» Sun Jun 10, 2012 3:46 am
As far as I've been able to glean from Lore (I'm definitely no Lore Master), the Imperial government, more or less, grants a certain level of autonomy to the provinces, so long as they pay taxes, follow Imperial laws, and generally recognize imperial authority.
As someone else pointed out, the Jarls are hereditary - most of the ruling families have held their positions since, probably, before Talos founded the 2nd Empire. What was the state of Skyrim before the founding of the empire? An independent state which had been founded by Nords who had invaded Skyrim and engaged in a very effective ethnic cleansing, forcing all other races out of government and, mostly, out of the province entirely, as far as I can tell.
So, all the jarls are Nords because they are the descendants of an ethnic group that founded an ethnic state.
So, the civil war in this game is likely the first set of circumstances in the "recent history" of Skyrim where the Empire might have had reasonable justification to appoint their own, chosen Jarls, and chose some non-Nords. However, it seems in the interest of trying to not incite more rebellion amongst the Nords, they chose Jarls from Nord families that remained loyal to the Empire in the civil war, which is a perfectly understandable strategy.