[Inside Government] Opinion: A More Comprehensive Executive Re-Imagining




Opinion: A More Comprehensive Executive Re-Imagining
What does Europeia need now?

Written by McEntire












When I ran in the Senate by-election to replace Sopo, I laid out three criteria for any executive reform. Those criteria were:
  1. Create more exciting elections.
  2. Integrate the domestic and foreign sides of executive policy, which are not and should not be separate.
  3. Facilitate a manageable workload for the new executive.
The Senate is quickly nearing a consensus proposal, with few major issues left to be ironed out. But it's my duty as a senator to ask ... are we meeting these criteria? The first two, I think certainly yes. Restoring the presidency will create more exciting elections, and obviously will integrate the two sides of policy. But are we creating an executive that works any better than it did before?

In order to rein in the executive portfolio, the Senate has made two major changes to the pre-split system: (1) Vice Presidents will also have a ministry portfolio; and (2) there will likely be a "soft cap" of 6 ministries, after which the confirmation threshold will rise. When we really think about it, those two changes do not add up to an executive that is doing less than before. Senators will need to hold the executive accountable for doing less, which frankly the Senate -- past and present (myself included) -- have been loath to do.

Imagine Malashaan being given Istillian's portfolio on top of his own right now, or vice versa. I don't know if we, as the Senate, have truly thought through what this could look like. As I have advocated since the beginning of this reform process, let's go back to basics. I want to propose an alternate system, and start off with some definitions, so that we are all on the same page.
  • Policy area - a group of related policies that are wide enough to merit a dedicated section of the executive government. Examples of this would be military gameplay (the Navy), the recruitment and retention of new members (Interior), and regional festivals/events (Culture). A policy area can be taken in a different direction by political concerns and innovation, and generally requires a full organization (ministry) performing different tasks to accomplish a goal. One person can't do all the work required to sustain a policy area.
  • Functions - a mission accomplished by an organization, that is typically ongoing. Some of these are within ministries, while some are outside. For instance, the function of public media is accomplished through the EBC and EBC Radio. The writing of Legislative Assessments (LAs) is the ongoing function of the Ministry of Justice. The ongoing function of regional intelligence is served by the Europeian Intelligence Agency (EIA).
  • Tasks - a task, like a function, would be an ongoing mission, but accomplished by an individual or small group. And, importantly, it cuts across policy areas. Examples of this would be communications - all ministries focus on communicating their efforts. Or employment and staffing. Or, to use a current example, coordination across ministries.
I make these distinctions because it is important to the executive structure that I will lay out. When I initially proposed this structure to the Senate, I showed the following graphic (hastily made, but I think it serves its function).

structure.png

Let's tie the definitions above to the chart. Those in orange, which I have labeled as "Executive Staff," serve tasks. Communications strategy, coordination, and legal advice are three tasks that span across different areas of policy (LAs are... decidedly not an executive task, and I'm not sure why they're under the executive, to be honest). In blue, which I have labeled as "Ministries," serve policy areas. The Navy and Foreign Affairs, Interior, and Culture Ministries serve large areas of the region, which don't overlap, serve a specific mission, and require an organization to complete that mission.

As for the third category, which I have termed "Semi-Independent Agencies." I say "semi" because these agencies ultimately report to the executive. But, the reason that I have given them some independence, is that they serve particular functions that wouldn't change from administration to administration. The mission of the EIA can continue independent of the direction of a particular administration. The WAA can continue to administer the way it works from administration to administration, while working with the FA Minister to serve our foreign policy goals.

The more controversial proposal I've made is giving our public media entities, the EBC and EBC Radio, more independence. In my opinion, the Director of the EBC and EBC Radio should have appointments that span more than a term, that way they are given a longer time to build up their infrastructure and give us more consistency. Here's one important distinction: what we call communications is actually two functions: public media and communications strategy. Comms strategy would include dispatches, press releases, and many of the current functions of the Communications Ministry. Public media is the actual organization that puts those things out, in this case the EBC and EBC Radio. In my mind, these are separate. Comms strategy is a task that spans across policy areas, public media is an ongoing function that can be separate from political considerations. For that reason, I have proposed a communications staffer who closely coordinates with the semi-independent EBC and EBC Radio, whose head is still appointed by the President.

All of that is to say, I believe that this strategy I have laid out accomplishes all three of the goals that I personally had for reform: more exciting elections, integration of the domestic and foreign, and a manageable executive, where the President is directly managing a smaller number of ministries. Some essential functions would be mainly managed outside, but ultimately accountable to the President. These agencies could continue to run their employment through Employment Central, and work in much the same way as they do now, but with a longer time horizon.

In order to accomplish this re-imagined executive, I would propose the following three changes to the current reform proposal:
  1. Create, as Prim has discussed elsewhere, a separate act that lays out what these semi-independent agencies are, what their powers are, how they're defined, and the term length of their directors
  2. Decide which functions we would want to be semi-independent (I anticipate this being the hardest part)
  3. Name the actual core ministries, with a mechanism to add others if need be (with a high threshold). The current reform has sought to limit the number of allowed ministries, but curiously hasn't proposed what an actual cabinet structure would look like. Which do we keep, which do we cut? The only answer given to this has been "soft cap"
This is what I would propose. The bottom line is this: the reform was sold to all of us as "Executive Modernization." What is modern about the current proposal? What, apart from merging the two and attempting to sort-of cap the number of ministries, will change from the previous presidency? Are we taking a less creative route in order to get something done? And ultimately, what could we accomplish if we took a more expansive view?

A modern executive could look a hell of a lot different than the parameters under which the current reform debate is defined. The only question is, do we want to pursue it?


 
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this subject, McEntire. As a Senator, you have presented a plan that I am happy shows an alternative to the course we've been heading.
 
While I'm not completely sold on the effectiveness of every single detail here, I hope the Senate takes this proposal very seriously and discusses it thoroughly. I am glad we're seeing some options being presented to diversify our government.
 
I'm in agreement with the above sentiments, and in this case I'm thankful to have you as a Senator to propose a slightly different course. This is a well thought out and drafted idea - thank you McEntire.
 
After thinking about this proposal for awhile, I'm opposed to this idea because I don't actually see it solving any problems from our present situation and the checkboxes you set out to achieve with this are not particular to your specific proposal or are not applicable to it at all.

Going through the goals this proposal aledgedly acomplishes:
1.Create more exciting elections.
Your article barely touches on this and mostly just resorts to the statement that bringing back the Presidency will create more exciting elections. I heartily disagree. First of all our eletions of late have been very exciting. Since the split all but one of the FM elections have been contested and relatively exciting election to watch. These elections alone have at minimum matched and likely exceeded the level of competition and excitement displayed in possible Presidential Elections. Additionally, while CoS elections have certianly been less exciting, given that FM elections already match the competition of Presidential election, the ocassional competitive CoS election is really just an additional layer. In summary, in terms of the pure quantity of exctiting elections it's really not possible for a Presidential system to outmatch our present set up.

2. Integrate the domestic and foreign sides of executive policy, which are not and should not be separate.
Pretty much every proposal that switches back to a presidential model will do this so it's not really any more effective in meeting this point than any of the other proposals.

3. Facilitate a manageable workload for the new executive.
Your proposal dosent really do this either. Given the high level of cordination necessary with the Ministry of Communications across the various parts of the executive, spinning it off to be somewhat independent does not really reduce the workload or purview of the executive at all. Everything that presently needs to get done will still need to be done and the lines of communication to the semi-independent Min-Comm will be fractured by a weird system. Further, the main source of "bloat", in my view, is duplicative minsitries and positions of which you propose by having a coordination deputy to just coordinate with the EBC to get all those required dispatches ect done. If anything the President not directly managing the EBC will probably create more headaches and problems than if the minister was just directly under thier purview given the added bureacracy and unnecessary steps added when it gets spun off.

The only problem I see this proposal solving is reducing the number of actual confirmed ministers to fit in a stringent cap that a select few Senators seemed to still be tied to. Myself and the majority of the Europeian populace are opposed to such caps and if they are not put in the bill, I don't really see any actual utility for this proposal.
 
3. Facilitate a manageable workload for the new executive.
Your proposal dosent really do this either. Given the high level of cordination necessary with the Ministry of Communications across the various parts of the executive, spinning it off to be somewhat independent does not really reduce the workload or purview of the executive at all. Everything that presently needs to get done will still need to be done and the lines of communication to the semi-independent Min-Comm will be fractured by a weird system. Further, the main source of "bloat", in my view, is duplicative minsitries and positions of which you propose by having a coordination deputy to just coordinate with the EBC to get all those required dispatches ect done. If anything the President not directly managing the EBC will probably create more headaches and problems than if the minister was just directly under thier purview given the added bureacracy and unnecessary steps added when it gets spun off.
I don't think I was entirely clear, this third piece was the one that I was trying to get at with this proposal. I agree with you that any of the merge proposals on the table would accomplish the first two goals. But I want to talk about this point, because I think it's key.

My point is that we would separate the two missions of MinComm. The communications strategy person, who would presumably handle (with a staff) dispatches, press releases, and other communications, would be under the direct supervision of the President. The EBC, which would remain as a public media entity, would continue its current programming of articles, opinions, etc. If the administration wanted to publish something in the EBC, it would do so through much the same channels that it does currently. Actually, not much would change. But the Communications person who works directly for the President would be freed up to coordinate communications strategy across Ministries, because they wouldn't also have to worry about directly managing a newspaper. From your response, it doesn't seem like this distinction is clear, and I hope I've been able to clear it up.

But what to do with the EBC is actually a sidebar of the structure that I am proposing here. The overall structure is what would reduce bloat, and in my view we then move on to the discussion of what fits where, in terms of current Ministries. I think that the EBC belongs in a certain category, but ultimately for anything to get done the Senate and the people have to agree with me. So, we'll see how the conversation develops.
 
But the Communications person who works directly for the President would be freed up to coordinate communications strategy across Ministries, because they wouldn't also have to worry about directly managing a newspaper.

This is simply trying to identify and fix a problem that just doesn't exist. And if it does exist now, it's an artifact of the split, not workload.
 
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