>>508131816 (OP)I always got the impression that you've had quite a few different phases of Cardassia in a relatively short time period, each of them various mixes of baseline 90s Hollywood interpretation of ideologies.
The Cardassia which incorporated Bajor initially was well established as more advanced compared to them, going there as would an old fashioned European colonial nation.
Over time, with the Feds and Breen being constant pressures on them, they've degenerated more into an NK tier authoriatarian regime, complete with starvation, but with arguably more national flavouring to their socialism.
After they fucked around and found out in the Border Wars, they had their humiliating little Weimar period, then got even further fucked by the Klingons and went full revanchism thanks to Dukat managing to guzzle Vorta spunk especially well.
After that, basic bitch puppet state, for the Dominion pre-war and during, then for the Federation after.