Political Economy Students' Journal

Introduction

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Political Economy is a broad interdisciplinary field that can focus on phenomena such as growth, distribution, inequality, or trade, and how these are shaped by institutions, laws, and government policy. This is a vast and complex range of things to cover, even in the real world where it becomes more observational making its complete creation in fiction an extremely daunting task. If done well though it can add significant depth to a story especially when the plot needs to have more focus on political or economic systems and consequences. If neglected this can create many plot holes, and inconsistencies, and overall bring down the whole quality of the writing. How does one start then? Much like any other work of fiction, by building a road map and laying out all the connections to see how they affect each other. 

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Getting Started

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To begin one should lay out what genre of fiction writing is it and also what the main focuses of the plot are, after this is established it becomes easier to narrow in and what needs to be fleshed out. If the writer is writing a romance novel in modern times about two small-town lovers that don’t leave the town and work simple jobs then this discussion is not aimed towards you but if one is writing about modern political intrigue, fantasy, or Sci-Fi then odds are it is extremely important. There are several general questions to ask first before diving into genre-specific ones that will be covered later. Even if the plot does not focus heavily on the answers to the questions it will most likely interact with them and if it is not thought through the audience will feel the gaps in the world-building or even worse off it will create significant plot holes in the story. To start, ask what is the level of technology in this world, this will heavily affect the infrastructure and jobs. Even if the answer comes out to be the same level as a certain place and time in history will the story have extraordinary influences such as magic or alien technology (this tends to lean more toward Sci-Fi) because this can create massive ripple effects across the entire system. To give an example of how this can change the political economic system if magic exists but it is extremely difficult to create new spells then schools will probably hold higher importance and if the elite control the schools then it gives them more power over an entire society and makes it more difficult to overturn their rule. On the other end if everyone can easily use magic then the feudal serfdom system doesn’t make sense in that world given how unnecessary having many field workers would be when one person can harvest the crops. What is the role and influence of the physical environment? Following a traditional troupe then if the demon world is arid and harsh it becomes a matter of survival with invading more fertile lands of other species. In a Sci-Fi universe is it important that planets have livable conditions or can humanity terraform the planet to match the conditions they need to survive? With the physical world set one can move onto man-made institutions, what type of governments exist and how do they interact with each other and the citizenry? Don’t default into monarchies of the past or democracies in more current times, this is an opportunity to make a more compelling story and break from the traditional mold. If the story should have traditional governments then continue otherwise have fun with it, for example, a story with alien races could have them function in ways that humans cannot. The next topic may be answered quickly or it may lead to a massive web of possibilities, what does the currency system of the world look like? Is there a singular overarching currency that everyone uses, are there different currencies in every nation/planet, who makes the currency and gives it its value, are the currencies incompletely covering the economy leading to heavy bartering, are there levels of currencies where some can only be used in certain contexts, and so on? This is not something that needs to be elaborated on a lot in the writing but if an author doesn’t know the answers to these questions the story will come up flat as it becomes obvious the world-building is incomplete when the main characters cross borders and keep using the same currency. These are some broad guiding points to build a fictional world the next sections will focus in more on real examples and genre-specific ideas that can help narrow in even more. 

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Fantasy

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Unlike other genres like Sci-Fi there is the benefit of having historical examples to work with and build off of which alleviates some of the pressure of building a brand new world with brand new systems by using past existing ones. This can be a double-edged sword however because many authors often end up falling back on how things were without asking how the world would change when different elements were added in. If magic is added then it would be foolish to think the setting of medieval times would look the same. If introducing different sentient species how will that affect the humans of the world (if there are any). Humans would probably be less likely to go to war with each other if there is an imminent threat to their existence closing in from the outside but at the same time how many kings and queens want to give up their power and status? That alone can lead to interesting dynamics and storylines as seen in Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien how even with Sauron’s army closing in the different leaders had hesitations to help the others due to past incidents and petty squabbles. Those leader-based issues added tension to the plot and created more obstacles to overcome. Even if humans are the only sentient creatures in the world there are more questions to ask such as how are armies

composed? is there a permanent standing army for every country? or do they have to gather the peasants for battles? If it is the former, will long wars lead to food shortage issues in the nations? there won’t be many able-bodied men left to farm the land which leads to increasing domestic discontent. Another series that does a great job building the world's political and economic institutions is the Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski as shown through how he handled different currencies, job systems, and taxes. Nobody has to go as far as he did because he was an economist before being an author but the franchise does a great job showing the cause and effect of the political economy on the average person living in the world’s lives. 

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Sci-Fi

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The benefit of Sci-Fi is there is a significant amount of freedom since no one can be certain of what the future holds it is more difficult to say things are incorrect when compared to what we already know. The challenge is that the world-building needs to remain consistent and be even more mapped out than the other genres, like fantasy. A good starting point is asking, are there multiple inhabited planets, or is this Sci-Fi story based on Earth alone? If it is many planets involved how is the government system set up, will it be one overarching federation or is every planet independent or do they have minimal autonomy? Once the previous question has been established it becomes easier to create the economic portion of the world-building to show a more concrete example we will examine Warhammer. There is a massive central government that covers almost all known human planets so they designate each planet for some sort of purpose such as farming, industrial production, a sort of population center-based one, fortified war planets, and so on. Even with the designation it is rare that the world only has that singular purpose, such as a world designed for population can have enormous cities where some industry may take place while the rest of the planet may partake in farming. The central government has a rule that in case of an emergency all planets should be able to be self-sufficient but that is not always the case especially with some harsher climates as they have to import large quantities of food from other planets. In Warhammer it is clearly laid out the role of the central government, how the planets look from the outside and within, and how all these pieces fit together this will have to be done with any story of a similar style. Obviously, if the story only involves Earth and potentially being invaded by aliens then there is no need to follow the last example. In a world attacked by aliens, the political and economic systems would have to drastically change this is where one asks questions to further narrow in. Does the currency still work or has a bartering system replaced it, do the governments still stand if they do are they forming a united government to take on the threat, or like War of the Worlds by HG Wells do all the institutions collapse? Remember any changes made to a real-world type of setting will have drastic impacts creating massive ripple effects, it is always better to assume readers are intelligent and will see the gaps in logic.

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Conclusion

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It is a tall task to make a whole political system within works of fiction but if done and done well it can automatically differentiate that story from the hordes of others. Having a well-fleshed-out world will guide the story, characters, their motivations, and the setting more than one would initially imagine which can also serve as a way of fighting writer’s block. Understanding historical and modern political and economic systems along with knowledge of human behavior will ease this process. Good stories involve research and well-thought-through ideas so it may be time-consuming but it will pay off in the end, and remember have fun with it all. Happy writings.