Political Ideology and Storytelling Within FFXIV

[Jandor]

The Houses of Lords and Commons are essentially a compromise of a political structure. You want to get the common people a way to have a say in how their country is run, but you have to do that in a way that doesn't disgruntle the people who already have the power--in both Britain and Ishgard, that was largely noblemen and the clergy. So you give them two houses of government; one for representations of the old established power, one for those elected by the masses, neither of which can completely overrule the other.

Now, if what you want is full democratic rule? It's not very good. Someone can still be literally born into power, the official religion still has outright political strength. You haven't fixed the problems of an aristocratic society, you've just reduced them. But it does have a strength, which is the same as the reason it was conceived: it doesn't make any one group too unhappy, which means that, extreme circumstances notwithstanding, basically every group will be content to play by the rules.

That's actually why I think, of every nation we see in the game, Ishgard is the one I'm certain will remain solvent for the forseeable future. A lot of nations in the game seem like they're one bad ruler away from an uprising (Limsa and Doma stand clearest, Ala Mhigo's not out of the woods of 'figuring out a good government' yet), or possibly even worse (Gridania and Ul'Dah seem like one bad ruling away from burning down, given the leadership already has problems), but Ishgard? Other nations will figure out better systems eventually, but judging by real-world history, Ishgard's will be 'good enough' for centuries; not the best system, but not bad enough to tear down and rebuild.

You don't fix the problems of an aristocratic society, but likewise, you don't get rid of the benefits of an aristocratic society either.
It's not very popular to acknowledge these days, but people literally raised from birth to rule tend to be pretty decent at the business of actual ruling, especially in a society like Ishgard where I imagine secondary and tertiary education isn't all that widely available.

Elected politicians providing a voice for the people and setting the agenda for governing, and then having that agenda put into action by people who have spent most of their life being raised and educated for ruling.
I'd say it's not just a 'good enough' system for Ishgard, it's a straight up good system, the main problem it has is that it comes up a tad short on the lofty ideals front and therefore doesn't stack up well when compared to various idealized utopian setups.