIsMadeOf": "a social arrangement between people", "physicalCharacter": [ "Acts through people, and only through them.", "These come from the domain this entry sits in rather than from the entry itself, so treat them as a first guess about the whole domain applied to one thing." ], "whatCanBeDoneWithIt": [ "observe it, measure it, record its state" ], "howItIsRecognised": [ "Nothing to see. Recognised by name, register entry and the people acting in its name, and those change while it stays the same body." ], "relatedModels": [ { "relation": "covers", "note": "Finer kinds folded into this entry because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it. Each is a model waiting to be split out when one does.", "targets": [ "political entity", "former or current state", "national geopolitical entity" ] } ], "standing": "Described in 30 Wikipedia languages, which measures how widely it is written about rather than how important or how common it is. 3 finer distinctions are held inside this entry as names rather than as separate models.", "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "identity-and-classification", "name": "Identity, naming and classification", "description": "How an agent tells one polity from another, and a polity from things that resemble it.", "rationale": "Recognition comes before every other claim. Without stable identity nothing else in the model can be trusted to be about the same thing twice.", "layers": [ { "id": "naming-and-identifiers", "name": "Names and identifiers", "description": "The names this thing goes by and the identifiers that survive translation and time.", "findings": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases", "name": "Preferred name, aliases and local names", "description": "Which name to use, which names mean the same thing, and which merely sound similar.", "questions": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the name of a polity, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the name of a polity, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the name of a polity is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers", "name": "Stable identifiers and external keys", "description": "Identifiers that keep pointing at this kind of thing across systems and languages.", "questions": [ { "id": "stable-identifiers-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an identifier for a polity, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an identifier for a polity, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an identifier for a polity is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "classification-and-granularity", "name": "Classification and granularity", "description": "Where a polity sits among kinds, and how finely a task needs to cut it.", "findings": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents", "name": "Kind, parents and neighbouring kinds", "description": "The classes this thing belongs to and the ones it is next to.", "questions": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the kind of a polity, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the kind of a polity, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the kind of a polity is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features", "name": "Distinguishing features", "description": "What separates a polity from the things most often confused with it.", "questions": [ { "id": "distinguishing-features-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes what distinguishes a polity, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about what distinguishes a polity, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once what distinguishes a polity is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "state-and-lifecycle", "name": "State and lifecycle", "description": "The states a polity passes through and the events that move it between them.", "rationale": "Most decisions about a thing depend on what state it is in now, which is a claim with a time on it, not a property.", "layers": [ { "id": "lifecycle-stages", "name": "Lifecycle stages", "description": "From coming into existence to ceasing to be one of these.", "findings": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions", "name": "Stages and transitions", "description": "The stages worth naming and what moves a polity between them.", "questions": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the lifecycle of a polity, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the lifecycle of a polity, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the lifecycle of a polity is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "observations-and-status", "name": "Observations and current status", "description": "What is observed about a polity, how often and by whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "observation-record", "name": "Observation record", "description": "How an observation of a polity is recorded so that it can be superseded rather than overwritten.", "questions": [ { "id": "observation-record-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an observation of a polity, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an observation of a polity, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an observation of a polity is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "people-and-responsibility", "name": "People, roles and responsibility", "description": "Who stands in what relation to a polity.", "rationale": "Social things are defined by the relations people hold to them, and those relations change without the thing changing.", "layers": [ { "id": "roles-and-parties", "name": "Roles and parties", "description": "The roles that exist around a polity and who fills them.", "findings": [ { "id": "role-assignments", "name": "Role assignments and their validity", "description": "Who holds which role over a polity, from when, and on whose authority.", "questions": [ { "id": "role-assignments-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a role over a polity, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "role-assignments-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a role over a polity, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "role-assignments-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a role over a polity is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "ownership-and-accountability", "name": "Ownership and accountability", "description": "Who answers for a polity and who may decide about it.", "findings": [ { "id": "accountability", "name": "Accountability and decision rights", "description": "Where responsibility for a polity sits when something goes wrong.", "questions": [ { "id": "accountability-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes responsibility for a polity, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "accountability-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about responsibility for a polity, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "accountability-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once responsibility for a polity is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "legal-identity", "name": "Legal identity and mandate", "description": "What polity is in law and what it exists to do.", "rationale": "Legal identity survives changes of name, address, staff and premises, which is exactly why it must be recorded separately from all of them.", "layers": [ { "id": "registration", "name": "Legal form and registration", "description": "Form, register, identifiers and jurisdiction.", "findings": [ { "id": "registration-record", "name": "Registration and identifiers", "description": "What names this body unambiguously in law.", "questions": [ { "id": "registration-record-q01", "text": "What legal form does polity take, in which register, under which identifier?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "registration-record-q02", "text": "What survives a rename, a merger or a move of premises, and what does not?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "mandate", "name": "Mandate and governing instrument", "description": "The purpose it is bound to and the document that binds it.", "findings": [ { "id": "mandate-record", "name": "Mandate and its source", "description": "What it may do, and the instrument that says so.", "questions": [ { "id": "mandate-record-q01", "text": "What is the mandate of polity, and which founding or governing instrument grants it?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "id": "mandate-record-q02", "text": "What lies outside the mandate, and what should an agent do when asked for it?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "governance-and-membership", "name": "Governance, membership and decision rights", "description": "Who decides in polity and who belongs to it.", "rationale": "Authority inside an organisation is held by roles, not people, and an agent needs to know which role can commit it.", "layers": [ { "id": "decision-rights", "name": "Decision rights", "description": "Bodies, offices and what each may bind.", "findings": [ { "id": "authority-map", "name": "Who may bind the organisation", "description": "The offices that can commit it and their limits.", "questions": [ { "id": "authority-map-q01", "text": "Which bodies or offices of polity may take which decisions, and up to what limit?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "authority-map-q02", "text": "What evidence shows that a given person currently holds that office?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] }, { "id": "membership", "name": "Membership and affiliation", "description": "Who counts as part of it and on what terms.", "findings": [ { "id": "membership-rules", "name": "Membership and its evidence", "description": "Classes of member, how membership starts and ends.", "questions": [ { "id": "membership-rules-q01", "text": "What kinds of membership or affiliation does polity have, and how does each begin and end?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "membership-rules-q02", "text": "What may a member do in its name, and what may they not?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "provenance-and-evidence", "name": "Provenance, evidence and time", "description": "Where every claim about a polity came from and when it held.", "rationale": "A claim without a source and a time cannot be superseded, only overwritten, and an agent that overwrites loses the ability to explain itself.", "layers": [ { "id": "source-and-authority", "name": "Source and authority", "description": "Who said it, on what evidence, and how strongly.", "findings": [ { "id": "claim-provenance", "name": "Claim provenance and confidence", "description": "The authority behind each claim about a polity and how confident it is.", "questions": [ { "id": "claim-provenance-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a claim about a polity, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a claim about a polity, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a claim about a polity is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "time-and-versions", "name": "Time, versions and supersession", "description": "When a claim was true, when it was learnt, and what replaced it.", "findings": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession", "name": "Validity period and supersession", "description": "How an old claim about a polity is retired without being erased.", "questions": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the validity of a claim about a polity, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the validity of a claim about a polity, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the validity of a claim about a polity is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "statistics": { "bundles": 6, "layers": 12, "findings": 14, "questions": 38 } } } }