From December 22nd to 23rd, I conducted a poll in the Grand Hall that garnered 34 responses. I asked people to say which positions in Europeia they would like to attain over the course of their career. This is the exact same poll that I put out in May of this year, and I will frequently be comparing this data to that data from seven months ago. You can read that poll's article here.
Before we dive into the results for this poll I do want to give a brief bit of context about the last poll. For starters, seven months ago we will still under a split executive government. We were only a few weeks away from passing the bill that would undo the process, and this poll was put out to see if the public would even pursue this new job of the Presidency once it was created. Additionally, there was controversy over the Councillor of Coordination position that had been put in place by Chief of State Malashaan to serve as a sort of bridge between the two halves of the executive. For these reasons, there are less positions that exist in the region today than there were back then, and thus there are less positions we had to poll this time around. All of that context out of the way, let's go ahead and get started.
To begin, our first question asked when our respondents started being active in Europeia.
We can see that it is split pretty evenly between our newer and older members. This is roughly the same as it was seven months ago, so the sample of citizens, at least in this regard, is consistent.
Next I asked our respondent what sort of player they would describe themselves as.
Last time it was pretty much 50/50 between "political gameplay" and "equally split". However, this time around we see that "social gameplay" has cut in just a little. They are still the smallest portion of the population polled, but they have grown in number since seven months ago, at the expense of "political gameplay" players.
Now for the interesting part, the rankings! I will present the newest numbers first, then the numbers from seven months ago in parentheses, followed by the change in the two, color coded so green means they grew, and red means they shrunk.
High Executive
President and Vice President now reign supreme as the most popular positions in the region. For those who still had any doubt that the merged government would dissuade people from seeking the top spot, I think these numbers should allay those concerns. Of course, we also know that each Presidential election has been contested so far, a great sign of interest. All of that being said, the last time this poll was taken, these positions did not exist in our region, and people were just going off their idea of what these positions would look like in practice. Now after seeing things in action for the past two terms, it turns out that people still want to be President at roughly the same interest, but Vice President takes the largest tumble of any position on the board, falling from its first overall spot at a sky-high eighty-five interest level to a still impressive sixty-seven. Why is this? For my money, I would say that the position is seen as less visible or prominent than some had hoped, and the position had has mixed satisfaction from the region in the past. This may have put a damper on some of those who had been seeking the role before. The last thing I'm going to note here is that the last time we did this, every deputy position outperformed its supervisor, but this trend has already been broken here this time around. I'll be keeping an eye on our other roles to see what this trend is now.
Senate
Unlike the Presidency, which emerged from the last two terms mostly unscathed, the Senate was not so lucky. The roles of Senator and Speaker both saw double-digit drops from our last poll, and Speaker now fails to capture the interest of a majority of the region. These roles are still popular, particularly, Senator, but they no longer have the same aura of widespread yearning that they once did. I think the easy culprit to blame here is the increased frequency of large-scale debates that may be turning some people away from the roles, particularly Speaker, the position that has to manage these debates and accept responsibility for their results. Here, the deputy does outperform its supervisor, so clear trend as of yet.
Cabinet (Foreign Facing)
Although our government is now in one piece I will still be separating our Cabinet into two here for the sake of comparison. The Ministries in this group are Foreign Affairs, World Assembly Affairs, and Grand Admiral. The biggest success story here is clearly Foreign Affairs, which previously failed to get over 50% interest from the region, but now is among the upper echelon of sought after positions. This is another thing that many who supported the merge hoped would happen as the government merged and Foreign Affairs became more prominent in the government's actions that there would be increased interest. World Assembly Affairs stays pretty much where it was seven months ago, however, capturing only a third of the region's interest. This lack of change can be chalked up to consistent leadership among its ministers in those seven months. It's also worth noting that this position used to be more popular than the Delegacy itself, but this is no longer the case. We'll go into that in a later section. Finally, we have Grand Admiral, the least popular position in the region once again, and it's even less popular than it was seven months ago. Now dropping below one-quarter of the region's interest, this position has yet to receive any sort of popularity boost from the merged government despite becoming much more active and receiving stable leadership. The position remains a powerful arm of our region's foreign policy, of course, but has failed to connect with people in a way that makes them want to strive for such power.
The Chancellery
Another position with a large boost in popularity in Supreme Chancellor, now pursued by over half of the region. Vice Chancellor is not far behind, capturing the interest of exactly half of the region. These positions are of course very unique as they are mostly ceremonial and removed from all other parts of the government. There hasn't been any new blood in these positions for several years, yet many remain hopeful that one day they can achieve this lofty position that remains one of the most sought after roles we have to offer.
World Assembly Delegate
Similar to Supreme Chancellor, this position saw a large boost in interest, the largest of any position. Also similar to Chancellor, we had not seen any new blood in this position for several years. Of course, we just completed a Delegacy transfer this month after years of Aexnidaral, so this position has captured the public's attention in a way that it hasn't had the opportunity to in quite some time. I would think that this renewed attention to the position has sparked a newfound interest in attaining it one day, leading it to leapfrog over the Minister of World Assembly Affairs and become one of the most popular foreign facing positions in the region.
Cabinet (Domestic Facing)
Now we turn to the other half of the Cabinet, which contains the Ministers of Communications, Culture, Interior, and Radio as well as Attorney General. Interestingly, nearly all of these positions have taken a hit or not moved at all since seven months ago, except for Attorney General, which has grown quite a bit more popular. Now all of these positions are pretty much equal in terms of interest from the public as they sit in the mid-forties, just below a majority. It would seem that a lot of these positions are sought by the same people as well, meaning they might be viewed as interchangeable by a good portion of the public. Why that may be is unclear to me exactly, but I'd love to hear some theories on why this is.
Judiciary
Nearly done here, we have the Justices, both Associate and Chief. Associate rises slightly, while Chief falls slightly, but both roughly remain in the same position they were seven months ago. Chief Justice, therefore, remains one of the least popular positions in the region, while Associate Justice remains in the middle of the pack. It seems that the Judiciary has failed to break out much this year, but that's probably to be expected as there has not been much activity from them.
Arnhelm
Last but not least we have Mayor of Arnhelm, representing the least popular section of government. Dropping below thirty percent, Arnhelm continues to struggle to broaden its base of interested members, and we have seen that reflected in the body's activity in the time between polls.
Here are the comments we received for this poll, if you are interested in what people think about our current roles, or any suggestions for new ones:
And that's it! Overall, we've seen a shakeup at the top, and the rise of MoFA, with decreased interest in the legislative branch as well as most other Ministries. What this means for the region going forward is unclear, but hopefully this data is useful to anyone considering what direction our region should take as we progress in the future. Until next time, this is Calvin Coolidge, wishing you a happy holiday season!
Before we dive into the results for this poll I do want to give a brief bit of context about the last poll. For starters, seven months ago we will still under a split executive government. We were only a few weeks away from passing the bill that would undo the process, and this poll was put out to see if the public would even pursue this new job of the Presidency once it was created. Additionally, there was controversy over the Councillor of Coordination position that had been put in place by Chief of State Malashaan to serve as a sort of bridge between the two halves of the executive. For these reasons, there are less positions that exist in the region today than there were back then, and thus there are less positions we had to poll this time around. All of that context out of the way, let's go ahead and get started.
To begin, our first question asked when our respondents started being active in Europeia.
We can see that it is split pretty evenly between our newer and older members. This is roughly the same as it was seven months ago, so the sample of citizens, at least in this regard, is consistent.
Next I asked our respondent what sort of player they would describe themselves as.
Last time it was pretty much 50/50 between "political gameplay" and "equally split". However, this time around we see that "social gameplay" has cut in just a little. They are still the smallest portion of the population polled, but they have grown in number since seven months ago, at the expense of "political gameplay" players.
Now for the interesting part, the rankings! I will present the newest numbers first, then the numbers from seven months ago in parentheses, followed by the change in the two, color coded so green means they grew, and red means they shrunk.
- President - 76.5% (74.1) +2.4
- Vice President - 67.6% (85.2) -17.6
- Senator - 67.6% (77.8) -10.2
- Minister of Foreign Affairs - 61.8% (44.4) +17.4
- Supreme Chancellor - 52.9% (40.7) +12.2
- Vice Chancellor - 50% (55.6) -5.6
- World Assembly Delegate - 50% (29.6) +20.4
- Minister of Communications - 47.1% (51.9) -4.8
- Speaker of the Senate - 47.1% (63) -15.9
- Associate Justice - 44.1% (40.7) +3.4
- Minister of Culture - 41.2% (51.9) -10.7
- Minister of Interior - 41.2% (51.9) -10.7
- Minister of Radio - 41.2% (40.7) +.5
- Attorney General - 41.2% (33.3) +7.9
- Minister of World Assembly Affairs - 35.3% (33.3) +2
- Mayor of Arnhelm - 29.4% (37) -7.6
- Chief Justice - 26.5% (33.3) -6.8
- Grand Admiral - 23.5% (25.9) -2.4
High Executive
President and Vice President now reign supreme as the most popular positions in the region. For those who still had any doubt that the merged government would dissuade people from seeking the top spot, I think these numbers should allay those concerns. Of course, we also know that each Presidential election has been contested so far, a great sign of interest. All of that being said, the last time this poll was taken, these positions did not exist in our region, and people were just going off their idea of what these positions would look like in practice. Now after seeing things in action for the past two terms, it turns out that people still want to be President at roughly the same interest, but Vice President takes the largest tumble of any position on the board, falling from its first overall spot at a sky-high eighty-five interest level to a still impressive sixty-seven. Why is this? For my money, I would say that the position is seen as less visible or prominent than some had hoped, and the position had has mixed satisfaction from the region in the past. This may have put a damper on some of those who had been seeking the role before. The last thing I'm going to note here is that the last time we did this, every deputy position outperformed its supervisor, but this trend has already been broken here this time around. I'll be keeping an eye on our other roles to see what this trend is now.
Senate
Unlike the Presidency, which emerged from the last two terms mostly unscathed, the Senate was not so lucky. The roles of Senator and Speaker both saw double-digit drops from our last poll, and Speaker now fails to capture the interest of a majority of the region. These roles are still popular, particularly, Senator, but they no longer have the same aura of widespread yearning that they once did. I think the easy culprit to blame here is the increased frequency of large-scale debates that may be turning some people away from the roles, particularly Speaker, the position that has to manage these debates and accept responsibility for their results. Here, the deputy does outperform its supervisor, so clear trend as of yet.
Cabinet (Foreign Facing)
Although our government is now in one piece I will still be separating our Cabinet into two here for the sake of comparison. The Ministries in this group are Foreign Affairs, World Assembly Affairs, and Grand Admiral. The biggest success story here is clearly Foreign Affairs, which previously failed to get over 50% interest from the region, but now is among the upper echelon of sought after positions. This is another thing that many who supported the merge hoped would happen as the government merged and Foreign Affairs became more prominent in the government's actions that there would be increased interest. World Assembly Affairs stays pretty much where it was seven months ago, however, capturing only a third of the region's interest. This lack of change can be chalked up to consistent leadership among its ministers in those seven months. It's also worth noting that this position used to be more popular than the Delegacy itself, but this is no longer the case. We'll go into that in a later section. Finally, we have Grand Admiral, the least popular position in the region once again, and it's even less popular than it was seven months ago. Now dropping below one-quarter of the region's interest, this position has yet to receive any sort of popularity boost from the merged government despite becoming much more active and receiving stable leadership. The position remains a powerful arm of our region's foreign policy, of course, but has failed to connect with people in a way that makes them want to strive for such power.
The Chancellery
Another position with a large boost in popularity in Supreme Chancellor, now pursued by over half of the region. Vice Chancellor is not far behind, capturing the interest of exactly half of the region. These positions are of course very unique as they are mostly ceremonial and removed from all other parts of the government. There hasn't been any new blood in these positions for several years, yet many remain hopeful that one day they can achieve this lofty position that remains one of the most sought after roles we have to offer.
World Assembly Delegate
Similar to Supreme Chancellor, this position saw a large boost in interest, the largest of any position. Also similar to Chancellor, we had not seen any new blood in this position for several years. Of course, we just completed a Delegacy transfer this month after years of Aexnidaral, so this position has captured the public's attention in a way that it hasn't had the opportunity to in quite some time. I would think that this renewed attention to the position has sparked a newfound interest in attaining it one day, leading it to leapfrog over the Minister of World Assembly Affairs and become one of the most popular foreign facing positions in the region.
Cabinet (Domestic Facing)
Now we turn to the other half of the Cabinet, which contains the Ministers of Communications, Culture, Interior, and Radio as well as Attorney General. Interestingly, nearly all of these positions have taken a hit or not moved at all since seven months ago, except for Attorney General, which has grown quite a bit more popular. Now all of these positions are pretty much equal in terms of interest from the public as they sit in the mid-forties, just below a majority. It would seem that a lot of these positions are sought by the same people as well, meaning they might be viewed as interchangeable by a good portion of the public. Why that may be is unclear to me exactly, but I'd love to hear some theories on why this is.
Judiciary
Nearly done here, we have the Justices, both Associate and Chief. Associate rises slightly, while Chief falls slightly, but both roughly remain in the same position they were seven months ago. Chief Justice, therefore, remains one of the least popular positions in the region, while Associate Justice remains in the middle of the pack. It seems that the Judiciary has failed to break out much this year, but that's probably to be expected as there has not been much activity from them.
Arnhelm
Last but not least we have Mayor of Arnhelm, representing the least popular section of government. Dropping below thirty percent, Arnhelm continues to struggle to broaden its base of interested members, and we have seen that reflected in the body's activity in the time between polls.
Here are the comments we received for this poll, if you are interested in what people think about our current roles, or any suggestions for new ones:
- minister of shitposting
- Don't forget Minister of Badgers!
- I want more VCs!!
- hello calvin coolidge ok maybe citizens assembly
- an
- Down with Sopo
- What do Vice Presidents even do?
- Minister of Gaming
- ~~let's split the executive again!!!~~
