Elections

[kviiri]

Hey.

Since Authority/Despotism has been one of the forum's favorite topic since DD #2 (Capacities), I'd like to hear more how representative governments in their various flavors will work. I know parties have already been discussed a bit and are possibly in the brainstorming phase still, but what exactly is the expectation on how democratic/representative governments will work?

Based on the info known so far, I've understood as much:

• Each IG has a level of Clout determined largely by their workforce, social status and wealth
• Elections causes each enfranchised POP to cast votes for an IG increasing their Clout
• POP types are weighted to favor certain IGs but it's not a strict 1-to-1 correlation
• One will probably want to have IGs with a high enough sum of Clout in one's Government

While this sounds reasonable to me, I wonder how this will encourage the natural result of elections: shifting tides in power. If the POP voting choice is static, or mostly-static, will we have those shifts in power? What factors will influence a POP's voting, and will those factors change sufficiently to avoid stagnant politics barring major demographic changes?

 

[Paghalay]

As a big supporter of having independent's elected over party representatives IRL, I hope that if they do have parties, there is still a way of having that democratic "utopia" with an absence of political parties, as that's the society I want to shape.

 

[kviiri]

As a big supporter of having independent's elected over party representatives IRL, I hope that if they do have parties, there is still a way of having that democratic "utopia" with an absence of political parties, as that's the society I want to shape.

Without going too much into real-life politics, there's also a world of difference between one-party, two-party and multi-party democracies


But minus that digression, I think parties are in an interesting place because they were not a part of the game's original design but Wiz tweeted (Twitter link) that the role of parties is being discussed. This is just my layman perspective, but it seems unlikely to me that parties will replace the more general grouping of IGs, but instead would perhaps serve as an additional layer over the system somehow. Since one of the stated reasons for not having parties was that they would be out-of-place in non-democratic countries where such apparatuses would be illegal or powerless, I think you'll have your wish in that playing without parties will probably be possible for at least many countries.

 

[Tomray94]

Historically, most countries present in the game during the 19th century did not have parties. Most countries obtained concrete political factions and organized parties between the years 1870 - 1930. With that in mind, I think it would be equally wrong for them to not add parties (which we know isn't happening thankfully) or to shoehorn parties where they did not exist (the first 10 - 30 years of the game for most countries). For me, a good system would be for a certain invention or technology called "party politics" to enable them and most countries outside western Europe and north America to not have it at game start, especially in Asia and Africa. Before parties, there will be factions made up of interest groups or just the interest groups themselves. Tell me what you think.

 

[kviiri]

I think parties or not, there needs to be some mechanism to steer POPs away from always voting the same way. Democracy has to feel alive, not a static trajectory.

 

[Tomray94]

I think parties or not, there needs to be some mechanism to steer POPs away from always voting the same way. Democracy has to feel alive, not a static trajectory.

I agree, the actions, policies and responses to events for any given administration should affect their popularity. The same should happen for electoral debates and events (if those are added in a similar way to how they were in vic 2)