you got fucking kings, Torygg, Helseth, living gods of the Tribunal.... under an "Emperor"? who puts some garrisons around but does.... what exactly?
theres an "East Empire Trading Company"? whats that do?
it kinda seems like a holy roman empire, kinda seems like a regular roman empire. they've got knights, dukes, but a Legion...
yes i know the answer is technically "these jackoffs just made it up as they went" and don't care a lick about political theory but this is exactly the kind of excercise that makes fun speculative historiography
Because the gods themselves demand that there be an emperor to maintain Tamriel and the Daedra and will create dragon breaks (periods of non cannon where the timeline splits) to make this happen. The White-Gold tower literally changed reality to make this happen and the universe is prone to creating empires that unify stuff enough to make games happen but not enough to be functioning.
At the same time we KNOW that at some point in the future of at least one time line the elves take over and begin enslaving all humans or never lost control because cyborg war crimes man Pelinal Whitestrake goes back in time to prevent that. Accidentally genociding huge swaths of people along the way (sometimes in ways that become a major imperial holiday, sometimes in ways that force people to cover it up)
Elder Scrolls lore is dumb and I am cursed with a lot of it.