So I started playing Mexico for the first time in years in Vicky, and of all of the examples of countries I've played, Mexico is the one that gets how hard it should be as a traditionalist society to transition into a modern political mode of thinking. If we are to copy this (intensely important) transition in Vicky, we should first look at why it's so hard to make the transition while playing Mexico and then how to copy it.
So I'm playing Mexico, and I'm doing rather well, consistently getting the Liberal party in power then getting the +25% plurality events, which made me really happy.
However, around the 1850's and 60's, a scary transition started happening--my pops were starting to support Reactionary parties more and more. I didn't entirely know why this was happening or even if it was happening until I checked my politics screen and saw that 40% supported the Imperialista Party. This was with 60 consciousness. Why was this?
The combination of high militancy during wars and having most of my population in rural areas, with clergy, meant that nearly all of my pops had hugely low consciousness and high militancy. This was exacerbated by all but Anarcho-liberal and Socialist/communist parties having Moralistic as their religious policy, which meant to break the grip of the Church I had to set up a Civil War. I had 2 Civil Wars over the period trying to weaken the Imperial Party, and the usual Vicky player response, of attempting a huge economic modernization by promoting a ton of pops from farmers to craftsmen, clerks, and capitalists, didn't lead to the usual result--the low con/high mil led to all of my urban pops being Anarcho-Liberal while all my rural ones were Reactionary, so eventually the 2 largest parties in my country were the 2 radical ones, with the Communists not far behind, creating what was the political situation in almost all developing nations, who frequently got into civil wars between conservative and liberal factions, until the two united over the nascent threat of Communism in the 20th century. Paradox should aim to have this dichotomy between extremist conservative and extremist liberal present in most young democracies, making them unstable affairs.
So
-high militancy because of instability
-low consciousness because of moralistic policy
=
REALLY hard to modernize and even more political instability.
Now, I'm not saying that we should make it to the degree that Mexico is realistically simulated--that would be playing rebel killing for basically the whole game. However, it should be hard as any country with a large degree of religiosity (from Italy, Iberia, and Latin America to Persia, China, and even to some degree Russia) to find ways to politically modernize but also to find ways to accept religious minorities and liberal/socialist political parties.
There are two ways to do this naturally--
1.Make the dominant issues of pops intensely important to pops with low consciousness/literacy/plurality (as they aren't accustomed to the democratic system of compromise), and then have pops with low (those things) more likely to care about Moralism or Residence, which will create huge amounts of militancy if you elect a party that has Full Citizenship or Secular/Atheist as their policies, which was an issue that occurred in many countries--you could even (technically, though you wouldn't exactly want to) simulate the American Civil War with it, but this was a political process that occurs in many developing countries where the election of a socialist party gets all of the right wing ticked off and supporting more radical alternatives.
2.Make dominant issues more important and static, and have parties change their policies based upon popular opinion.
I guess it's too late to suggest this, but it could be intensely helpful and another hurdle to political progress for highly religious countries.
So I'm playing Mexico, and I'm doing rather well, consistently getting the Liberal party in power then getting the +25% plurality events, which made me really happy.
However, around the 1850's and 60's, a scary transition started happening--my pops were starting to support Reactionary parties more and more. I didn't entirely know why this was happening or even if it was happening until I checked my politics screen and saw that 40% supported the Imperialista Party. This was with 60 consciousness. Why was this?
The combination of high militancy during wars and having most of my population in rural areas, with clergy, meant that nearly all of my pops had hugely low consciousness and high militancy. This was exacerbated by all but Anarcho-liberal and Socialist/communist parties having Moralistic as their religious policy, which meant to break the grip of the Church I had to set up a Civil War. I had 2 Civil Wars over the period trying to weaken the Imperial Party, and the usual Vicky player response, of attempting a huge economic modernization by promoting a ton of pops from farmers to craftsmen, clerks, and capitalists, didn't lead to the usual result--the low con/high mil led to all of my urban pops being Anarcho-Liberal while all my rural ones were Reactionary, so eventually the 2 largest parties in my country were the 2 radical ones, with the Communists not far behind, creating what was the political situation in almost all developing nations, who frequently got into civil wars between conservative and liberal factions, until the two united over the nascent threat of Communism in the 20th century. Paradox should aim to have this dichotomy between extremist conservative and extremist liberal present in most young democracies, making them unstable affairs.
So
-high militancy because of instability
-low consciousness because of moralistic policy
=
REALLY hard to modernize and even more political instability.
Now, I'm not saying that we should make it to the degree that Mexico is realistically simulated--that would be playing rebel killing for basically the whole game. However, it should be hard as any country with a large degree of religiosity (from Italy, Iberia, and Latin America to Persia, China, and even to some degree Russia) to find ways to politically modernize but also to find ways to accept religious minorities and liberal/socialist political parties.
There are two ways to do this naturally--
1.Make the dominant issues of pops intensely important to pops with low consciousness/literacy/plurality (as they aren't accustomed to the democratic system of compromise), and then have pops with low (those things) more likely to care about Moralism or Residence, which will create huge amounts of militancy if you elect a party that has Full Citizenship or Secular/Atheist as their policies, which was an issue that occurred in many countries--you could even (technically, though you wouldn't exactly want to) simulate the American Civil War with it, but this was a political process that occurs in many developing countries where the election of a socialist party gets all of the right wing ticked off and supporting more radical alternatives.
2.Make dominant issues more important and static, and have parties change their policies based upon popular opinion.
I guess it's too late to suggest this, but it could be intensely helpful and another hurdle to political progress for highly religious countries.
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