Consider the organization of the Soviet Union. The Russian President is de-facto Premier of the Soviet Union because Russia has military and economic strength above the other nations. Every member nation of the USSR is its own independent country, but what Russia says goes. Every district in the story operates independently, but the First Chancellor is de-facto Chancellor of the whole nation.

Now imagine the USSR maintains this organization but is just... less corrupt. This is the organization of the nation in the story, and has some of the same balances. If First is Russia, Eighth is, say, Latvia. Smaller population, smaller economy, smaller power, but unlike the USSR, dissidents will not be brutally suppressed, and popular opinion is a larger influence in First than it would be in Soviet Russia.