[Beyond the Borders] Commendation and Condemnation in 2020






Commendation and Condemnation in 2020
A World Assembly Changing Tack?

Written by Maowi



Both chambers of the World Assembly (WA) are seeing extraordinary levels of activity this year. The General Assembly regularly has three or four different proposals in queue and the Security Council (SC) has seen the passage of eleven resolutions since the start of June. Not only is the SC thriving in terms of activity, however; the proposals being drafted and submitted to the WA’s younger chamber have undergone a distinct shift in focus and style compared to previous years.

One of the inevitable discussions that surface when debating SC resolutions, specifically Commendations and Condemnations (C&Cs), concerns itself with what kind of activity is worthy of SC recognition. Recently authors, delegates, and voters alike seem to have expanded their acceptance of what deserves rewarding beyond the conventional Raiding and Defending, contributions to regional and interregional politics, and occasional WA or issues authorship C&Cs. The last five resolutions (all C&Cs) passed in the SC used card trading, issue writing, roleplay, and national statistics extensively as justification, as well as WA authorship and a brief mention of efforts within Forest’s regional scene in Commend Frieden-und Freudenland. There was not a single mention of raiding or defending (in the commonly recognised sense of the word - a practice known as "card defending" was in fact mentioned in Condemn Noahs Second Country.) Compare that with a randomly chosen SC page from early 2018. The difference is noticeable at first glance, with three Liberations dominating the list. The next five C&Cs concern themselves with interregional alliances, military achievements, WA authorship, regional leadership, and in April 2018 one roleplay Commendation.

This preeminence of card trading, roleplaying, and statistics in SC resolutions - and especially the introduction of these topics to the Condemnation - is then a relatively recent phenomenon. The SC ruleset constructed upon its founding in 2009 was not built with such topics in mind. Rather, it was made to craft a world in which NationStates is not a game but the in-character stage for regional gameplay and interregional conflict and alliances. SC authors cannot use the term “card” in their proposals; most refer instead to “international artwork.” Similarly, issues authorship has been variously termed “presenting pressing matters,” “staging incidents that present a menu of possible policy actions to national leaders,” and simply “bringing attention to issues of national significance.” Take SC 317, Commend Trotterdam. An uninformed voter without having read the resolution’s discussion thread would be hard-pressed to work out that it concerns the nominee’s contributions to issues drafting and their creation of a tool to accurately predict the statistical outcomes of choosing each issue option. Discussion in the SC forum of proposals in their drafting stages often revolves around the best way of presenting certain types of achievements, and imagination and ingenuity are rewarded. Fed also by relatively low activity levels in the military gameplay scene, writing C&Cs has moved from being an exercise almost entirely in research, towards being an effort to display authorial flair and creativity as much as giving accolades to the most exceptional nominees.

As authors bring more and more of these newer types of C&Cs to international attention, our dialogue in assessing and evaluating them also needs to change. The immediate consideration to make is whether or not these types of contributions to NationStates are suitable for SC recognition. There are many who argue that the SC should constrain itself to dealing, as it historically has tended to, with intraregional and interregional politics and military gameplay, and that including cards, statistics, and roleplay dilutes the value of the C&C. Indeed, whether or not you hold that overall view, taking care to explicitly break down and analyse the actual substance of a proposal becomes critical. The richer and more ambitious SC proposals become in language, the more authors work out how to spin entire clauses out of virtually nothing - and the more we find ourselves Commending or Condemning not necessarily deserving nominees as the proposal texts impress and potentially even mislead uninformed voters.

It’s not all bad; this more inventive way of writing C&Cs may come, to many, as a welcome and refreshing interlude to the perhaps overworked format of many SC resolutions of the past years. But it does mean we as voters must exercise more care in evaluating SC proposals, and more thought at the voting station as to which ballot we cast.

 
This is a great article! As for this trend, I find it good that C&C aren't only issued for R/D in that it provides diversity but of course we should be on the lookout that targets are worthy of them
 
Amazing article, very detailed.
I guess I'd like to add that as a region we need to have discussions on how to view these new proposals.
We recently had the case of an SC going FOR a condemnation while a majority voted AGAINST.
I mention this because cards were a focus of the resolution.
As cards are obviously here to stay, and their impact is becoming heavier over time, we need to ask ourselves how to adapt.
As you mentioned, NationStates is different than it was in 2009, and we need to make sure we're up to date.
 
This article insightfully points out an interesting phenomenon with the WA that we will likely have to consider for the foreseeable future. Nice work!
 
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