Regions as a State: An Anarchist Assessment of Regional Governance

[thechurchofsatan]

Regions as a State: An Anarchist Assessment of Regional Governance
by The Grim Reaper Anarchism is at its core a philosophical ideology, not a materialist economic or political one. Anarchists are differentiated by their beliefs in economic theory to achieve the broad goal of dismantling hierarchy and acheving egalitarianism, and their beliefs in various political debates. As a philosophical ideology, anarchism starts with human nature - the idea that humans are fundamentally 'good', which is couched in both an innate, idealistic belief, and the anarchist use of rationality as distinct from economic rationality.

To apply it to NationStates seems, at first, to be a task doomed to failure. Unlike the modern state, a NationStates region's most forceful instrument of power is its capacity to exclude members from participation in only its community and its imagined community. This is done through the founder, whose powers are total and unquestioned, and the WA Delegate, whose powers are limited by the expenditure of Influence and by the need to hold an endorsement plurality. An NS dictator is awed by any real world leader, touting a state's ability to remove dissenters from communicating with the rest of the world at all, or to claim the resources and legitimacy of dissenters as its own (through property confiscation).

However, the nature of hierarchy and its legitimacy is in fact deeply relevant to NationStates, as much as it is to the communities its players are familiar with. To analyse NationStates, however, we must start with a descriptive theory, rather than the prescriptive theories that most people associate with anarchism. We shall do so by drawing, initially, from international relations theory. Social constructivism is the theory in international relations that legitimacy, belief, and norms are the governing forces in global politics. It differentiates itself from better known schools of theory, like liberalism and realism, in that it relates the sovereignty of the state to a transient norm in global politics. The modern conception of a democratic state as legitimate would not be a foregone conclusion in the days of the aristocracy. Not only was democracy effectively unknown in many nations, but institutions such as the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire routinely questioned the basis of sovereignty, particularly as the two diverged regarding the relationship between temporal and spirtual authority. If Americans were to wake up without any conception of the United States of America, the Federal government has no physical, 'brute facts' to give it most of its authority. The Senate does not have the capacity to continue collecting taxes without the prior, social recognition of its authority, which is perpetuated by its capacity to utilize its authority legitimately.

By assuming the social constructivist position on legitimacy, we start to create a position that roughly parallels the anarchist idea of the state and its subjects. Social constructivism, however, excludes much of the anarchist theory on economics and social theory, which are irrelevant in basic international relations, and instead focuses on how meaning is created between ostensibly equal actors with a more dynamic system of legitimacy. It is significantly easier for the Soviet Union to become delegitimized in comparison to the USA, than it is for the city of Tulsa to become more legitimate than that of Washington DC as a seat of federal government. For actors that, regardless of the real differences in their capacity to wield power, have the basic protections of sovereignty, the hierarchy they exist in has significantly more mobility.

It is from the social constructivist position that we start our analysis of NationStates. Firstly, we identify our structures - the frameworks, created by norms and legitimacy, that identify which actors enter relations with which actors legitimately. In the real world, it would generally be illegitimate for Russia to attempt to negotiate with a US defense contractor directly, or for the UN to entreat with a party in a conflict without being mandated by the General Assembly or the participating parties. The first situation calls for a government to negotiate with a corporation - participants in the structure of sovereign customary 'law' and the structure of American corporate law respectively. The second is governed by either the United Nations as an actor in the structure of the United Nations (which are not the same entity, although they share the same bureaucracy), or by the United Nations deriving legitimacy from actors in the structure of the particular conflict.

This is where we meet the first defining characteristic of NationStates' game rules. There are a few different potential basic forms a structure in NS can take, which can only be superficially compared to similar real-world situations. The best known are GCRs - as in, feeders and sinkers - and UCRs - in this sense, referring to large UCRs with both founders and entrenched WADs. There are other GCRs - Warzones, and the Rejected Realms. Neither, however, have traditional governments. The first is best viewed as the subject of Peacezone Theory, which describes itself as an adaptation of libertarian socialism, an ideology which overlaps with more classical anarchist thought. The second does not have access to the capacity to ban or eject nations - hence, the Rejected Realms does not have the capacity to create a 'state of exception".

The 'state of exception' is one of the theories that attempt to describe the unique capacity of sovereignty compared with other forms of authority. States can command control over discourse like no other organization. A corporation is incapable of advertising or marketing without incurring the potential wrath of the state, and has few means of opposing such wrath, beyond working within the state's own institutions (the courts, or political lobbying and sponsorship). In the same vein, the United Nations is almost entirely irrelevant in controlling discourse. It exists in social constructivism both as an actor, a bureaucracy acting without the same capacity of the state, as well as a structure through which states can create a common consensus to define external discourse. The state of exception is a theory describing the state's capacity to dictate exceptions to norms and beliefs - both in discourse and hence in law, the legitimate use of force. In NationStates, the state of exception is everyone outside the region. Those who are outside the region are not eligible to vote, unprotected by the law, but also irrelevant to the law of the region. The region therefore defines the state of exception through ban and ejection, the distinction between the two being one purely of logistics as puppets are easily created in NationStates. The Rejected Realms, not having access to a state of exception, only has the capacity to change the WFE through its World Assembly Delegate - it does not have the same level of sovereignty as other regions, but still exercises a sovereign right that would be illegitimate if performed by any other actor who occupies the delegacy without being elected by the Rejected Realms.

NationStates therefore defines a number of levels of sovereignty. Regions that have executive Founders are entirely based upon the interests of the Founder - legitimacy is unquestionably derived from the founder's existence and rule. A region with an executive founder cannot have its sovereignty challenged, as there is no way to challenge its state of exception as there would be in the real world. In the real world, examples include forcibly excluding a local police department from access to equipment or their area of jurisdiction, as is the case in Ferguson, or rejecting a corporation's limited capacity to exercise a state of exception regarding employees' contractual obligations by asking employees to perform implicit (not explicit) tasks (such a state of exception being derived from the state's complacency - hence why this is a functional means of industrial action, as a corporation can only enforce the exception through the use of the state's legitimacy). Such a region cannot be truly 'anarchist', as an executive founder always has the capacity to exercise force that cannot be questioned - however, such a region can still draw from anarchist theory, assuming a cooperative or at least partially interested Founder.

Regions with executive delegates are less sovereign, and their sovereignty is a closer analogy to real world states. Whilst executive delegates exercise absolute power, it is restrained by their Influence levels. Influence, therefore, is a rough analogy for the material expenditure of the state in utilizing a state of exception. Like the state, an executive delegate must expend some material resources in utilizing the state of exception - banjection. And, like the state, regions are often challenged by regions that can gain a material advantage. In other words, material advantage is as important in NS as it is to the state. This is one matter on which Marxism - or rather, Marx's sociological contributions - offers some level of understanding to the anarchist traditions it has often coopted and rarely contributed to. Dialectic materialism in the classical Marxist tradition holds that the world is defined by its material modes of production. Historical materialism is one particular application Marx uses - his famous description of communism being a natural evolution from capitalism, itself being borne from feudalism. These modes of production create cultural and social change - the base of society is its means of production, and the superstructure that sits upon the base is its art, culture, and what we actually see to be society. The anarchists, instead, utilize a more nuanced view of the base-superstructure relationship, outlined by Max Weber. Weber believed that the modes of production and the superstructure feed into each other. For the anarchist, this is a reminder of the nature of human rationality - our propensity for creating, and existing as something 'more' than machines, can create the relations and means through which we create beyond the material interests. The intelligent artist may forego the materially advantageous path of a doctor solely for their interest in art - although, they may find themselves caught short by the costs of art supplies and hence return to college. For the sociologist, society organizes itself around the need to be productive and fulfill our material needs - yet also to fulfill the human needs for cultural, immaterial, and immensely rational non-productive activities, the two inseperable.

At first glance, this base-superstructure makes no sense applied to NationStates. Relating the idea of influence as materialism may, for the sake of argument, be palatable to the reader, but to throw in the idea of art and culture and socializing and being human becomes too much of a stretch. The reader may reject the idea that Weberian structuralism can be applied to NationStates, believing there to be no relationship. The reader is, to a point, correct here. The 'modes' of producing influence - of having people endorse someone, and utilizing it to enforce the state of exception, are simplistic and almost meaningless. Material production is subservient to the endorser's belief that they are achieving something - that they are participating in a change of note, that they are fulfilling themselves. The executive founder controls the 'modes' of production entirely - they are an infinite source of influence, and their rule is fundamentally materialistic. The executive delegate (without a founder) is subservient to social concerns depending on how ingrained they are into the position. They often control moderator or administrator privileges on the region's forums, and can use the WFE to legitimize themselves. However, they may also have low influence, or be relatively seperate from any legitimate off-site assets. They could either be materially weak (have no immutable control over creating legitimacy) or materially strong (controlling the off-site), but in both cases, it is the superstructure of the region that stops it being coopted by a different individual, not the delegate's material control. If the delegate's offsite loses legitimacy, then they are at risk of being unable to gain the material control of the region through influence and local WAs. If they are capable of retaining legitimacy, they can retain the community - perhaps in 'exile', or by mounting a successful defense. Tangentially, such a theory would somewhat explain the difference between a destructive and non-destructive raid - a destructive one destroys the superstructure (culture, legitimacy, and non-game related aspects) of a region, even if the base is entirely intact - the capacity to have a WAD with the influence to retain a state of exception. The theory, it should be noted, does not offer a huge amount in actually mitigating such destruction, beyond suggesting that detagging is not a valuable activity, whilst update defenses organized by an invaded region are (as their existences are themselves evidence of a functioning superstructure).

It is by using the ideas of base and superstructure that we can defend the following categorization of regional government. I consider, for our purposes, four types of region - Non-Exceptional Zones, GCRs, and three types of UCR, one of which overlaps with GCRs. The Rejected Realms and Warzones are treated in the same breath, firstly, as a Non-Exceptional Zone, as are regions without executive delegates or founders. They do not have the capacity to operate as materially sovereign actors whatsoever - their sovereignty is purely a legitimated one, down to their existence within a NationStates constructivist structure of politics. They can interact with sovereign actors as if they have sovereignty, but cannot interact with non-sovereign actors as if they have sovereignty. Secondly, GCRs and UCRs with executive delegacies (and not executive founders) are regions that have Legitimacy-Based Government. Without the materialist defense of a founder - or, it should be mentioned, a specific off-site advantage like control of an interregional organization or technical skills - these regions depend solely on manipulating the superstructure. Their influence, their 'mode of production', is a product of being able to create a fulfilling political structure and existing as legitimate actors in the constructivist structure of politics - which allows them to legitimize themselves, as the product of exercising legitimacy is the recognition of legitimacy. Being able to 'perform' as a sovereign actor, for a Legitimacy-Based Government, creates legitimacy. To harken back to the example of the USA at the start of this essay, the USA only seems to be legitimate because it exercises legitimacy. The modern USA seems the paragon of legitimacy, but it has only become so by first deriving legitimacy from the British Empire, then the French (during the war of independence), and then exercising that legitimacy. Today, a man who is robbed is happy to support the USA in exercising its state of exception to utilize violence against robbers, or even suspects, because he views the USA as a legitimate actor capable of utilizing such violence to fulfill the man's expectations of a legitimate actor - in this case, fulfilling the explicit social responsibility of the state to allow the man to press charges for compensation, as well as vengeance. The third type of region is a GCR with executive founders, Materialistic Government. Such Materialistic Government shares qualities with certain samples of Legitimacy-Based Government. A Legitimacy-Based Government WA Delegate who has sufficient influence and endorsements to use an automated means of removing attackers even after update, with only token material cost, could easily be seen as Materialistic, as could a WA Delegate who has skills that make them indispensible to their community such that the community would be significantly hindered by their deposal as both a material and a social figurehead - the superstructure being manipulated by the base. For example, the Pacific's 'legitimate' WADs (NPO Emperors) are effectively Materialistic, because their sheer amounts of endorsement and influence materially; whilst backed by a superstructure that is not just a cult of personality, but one that spans multiple games and stretches further back in history than the modern South Sudanese government, or the Obama administration; allows them to effectively dictate the Pacific's policies without threat to their sovereignty. The superstructure adds security to the already untouchable base - should the NPO Emperor ever risk running out of influence, there are multiple people committed to the Pacific's continuation of government who also wield immense material power and would be unable to use it against any of their comrades, including the NPO Emperor.

The final categorization of regional government is one that is surprisingly close to the Non-Exceptional Zone in sentiment - however, the two have some important distinctions. The Norms-Based Government is one that tends to adhere to Peacezone Theory, but with some contextual caveats. Norms-Based Governments are, if you will excuse the pun, the norm in the Roleplay community. Norms-Based Governments utilize executive powers to defend the establishment of norms in the community, which can be utilized to produce a superstructure. In addition, these norms usurp influence in producing a base. Norms-Based Governments are distinct from Legitimacy-Based Governments in that they derive legitimacy from supporting the organic norms created within the superstructure of the the region. Both are superstructure governed, but they have different types of reasons for utilizing a superstructure. For the Legitimacy-Based Government, production is its own reward - improving the base is the reason the superstructure manipulates it. For a Norms-Based Government, a base simply exists to protect the superstructure, which manipulates it for its own improvement. In other words - the materialistic executive powers of a Norms-Based Government are, effectively, NationStates' equivalent of post-scarcity, where the base solely facilitates the superstructure. Post-scarcity is a common subject of more modern, or abstract anarchist theory. It is often taken for granted, by anarchists, that in a hypothetical post-scarcity world, the materialistic aspects of a state would lose meaning, and hence delegitimize it in favour of individualistic 'sovereignty' that focuses upon participation in the superstructure - a tendency towards anarchism, although this inevitably coincides with the belief that anarchism is also achievable and beneficial in an economy that does have scarcity. Because materialism is unimportant in the Norms-Based Government, the base exists solely to protect the integrity of the superstructure by defining boundaries for norms - for example, whether an RP region is Future Tech, or Modern Tech, or has population caps. The assumption that allows it to remain consistent with Peacezone Theory is that the region is not, in fact, sovereign - these limitations do not define a single legitimate actor, simply that there is a structure for norms to exist (which you will recognize as suddenly being a reference all the way back to constructivism, rather than Weberian structuralism - a necessary jump in schools from a state, actor theory to an international relations, inter-actor, theory). Unlike Legitimacy-Based Governments, where factionalization actively detracts from the claim to legitimacy, Norms-Based Governments can reject the importance of materialist discourse and provide equivalent legitimacy to multiple competing norms, allowing people to participate in all of them. One will recognize the focus on legitimacy as being a key reason that the Pacific is differentiated from other GCRs. Claims in 2013 - 2014 that the Pacific aimed to undermine sovereign governments in regions like Lazarus, for instance, would only hold weight assuming the Pacific is a Materialistic Government that could gain from defending two WA Delegacies (controlling two WFEs and the influence of two regions of WA endorsers). Had the Pacific been a Legitimacy-Based Government, it would suffer more than it gained - risking being viewed as an illegitimate actor, and potentially even risking the inability to exercise legitimacy in one of the regions it acquired, which would undermine those involved in that region.

Norms-Based Governments deny the very basis of sovereignty in denying the importance of the region. Unlike a Legitimacy-Based Government, which may require WA disclosure or even present WAs to prove a unique user, or a Materialistic Government which uses its material resources to defend an irrelevant superstructure, the Norms-Based Government is defined by its superstructure to the exclusion, and potentially the irrelevance of its base. That is not to say nothing is produced - that would be an economically rational thing to say, but an entirely irrational conclusion. The Norms-Based Government simply assumes that the superstructure, the Norms-Based Government is defined by its superstructure to the exclusion, and potentially the irrelevance of its base. That is not to say nothing is produced - that would be an economically rational thing to say, but an entirely irrational conclusion. The Norms-Based Government simply assumes that the superstructure's production, as long as it can sustain itself, is synonymous with its base - the traditional idea of a base economy is superceded. The state ceases to exist. The anarchist believes that the freedom of man and woman is to produce out of one's rational empathy for their society, and the innate desire to contribute. To believe that such an idealistic view of human nature holds water in a competitive game is, perhaps, simplistic - but in the context of a competitive game, it allows for an interesting discussion on how regional governments imitate the goals and interests of real ones. It is, perhaps, not a huge stretch to assume some of the base problems of the real state can be somewhat mitigated in NationStates by divorcing - ever so slightly - regional government from regional communities. One could see more hands-off governments becoming an interesting norm.

Further Reading:

-The State of Exception (Real-World Theory)
Giorgio Agamben http://www.egs.edu/faculty/giorgio-agam ... exception/

-Peacezone Theory (NS Theory)
Communist Eraser (Codger) https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=251514

-Social Constructivism (Real-World Theory) (Note: In International Relations, social constructivism is sometimes called simply "Constructivism" to differentiate it from similar theories in other social sciences)
I drew from an understanding of many thinkers in social constructivism - it as a school of thought has a significant number of adherents.
One of the best known is Alexander Wendt, and the one whom I have read the most extensively is Michael Barnett.

-Anarchism (Real-World Theory)
Again, I utilized a synthesis of many thinkers to describe anarchist thought. Most of my reading comes from the 'anarcho-communist', or classical anarchist, traditions.
Notable anarchists in the school are Mikhail Bakunin, whom I have not read, and Peter Kropotkin and Emma Goldman, who I have.
For those who are interested in reading further, while I do not discuss purely communist ideals at length, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is generally considered to be the 'father of Anarchism', and tends to be considered a moderate anarchist (a Mutualist), economically speaking.
On the right, Max Stirner is one of the earliest individualist anarchists. Individualism bridges the gap from anarcho-communism and anarchist mutualism to anarcho-capitalism, represented most capably by Murray Rothbard.
Note that in the modern day, one of the most well-known contemporary anarchist academics, Noam Chomsky, is not actually a political scientist primarily - his political writings are not quite as developed as the linguistic theory for which he has deservedly been rewarded. However, he is a staunch anarcho-syndicalist, which sits roughly around the mark of anarchist mutualism but with a more macroeconomic focus, and it should be said that he is still an extremely capable writer in all the social science fields.

-Marxism (Real-World Theory)
I drew much of my understanding of Marx from university classes, as well as a reading of various second-party sources. Whilst I highly recommend Das Kapital - a book where Marx is at his best - the Communist Manifesto is a relatively good summary of theories to google, being in itself rather lackluster - I would go so far as to say it is Marx at his worst. One may prefer to refer to Max Weber instead, for where I refer to Marxism, I refer mainly to the body of sociological work Marx produced which Weber critiqued and interrogated. One may wish to research Weberian Structuralism in specific.