Levels of In-Character-Ness
On the General Assembly's Place in NationStates
Written by Maowi
The General Assembly (GA) is, no doubt about it, a firmly in-character institution. In-character member nations vote on resolutions and send in-character ambassadors to snarkily debate proposals in the GA forums. Regions and regional delegates don't exist in the GA; referring to them in a proposal would be a rules violation and prevent the proposal reaching vote. But ironically, regional delegates can make or break a resolution; NationStates' ten most powerful delegates control an enormous total of over 4,800 votes, and a big delegate stomp is the stuff of nightmares for GA authors. Evidently, our collective vote as a region is important: with Aexnidaral - our World Assembly delegate - having 254 endorsements, Europeia can pack a mean punch, especially as part of the World Assembly Legislative League (WALL). But how do we - or should we - determine how to vote in this weird mash-up of different levels of "in-character-ness," for want of a better (or ideally real) word?
As a democratic region, our delegate's vote is decided by the citizenry (albeit mainly by custom; the World Assembly Act (2017) prioritises "the directive of the chief of state" or the councillor of World Assembly affairs over the citizens' vote). But the Council of World Assembly Affairs regularly provides information for voters (IFVs) on resolutions at vote whose recommendations, by and large, end up being reflected in the final citizens' vote tally and therefore in the delegate's vote. There are a number of clear considerations to make when deciding which vote to recommend in an IFV. Perhaps most obvious is the quality of the resolution - that is, does it actually do what it's trying to do without leaving major loopholes or causing unreasonable complications for World Assembly member nations as a result of compliance? Regardless of your opinion of the resolution's aim, if that aim is not met, or is botched, the resolution is not worth supporting. A more controversial and in most cases less important factor is authorship and the opinion of our allies (such as WALL). Unless there are objective problems with the standard of the resolution, it is simply good foreign affairs policy to vote in favour of resolutions authored by members of WALL regions (or, to a lesser extent, embassy regions). Moreover, using our vote in the World Assembly as a deterrent for unfavourable behaviour, or as retribution for offences against our allies, can be powerful, as in the recent case of the Confederation of Corrupt Dictators (CCD) when then-Chief of State HEM announced that Europeia would be opposing all resolutions authored by its delegate and viceroy, Jocospor. Jocospor and other CCD higher-ups had been trying to pass GA resolutions for years in an attempt to improve their reputation, and prominent GA authors opposing based on authorship drew critique. However, the CCD's attempts at espionage in The North Pacific received interregional condemnation and a statement such as HEM's, in this new context, sends a strong and decisive message.
But what if the resolution has a solid execution and our allies have little vested interest in it? What then? On one level of "in-character-ness," Europeia as a region - as a group of individuals functioning under one government - has a fairly strong collective set of values, generally seeking to advance civil rights and the safety and quality of life of member nations' residents. The problem, however, is that the GA does not acknowledge the existence of this aspect of Europeia, and that our community of individuals - even in-character as our governmental roles - exists on a completely different dimension to the residents of the GA's member nations. Our nations in a purely NationStates-based sense, including how we theme them, how we fill in their fields, what factbooks we make for them, and how we roleplay them if we do, are much more intrinsically linked to the GA's in-character nature. Many vote not with the values they as a real person hold, but to fit with their nation's statistics and in-character outlook, and this is surely a completely valid way of voting. For example, Tinfect is an extremely valuable member of the GA community for her authorship and contributions to drafting, but is the subject of a Security Council resolution at vote to condemn her nation, because she roleplays it as an authoritarian, dystopian hell-hole. This is reflected in her nation's GA persona; as the Condemnation notes, Tinfect roleplays non-compliance with a number of civil rights resolutions, but this doesn't make her - the player - any less meritable. So does it make sense to issue recommendations in our GA IFVs that reflect Europeia's regional principles, principles held by a community based on a forum so remote from the basic NationStates game? Would it be a bad thing to let our citizens vote as their nation would? The GA makes this a difficult decision because of the way it inseparably ties together interregional relationships and interactions with affairs within each specific nation. A key part of the GA's value is this in-character aspect, but how that translates to our delegate's vote, representing the region as a whole, is debatable. A possibility could be to produce IFVs exploring the effects of the resolution in question without giving a final recommended vote, for GA resolutions which do not have issues in terms of quality or in terms of our allies' stances.
It would be interesting to see whether removing the overall recommendation as suggested would have any impact on the customary uniformity we tend to see in our regional votes on GA resolutions. It is entirely possible that on the forum, nobody really considers their gameside nation with any significance, even when voting to determine the delegate's vote in GA resolutions. Although that would be a shame, it could make such a practice futile. In that case, the area to address would be Europeians' views on the position of the GA in our culture, through Council of World Assembly Affairs measures and articles such as this one.
Or maybe … we just like it the way it is.
