How Should You Govern a Super-Region?

[frattastan]

Originally posted by "Ban My Ass", also known as Bannus, God of Irony on 14 Jun 2005.
As posted in the Naivetry Reference Library.

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How Should You Govern a Super-Region?
Lessons from the Feeders, the Rejected Realms, and beyond!
By Bannus, God of Irony.

It was one of the first questions ever asked on NationStates. The nature of the question dictates that it will be frequently asked. And the nature of the region's it is asked about dictate that it will continue to be asked as long as there is a NationStates game to ask it on. Yet if you polled ten different people on it, you'd probably get ten different answers. So exactly how should one govern a feeder (or a "dump")? While there probably isn't a perfect answer to the question, every attempt from the anarchic beginnings of The Pacific to the iron-fisted dark ages of that same Pacific region can clue us in to what some good answers might be.

Part I: Democrats or Despots; Open or Oppresive?

The beginnings of the feeder regions highlight the contrast and the fine-line difference between autocratic and anarchic regions. At first, there was a scramble for the delegacies; the instability created more change but also gave a delegate more incentive to eject his competition. In those times, it was possible to have a feeder region that was both an anarchy AND an autocracy. Eventually, the game became more popular, and stronger delegates with higher endorsement counts emerged. Some, like TheDoc in The Pacific and NAST1C in TNP, kept sort of "gentlemen's agreements" that any nation was welcome to run for the delegacy, and that those who showed democratic sympathies could keep it. Others, like 1 Infinite Loop in the East Pacific, just grabbed what they could and held on. Both proved that they could be stable; TNP's reputation of old as a strong, friendly, and free region managed to hold on through several crises, and Loop's delegacy in the EastPac has lasted for over two years. But neither guaranteed stability; we all know what happened to TheDoc, and Norion's stranglehold on the delegacy in The West gave way to a series of popularly-elected governments. Stability, it seems, is a function of the players themselves, not which "game" they play.

It's also evident to me that how pleasant a region is for its players isn't completely a function of the type of government either. While the obvious examples of the results of the NPO and the NPD, both of whom seemed to almost discourage participation, will immediately leap from the keyboards of those who are blindly pro-democracy, I will cite a counterpoint: 1 Infinite Loop. While most of his delegacy he was more or less a government unto himself, all my experiences in the East Pacific region and on its forum were quite enjoyable; I have no complaints about my visits. By being permissive on speech and press, and fostering a fun and co-operative environment, Loop has held onto his throne at least as much by popularity as by the ban button and enforcement of endocaps. Still, I will fall on the side of democracy here, though not blindly. It's just easier to keep a free region than it is to find a good dictator, so a free region is the better route to take.

Part II: To Count, or not to Count? The Endorsement Cap Question:

Because just being a free region or a firm dictatorship doesn't alone guarantee stability, feeders have come up with other ways to help preserve the status quo. One of the most well-known and controversial methods is the endorsment cap. Endorsement caps, as everyone here should already know, are Constitutional provisions or laws that set a limit on the number of endorsements any nation other than the Delegate can have. And while that sounds fairly autocratic, it needn't be. In any case, whatever its flaws, the endocap must be useful because all the feeders other than The North Pacific have one. The Rejected Realms doesn't have one, but they wouldn't have a way of enforcing it, and an ejectionless region doesn't hold much of a prize for an invader anyway.

Feeders, on the other hand, are massive, high-profile, founderless nations, the ultimate prize for raiders and usurpers. But how do you limit endorsement-gathering and keep a democracy at the same time? How do these endorsement caps work? The answer is that it's different by region. Automatic-ejection caps in the feeder regions range from 45 endorsements in the Pacific to be ejected by the PRP to the 75% of the delegate's total endorsements that gets you ejected from the West Pacific. In between is 1 Infinite Loop's cap of 125 (with a warning at 75). But the numbers don't tell the whole story. In the East Pacific, nations only get ejected at 75% if they don't declare an intent to run and present a platform before they reach it; in the South Pacific, nations are telegrammed when they hit 70% of the delegate's total, and only those who refuse to declare or are affiliated with an invasion force are ejected.

Usually, only half the story about an endorsement cap is told; how someone was minding their own business, endorsement-whoring in a feeder region, when they found themselves in the RR because of an arbitrary number. The other side of the story is that setting an endorsement cap prevents a delegate kicking anybody with endorsements out of the region. If you set an endorsement cap that disappears when a nation declares candidacy, like those in the West and South Pacifics, it actually forces the delegate to allow his opposition to run against him. It removes any argument when he ejects his close competition about whether he was within his rights, and merely "defending regional security". He can't defend his seat against legitimate competition by ejection; he must do so by the democratic means of persuasion and keeping his nose clean. Endorsement caps defend Democracy from the Delegate, and everybody from invaders and usurpers.

Part III: Caps and Constitutions? Oh My!

If the point of democracy is freedom, why would anyone want an endorsement cap AND a Constitution? Isn't that just more laws to follow? A quick glance over the regions for Constitutions yields the same results as the look at endorsement caps: the other feeders have some type of charter or constitution, the Rejected Realms do not. The documents vary by region even more than the endorsement counts, though. The West Pacific Constitution and the South Pacific Charter have a lot of things in common. Both emphasize the rights of the region's residents and the responsibilities of the government, rather than the other way around. "Citizens, not subjects," to put it succinctly. Both place constitutional checks on the Delegate to go along with the protective endorsement caps. There is a superficial differnece between the two: their length; but the philosophy behind the Constitutions are different, too. The West Pacific's Constitution creates a rigid structure to the government, in order to check the government and maintain a balance of power. The South Pacific's Constitution is more like this region's government was under The Twoslit Experiment, Wilkshire, Blackshear and Magicality, in that it places more emphasis on the use of the government to better the region and relies on vigilance and participation to keep the region free. They figure they can't force the Delegate to be good (ultimately, who has the ban button), they might as well give the potential delegates reason to want to be.

And though those two are the models we should look longest at to create a good democratic region, even the NPO/PRP's draconian Judicial Code has a positive lesson; its focus on the conduct of those in the region has allowed the government to evolve to suit the needs of the region, rather than forcing the region to contort and fit itself under the government. While the burden of regulation in the PRP's government doesn't suit a democratic people like The North Pacific, a government that they aren't stuck with permanently does.

Part IV: What About Fun?

Democracy's all well and good, but even as many people as there were who left because they couldn't run for Delegate, there were even more who left just because the region wasn't fun anymore. Unfortunately, fun is impossible to legislate. Loop's East Pacific, Ladyrebels' South Pacific, and Twoslit's North Pacific didn't have raucous roleplaying sections and laugh-a-minute OOC threads because they mandated it. Magicality's TNP wasn't the fastest-posting region because of a Constitution requiring members to log in daily. It just happened; they were fun-loving Delegates and they worked with their regions to encourage activity. Much as Democracy can only survive in a feeder as long as the average resident watches who he endorses, a region can only be enjoyable if the laws allow it and the members exercise their rights.

The regions with the most laughter tend to be those with the least government; politics are a divider, not a uniter. This tends to be even more true in the feeders, with inexperienced players who tend to be afraid of long legal codes. The more positions you create, the more you seperate some of the region from the rest of it. No Constitution can force you to make your region the most enjoyable place it can be; it can only watch you put your creativity to work and stay the hell out of the way. The best way to get this region as close as possible to the way it was before is to run it as close as is safe to the way it was run before.