Where the facts come from, and what we made up.

Norland, Dana Reyes, Priya, Tom Hadley and the Bridge and Rail Act are all fictional. So are the game’s scoring rules: they decide how your choices play out in the story and are not measurements of how real governments behave.

The “real case that looks like yours” in each debrief is an actual event. The cases currently used:

• John Major, July 1993. A confidence vote tied to the Maastricht social chapter motion, won 339 to 299. Sources: UPI archive, Washington Post archive.
• James Callaghan, 1978–79. Survived a confidence vote by ten in December 1978, then lost one 311 to 310 on 28 March 1979. Sources: ITV News history of confidence votes, Wikipedia article on the 1979 vote.
• Brazil’s provisional measures. Take effect immediately, last 60 days (extendable once to 120), and become law only if Congress approves. Sources: Library of Congress, Global Legal Monitor, Wikipedia: President of Brazil.

Real cases never match a game scenario exactly, so each debrief says how yours differs. If you spot an error, we want to hear about it.

From the creators of The Federated Republic. The same people also build The Federated Republic, a separate project that develops one complete fictional constitutional design in detail. Constitution Lab is independent from it: the Lab compares many designs and prefers none.