[A Little Legalese] Europeia on Reform - Executive Modernisation Poll Results and Analysis






Europeia on Reform
Executive Modernisation Poll Results and Analysis

Written by Maowi



In order to assess Europeia's overall stance on the debate which has once again come to the fore in the region, becoming prominent in our latest general election and in Senate and Grand Hall discussion, the Europeian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) conducted a poll on executive reform, garnering 26 responses. Its results are displayed and analysed here, and will hopefully inform the Senate on public opinion as it takes crucial decisions shaping our political landscape.

Unification of the Executive Branch



Comments:

The split hasn't worked. CoS is a coronation and ordinary citizens aren't taking an interest in FA anymore.

The CoS should just be elected by the public. Reunification won't actually fix any of the issues the region is going through currently, I really cannot understand how anyone could think it would

Can't hurt.

Why go back?

I'm not sure whether reunifying will actually solve the problems in the region. I think having two sections, dealing within and without, help to keep Domestic Affairs in order while also having Foreign Affairs in order. If the reunifying is to happen, I'd suggest there be created a Minister of Foreign Affairs to preside over a council.
I believe that the separated executive would be ideal if we had more people to cover these positions, or even interest for both of them. FA is still considered fairly daunting to work your way up in, and it really shows compared to the Domestic side.

I support unification to allow greater flexibility, but I think we need to more fundamentally address our expectations of government


On February 3 2019, President Sopo signed into law Europeia's sixth constitution, officially enacting the executive split. In an attempt to make high executive office more accessible to citizens, the government was split into a domestic branch and a foreign branch, each with a separate leader. Recently, however, concerns about widespread apathy towards foreign affairs within Europeia and issues with burnout and activity levels have prompted calls for reunification of the executive under a single leader.

A definite majority of respondents were in favour of reunification, although opposition to the idea is certainly not negligible. A sizeable portion, too, were unconvinced either way, and could potentially lend significant political heft to the group wishing to keep the executive split in place. Based both on the poll's comments and on conversations happening in Europeia at large, much of the hesitation may be due to doubts that structural changes to the executive would propel the cultural changes needed to make them successful. The Senate appears to be firmly on the path of merging the executive again, and this result is reassuring in terms of general support for this direction. On the other hand, Europeia's next first minister may have a big decision to make and the numbers are far from affirming that a rejection of reunification would be political suicide.

Interestingly, an entire 70 percent of those who joined Europeia from 2019 onwards, and so have never known a unified system (or have experienced one only briefly), were in support of merging the executive. In fact, the 20 percent in that age bracket who expressed definite opposition to the merge joined this year, suggesting that our very newest citizens are most open to change. The four other "no" responses, however, were spread out evenly across ages.

Deputy Chief Executive Office


Historically, second-in-command roles have been a point of contention, both with a unified and with a split executive. Although there have undeniably been extremely successful vice presidents, second ministers, and vice chiefs of state, these offices have at times seem redundant, with their holders and respective bosses struggling to find a defined and productive place for them in government. On the other hand, a recent speech from current Second Minister Istillian highlighted what the role can bring to a government and to a first minister, acting as an adviser and a bouncing board for ideas - and perhaps the presence of a running mate to lend reassurance is particularly important if making running for high executive office less intimidating to newcomers is one of our priorities as a region. On balance, an overwhelming majority of Europeians come out in favour of having a deputy leader in government; only two respondents were uncertain, and another three in opposition. This is again in line with the Senate's apparent direction at the moment. All those who chose options other than support for retaining a deputy chief executive joined the region between 2014 and 2016 - all perhaps experienced enough citizens not to feel that the additional comfort of a second-in-command is beneficial enough to outweigh the downsides of a redundant office, of which they may have seen several examples.


The Senate has floated various options regarding the methods by which a deputy chief executive officer could be elected - either, as has been the procedure so far, as a running mate to the candidate for the top job, or separately, in which case their new boss would either have to give them a Cabinet position or have them solely in an advisory or chief-of-staff style role. Indeed, the Senate seems to be tending towards the latter option, leaving the chief executive officer the choice as to what role their deputy takes up. It therefore comes as a surprise that 88.5 percent of respondents to this poll stated support for having the two elected on a joint ticket, with none definitively advocating the other option. This may simply be a result of the potential complications in organising elections in that manner, but equally it could be a show of opposition to the concept itself. It remains to be seen whether this information affects the Senate's route in this area.


This question is the first in which respondents displayed an extremely even split in opinion. Exactly half of respondents believed that any deputy chief executive officer should serve as a Cabinet minister as well as in their advisory capacity, while a little under that number wanted the option to be left open to individual tickets to decide; only one person believed they should be compelled not to serve in the Cabinet. In the Senate and Grand Hall debates on the matter, those in favour of the second-in-command being a Cabinet member have argued that the measure is necessary to help avoid a bloated executive, leading to a more streamlined and efficient government, while those with the opposite stance proposed that having an officer dedicated solely to being an adviser can be of great value to a leader. The Senate appears to be heading down this second route, which is helpful to reduce the complexity of a system in which the two top positions are elected separately.

I think having a deputy of some form is a good idea, however I do think that the deputy should be allowed to serve in a Ministerial role also. That could either mean a deputy is elected alongside the CEO and could then be nominated to a Ministry also. Or it could be something similar to the UK where any Cabinet minister is given the role of First Secretary of State where they are the de facto second in command while also serving in their Ministerial role.

Not needed unless the chief executive requires a helper like a chief of staff with specific duties for the term.

It would help the chief executive officer to have less work, in my opinion.

I hope the Senate doesn't seriously have the VP elected separately from the President. That doesn't really address the issues, and it overcomplicates the role of the Vice Presidency and its relationship to the Presidency. I would prefer to have the VP designated among ministers. We've seen before how useless the Vice Presidency can be alone when the Pres and VP have to find things for the VP to do.

Forcing the deputy to be in the cabinet puts more pressure on the executive head to provide all of the "big picture" direction. There is more than enough work to be done to justify having a deputy executive who is not assigned to a specific ministry.

The Cabinet


Whereas some were perhaps questioning whether reunifying the executive could help address cultural issues such as staffing difficulties and burnout, reform of Cabinet structure could potentially be the decisive factor in solving these. However, the options available all rely on a delicate balance of other factors, and reform must be accompanied by an according shift in values and expectations of the Cabinet in order to be successful. Imposing restrictions on the size or make-up of the Cabinet will only end up forcing fewer people to do more things, unless their expected workload is also reduced.

Of the 26 respondents, 11 - a little under half - believed that the chief executive officer should have complete discretion over the composition of their Cabinet, commanding significantly more votes than any other single option. 34.6 percent of respondents expressed support for some sort of limitation on the number of Cabinet positions available; 3 of these thought this limit should be absolute, while the other 6 wanted some flexibility with oversight provided by the Senate. Those who wanted either a hard cap on Cabinet positions or indeed wanted to define, with no flexibility, what those positions should be all joined Europeia in 2019 or 2020, suggesting that older members are perhaps more comfortable with having an responsive form of government with the ability to adapt to changing circumstances.


The proposal for elections of Cabinet members, whose case was recently made in an EBC article by Calvin Coolidge, received little love from poll respondents, with only one person voting in favour of it. While the idea has the potential to bring a great deal of excitement to the election season, many have voiced concerns that in practice it would run into fatal problems, such as a lack of candidates volunteering for certain posts. General consensus in the Senate seems to match this poll's results, with little support for the idea.

The CEO should be allowed to shape the Cabinet to their own desires based on what they think is necessary for the region. The Senate can reject nominees or the creation of new Ministries if it believes such a creation is unnecessary (it's done this before!). The Senate should perform some oversight and prevent executive bloat.

Elected would be interesting, but I'm not sure it's practical as things are currently. There should be no restrictions on cabinet members, short of being confirmed by the senate

By the gods don't elect ministers!

In my view, the cabinet members should be appointed and dismissed as the chief executive officer sees fit, with no limit of members.

Terrible idea to take this from the Executive.

I'd be interested in seeing what elected cabinet positions would look like in practice, but whether it'd stay would be dependent on how well it works tested out.

Not all Cabinet Minister elections would have equal competitiveness. The head of the executive should be able to nominate to their discretion, with the scrutiny of the Senate. We must stop equating the 96% statistic of approval of nominees throughout Euro's history as the Senate being a simple "rubber stamp". Most executive heads would have reasonable picks for cabinet, and it's the Senate's job to scrutinize deeper. There have been very fruitful results from scrutinizing nominees' experiences and agenda; the Senate has existing powers to continue scrutinizing the executive and the ministers themselves throughout the term to ensure that they're up to par and accountable.

The discussion of this is totally misguided. There is not a problem with the size of cabinets, there is a problem with a lack of junior staff. Forcing smaller cabinets will not solve this, it will just make it harder for the executive to tackle ambitious projects. We need to account for the now, but we should not stop aiming for a brighter future.

Make the CoS elected by everyone and things will improve. This should be tried before making any other massive changes

Under a unified executive we should really have focus on what foreign affairs will look like - I'd hope people get involved just as much, if not more.

 
This data is incredibly well analyzed, and should be very helpful for the Senate as the discussion continues. Excellent job, Maowi. I'd also like to say that I did not vote for the elected ministers, I was uncertain. So somebody out there supports the idea who isn't me!
 
Wonderful analysis, Maowi. It's great to see you come back in style, and with such … numbers … excuse me while I go cry with excitement in the corner.
 
This is seriously some top quality analysis Maowi! It is fascinating though that while there are some points I think the majority agree on here, there are other areas like the deputy officer role, and responsibilities they should hold, that receive a bit of a mixed response. Overall I think this provides a great insight into what we want our government to look like, but there are still a few kinks to work out yet, and a little ways to go in getting there.
 
Interestingly, an entire 70 percent of those who joined Europeia from 2019 onwards, and so have never known a unified system (or have experienced one only briefly), were in support of merging the executive. In fact, the 20 percent in that age bracket who expressed definite opposition to the merge joined this year, suggesting that our very newest citizens are most open to change.
This is pretty interesting. I don't know if I have deeper analysis to offer, but there's something percolating at the back of my mind about this statistic re: the potential re-merger of the Executive.
 
Back
Top