Europeia Weighs in on Recent Reforms

Calvin Coolidge

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From September 11th to September 13th, a poll on this year's reforms was conducted of the Europeian public, garnering 26 responses. For context, there were 30 voters in the last General Election.

To begin, some basic demographic information was gathered, and the results showed that the majority of the poll's respondents were older members, with a vast majority either extremely or somewhat active in the region's government.

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Getting into the actual reforms, we saw that nearly 60% of respondents approve of the new executive split, with the other 40% either favoring a return of the presidential system, or expressing some lack of support of the split.

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Moving onto the newest reform, we find the City Council has overwhelming support, with a whopping 80% of respondents in favor of the replacement to the Citizens' Assembly.

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Rounding out the last of the enacted reforms covered in this poll, respondents once again show incredible support, this time for the ability to vote on the number of Senate seats.

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For the last section, two hypothetical reforms were proposed, to gauge what the level of public support would be. First, the direct election of the Chief of State, which has its numbers mostly line up with support of the executive split as a whole, meaning respondents who favored the split voted in favor of keeping the system as is, while those who opposed it were willing to support the change.

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The final hypothetical proposed was by far the most radical, and perhaps appropriately, saw the most pushback from respondents, with roughly 85% opposing the election of Justices.

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Lastly, there was a section where respondents could propose reforms of their own, so I will include those responses here:

  • I'd like to see a reform to this poll, so I can give more nuanced answers to some of these questions.
  • It’s time to return to a unified executive. The split has failed to live up to its promise, as demonstrated by a slew of uncontested elections. Ditch the split!
  • I just want to say that I fully endorse the direct election of all positions in Europeia with the exception of Judicary. I want the citizens to choose their government and I think it’s unfair and undemocratic with the way it’s currently settled down, in which the Senate(far too few people) elects the Chief of State. I don’t see the pros of the Chief Of State position, for example during the last term the Chief of State barely posted two or three announcements/speeches other than that I have no clue what she did. Also, the Councilor of Foreign Affairs last term did no posts other than roll call, and I think far too many people have done very few things in their positions since the executive split happened. I think the region needs to debate if the Chief of State is really a position we need. I also believe the executive split was merely cosmetical, I see no improvement from a productive or accountability perspective. The only thing the executive split did was that new people got elected to the positions and not the same players from 5+ years. But I think that’s because the region is going through a generational change and not because of the executive split per se. I believe we need to debate how productive this changes were to our region. I have the position that from what I have seen, I see no positive aspect from the executive split and I would favor returning to the previous presidential system. There was much more accountability when the Presidency existed, people could approve or disapprove the president in polls and he or she could make changes if needed, but not a single poll was done for the Chief of State and that is making the holders of that position very, but very invisible.

So, what do these numbers tell us? Overall, Europeia supports all of its reforms made in the last year, though the region definitely has some doubt when it comes to the executive split system. The City Council having such strong support is an indicator that the Senate is definitely taking action based on the will of the region, by passing something with such widespread support, something that could bode well for current Senators running for reelection. However, we can also see that Europeia does not blindly support any and all reforms to their government, and that certain aspects are off-limits, which is something future reformers will do well to keep in mind.

Thank you to all who participated in this poll, and read these results, I really appreciate your support in gathering this information. Until next time, this is Calvin Coolidge, avoiding Drecq's wrath.
 

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The Chief of State position is basically designed to be a quieter position than the First Minister. It has a longer term duration to help promote stability in our foreign policy and less turnover. And much of its work is done off-site, either in discussions in Council of State chambers, the EAAC, with the Delegate, with Foreign Officials, or on the NSGP forum.

I think this was always the case for these externally-focused departments (ERN, FA, WAA), but the Executive Split made it more apparent. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

One thing that was discussed during the Executive Split was the dichotomy between "Domestic-focused" Presidential Candidates, and "Foreign Affairs-focused" Presidential Candidates. The Domestic-focused ones tended to be critiqued on their lack of FA skills and lack of interaction with FA policy priorities, and likewise with the FA-focused ones, where Domestic priorities may have taken a sideline. There are not a great amount of "all-rounders" who really hit peak effectiveness in both spheres and so, when electing a unified Presidential office, there's a likelihood that one of the spheres may take a hit in focus.

I think the fact that the FM elections have attracted more domestic-focused people and have been able to capitalize on sustained engagement each term has led to some great advancements in activity in domestic departments. And similarly, despite the lack of contested elections, I think the fact that a single person is dedicated to focusing on FA policy and consistent engagement is also a positive result, even though the position is a bit less "inward-facing" than the President used to be.

We are planning to publish the first NS Gameplay Update in the next 24 hours or so and I'm hoping to get some solid feedback on the level of interest and the content that citizens in Europeia would like to know about the happenings in the rest of NS. I'm hoping we can work on becoming a little more communicative internally about the Foreign Affairs side of things.

Feel free to DM me with any suggestions and we can discuss how the FA Executive Office can be improved. :)
 
Getting into the actual reforms, we saw that nearly 60% of respondents approve of the new executive split, with the other 40% either favoring a return of the presidential system, or expressing some lack of support of the split.
I think the disapproval number has gotten a significant boost due to the uncontested elections recently which is completely understandable, though it may be a little early for a verdict. I fully expect that if the next FM election and to a lesser degree CoS election end up contested the political will to switch back or consider another solution is going to swing to a large degree.
 
I agree that the uncontested elections have put a huge damper on our enthusiasm and optimism. It's disheartening to see the lack of engagement. There are tons of opportunities for anyone to advance in many departments, even in elected offices. I'm hoping this Senate election is a good reminder of how fun our political system can be.
 
"Too early to tell. The CA had forced itself to remain irrelevant so a change is good."

Can someone explain to me how a non-sentient institution forced itself to do anything?

Cuz I'm pretty sure that it's the people involved with, or in this case not involved with, the institution who bear the responsibility.

The CA wasn't broken, it just wasn't being used the way apparently a majority of people wanted it to be. Only time will tell if Arnhelm will share the same fate but I wouldn't doubt it will.
 
I think the disapproval number has gotten a significant boost due to the uncontested elections recently which is completely understandable, though it may be a little early for a verdict. I fully expect that if the next FM election and to a lesser degree CoS election end up contested the political will to switch back or consider another solution is going to swing to a large degree.

Agreed. First Minister specifically had two very exciting elections the first time around. The first with its four strong tickets, the second when Lloen unseated the incumbent. Those were elections made for our media and the region enjoyed them. I hope, and believe, we will return there soon. The current Senate election is filling me with optimism at the very least.
 
Getting into the actual reforms, we saw that nearly 60% of respondents approve of the new executive split, with the other 40% either favoring a return of the presidential system, or expressing some lack of support of the split.
I think the disapproval number has gotten a significant boost due to the uncontested elections recently which is completely understandable, though it may be a little early for a verdict. I fully expect that if the next FM election and to a lesser degree CoS election end up contested the political will to switch back or consider another solution is going to swing to a large degree.
This is a tangent, but while I am glad people are taking uncontested elections seriously, I think they are being weighed too heavily among all the other indicators of regional health.

Uncontested elections aren't exactly uncommon in Europeia, even during the romanticized years of 2013-2017. While I think the election that Pichto originally ran in was rather rough, it is extremely typical for a popular incumbent to not attract a challenger. I am fairly certain Writinglegend was unchallenged nearly half the time when he ran. It's not great, but I think for the First Minister role we have examples of two vibrant, active elections and two examples of elections that were single candidate for unrelated reasons.
 
Getting into the actual reforms, we saw that nearly 60% of respondents approve of the new executive split, with the other 40% either favoring a return of the presidential system, or expressing some lack of support of the split.
I think the disapproval number has gotten a significant boost due to the uncontested elections recently which is completely understandable, though it may be a little early for a verdict. I fully expect that if the next FM election and to a lesser degree CoS election end up contested the political will to switch back or consider another solution is going to swing to a large degree.
This is a tangent, but while I am glad people are taking uncontested elections seriously, I think they are being weighed too heavily among all the other indicators of regional health.

Uncontested elections aren't exactly uncommon in Europeia, even during the romanticized years of 2013-2017. While I think the election that Pichto originally ran in was rather rough, it is extremely typical for a popular incumbent to not attract a challenger. I am fairly certain Writinglegend was unchallenged nearly half the time when he ran. It's not great, but I think for the First Minister role we have examples of two vibrant, active elections and two examples of elections that were single candidate for unrelated reasons.
Those points are valid, additionally one of the six consecutive elections was a CA Chair election, which recently have been almost exclusively ucontested. I think that a large factor in my concern at least was the uncontested Senate election which undoubtedly is way less common than the uncontested FM/President election. I struggle to remember the last time we had an uncontested 5 person election.
 
Getting into the actual reforms, we saw that nearly 60% of respondents approve of the new executive split, with the other 40% either favoring a return of the presidential system, or expressing some lack of support of the split.
I think the disapproval number has gotten a significant boost due to the uncontested elections recently which is completely understandable, though it may be a little early for a verdict. I fully expect that if the next FM election and to a lesser degree CoS election end up contested the political will to switch back or consider another solution is going to swing to a large degree.
This is a tangent, but while I am glad people are taking uncontested elections seriously, I think they are being weighed too heavily among all the other indicators of regional health.

Uncontested elections aren't exactly uncommon in Europeia, even during the romanticized years of 2013-2017. While I think the election that Pichto originally ran in was rather rough, it is extremely typical for a popular incumbent to not attract a challenger. I am fairly certain Writinglegend was unchallenged nearly half the time when he ran. It's not great, but I think for the First Minister role we have examples of two vibrant, active elections and two examples of elections that were single candidate for unrelated reasons.
Those points are valid, additionally one of the six consecutive elections was a CA Chair election, which recently have been almost exclusively ucontested. I think that a large factor in my concern at least was the uncontested Senate election which undoubtedly is way less common than the uncontested FM/President election. I struggle to remember the last time we had an uncontested 5 person election.
I don't think the uncontested Chair election was super significant. The role hasn't exactly been a blockbuster one for years, and it was openly the last term of the body existing.

The Senate elections were ugly, and coming right after the uncontested First Minister elections I see how that created a narrative. But as I believe I said at the time, it has never been uncommon to see Senate races with only one or two "extra" candidates. Having that drop down to an uncontested election is more a rebalancing of the scales than a massive shift.

I actually think people were a little slow on the uptake, and by the time the last Senate race occurred things were already getting a bit better in the staffing department but it just hadn't fully coalesced to the point where we had a lot of candidates for that particular election. The month last spring where the Grand Admiral role sat empty and we were having trouble recruiting for the Cabinet was a far bit more alarming to me, personally.

That being said, I am much happier to see a vibrant, exciting Senate election this go around.
 
Getting into the actual reforms, we saw that nearly 60% of respondents approve of the new executive split, with the other 40% either favoring a return of the presidential system, or expressing some lack of support of the split.
It’s time to return to a unified executive. The split has failed to live up to its promise, as demonstrated by a slew of uncontested elections. Ditch the split!
On this; I think the noncompetitive elections are a large part of this dissatisfaction and are not a symptom of the reforms but rather an issue that arose at around the same time. This was in no small part to a number of the "old guard," who could be expected to contest elections on a regular basis, stepping back from Euro &/or NS in the months running up to, and since, the reforms were implemented.
 
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