Every kind really! 'Political' is quite broad, I guess. It has to be the kind of game that politicians themselves would enjoy playing, because they're basically the readership for the magazine. Anything which reflects political life would work - obviously Diplomacy does this brilliantly for actual diplomacy, but for politics itself?
And then more broadly, I don't really know that many boardgames to be honest... Civ would be a good one I guess...

I know Risk is similar to Diplomacy except players take turns instead of going all at once. I may know of a few more but I can't really think of any right now.

Check out the card game "Resistance".

I have no idea why this URL is so long, but if BGG starts making sense or intuitive interfaces then Hell is probably experiencing snow

http://boardgamegeek.com/geeksearch.php?action=search&advsearch=1&objecttype=boardgame&q=&include%5Bdesignerid%5 =&geekitemname=&include%5Bpublisherid%5 =&geekitemname=&range%5Byearpublished%5 %5Bmin%5 =&range%5Byearpublished%5 %5Bmax%5 =&range%5Bminage%5 %5Bmax%5 =&floatrange%5Bavgrating%5 %5Bmin%5 =&floatrange%5Bavgrating%5 %5Bmax%5 =&range%5Bnumvoters%5 %5Bmin%5 =&floatrange%5Bavgweight%5 %5Bmin%5 =&floatrange%5Bavgweight%5 %5Bmax%5 =&range%5Bnumweights%5 %5Bmin%5 =&searchuser=Valis2501&range%5Bminplayers%5 %5Bmax%5 =&range%5Bmaxplayers%5 %5Bmin%5 =&playerrangetype=normal&range%5Bplayingtime%5 %5Bmax%5 =&propertyids%5B%5 =1001&B1=Submit

ok so the webdip formatting fucked that up. Here it is in a different form

http://bit.ly/1u3kPuu

Christ, you're worse than Bo.

Does this mean I need to start a wall of quotations as well? I'm knew here and haven't pissed off enough people I thought.

Wow Valis, that's a pretty formidable list. I like the look of Imperial, although isn't that just a complicated version of Diplomacy? Twilight Struggle looks like a history lesson. Die Macher looks awesome.

The bond-mechanic of Imperial is brilliant for a special rules-game..

Would anyone be interested in trying that? We'll need dummy accounts or e-mail.

Also @2ndWhiteLine: did you just say Christ is worse than Jesus?

Lol Christ is worse than bo_sox?*
Epic fail there.

Twilight Struggle is also the overall top rated board game on the authoritative website for board gaming, which may be of interest by itself for you. One would not suspect that such a heavy, long, strictly two-layer, historical/political game would hold that spot.

Die Macher is a classic and takes at least 4 hours to re-enact a German election, it's a beast of a game but still coveted in many people's collections.

How does Die Macher actually work, then? Is it especially effective? Surely reproducing an election would be virtually impossible...

As one of the fathers of Eurogaming, it's much more complex than our Lord and Savior, Diplomacy. Dice Tower has an overview and BGG has the full rules. It's about 100+ USD for a used copy, so I don't own it myself (I can't get all my 10 minute games to the table, much less my 4 hour games!)

Dune, later remade as Rex (due to the Herbert estate refusing to re-license the IP), has an interesting mechanic in that while alliances can change, they can only change at defined points between turns and are binding when current.

Poleconomy may be worth looking at.

It is the most boring game ever invented though...

Poleconomy looks hilariously dull. Good story behind it anyway... they made money by selling the square as advertising!

One thing is that I'm trying to make a clear line between negotiation and politics.

Boardgames are very very good at providing interesting economical and negotiation environments. I can name hundreds of good games that do that. Politics specifically however is more rare and tricky, because it implies a long term effect. I feel it would be a disservice to call something like The Resistance or Nothing Personal political games because they are no more politics than bartering at a garage sale is. In that respect, boardgames are actually very rare and difficult to correctly simulate politics, and mostly this is rectified by making the theme very politically centered such as with Diplomacy or Die Macher.

If Diplomacy was rethemed as different Old Ones trying to be the ones to take over the world, the mechanics wouldn't change at all, it would still make sense thematically, but I wouldn't call it politics. In fact, Diplomacy has no on-board or mechanical connection to politics, it's purely in the fact that open negotiation is explicitly allowed and encouraged. I don't think that many boardgames gravitate toward politics at all. There are probably 10 times more games about farming in the Mediterranean or trading jewels and spices in the desert!

I guess the problem there is that politics are closely related to policies and in essence, the player kind of decides his policies by making moves and such according to his best judgment.
What I mean to say is that policies and strategies are perhaps the same thing in a board game.

For example, if a player were to decide to focus on building his military in any particular game, why force him to select a 'focus on military' policy if he might as well simply build a military himself rather than select a policy to do it for him, almost certainly simplifying the game.

Not sure how clear my point is there, but it all boils down to this:
A player always acts by his own policies in a sense, so there's no point adding a policies-mechanic.

The other part of politics, negotiations, is present in enough games, especially if you want it to be, but that's not what you're looking for clearly.

Actually that point about negotiations being present in all sorts of boardgames is a very important one. Horse-trading is what politics is about really. But then, it's what lots of other things are about too...

Yeah but it's not the part of politics Valis is looking for clearly, hence I explained my theory on why the other big 'branch' of politics, policies, would logically be left out of pretty much every boardgame.

To give an example for that explanation as well:

You don't want to play Settlers enacting the 'build lots of roads' policy and sit back while the roads, possibly quite ineffectively, are being built 'automatically'.

Don't know if anyone has mentioned Axis and Allies, but it's a fantastic WW2 simulation game in which each player takes control over one of the major powers during WW2 (Germany, USSR, Britain, etc.) The starting position is the political boundaries in 1942 I believe, and essentially the players try to win WW2 as a coalition (axis vs. allies). It's played somewhat like risk in terms of combat, but there are different types of units (tanks, planes) and each does a different thing well and a different thing poorly. It's worth looking into.

I would definitely second the suggestion of Twilight Struggle.

I absolutely love Axis and Allies, especially the Global 1940 edition. One of my favorite board games.

In terms of strategy games, I would suggest Attack! and Attack! Expansion. I haven't really been able to get enough players to play a real game, though. Axis & Allies is simpler, well-known, and easier to get a game going given that there are factions, but there are too many versions now to really refer to Axis & Allies as one game. (Risk is little more than a game of chance, with whichever player allowed to control continents always winning and a ticking time bomb in the card reinforcements to make sure the game ends quickly and unceremoniously.)

For abstract games, Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne are worth a try. Stratego is also great for a 2-player game.

If you are including tabletop war games, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000 and other Games Workshop titles are unmatched. They require a large time investment, however, since you have to assemble and paint every unit yourself.

JECE, I think those are all great games to play (although Settlers and Carc aren't abstracts, they're euros/german). However I don't know about their applicability to Politics in Games.

Valis2501: You've played "Attack!"?

I have heard good things but not played it myself

Spider Solitaire.

Well if card games are included, you may want to take a look at truco. There are many versions, though.