Apolytonian Democracy: A Political Analysis

[jdjdjd]

Many democracies have developed in the history of the world, and in general they are of four types: parliamentary, as in England and Germany; presidential, as in the United States; direct, as in Ancient Greece; and mixed, as in Switzerland and Apolytonia. The latter form of democracy is rare using elements of the direct, presidential, and parliamentary forms, creating a hybrid of sorts.

There are two goals with the mixed form, one is to allow for a more direct implementation of the people's will than allowed in presidential and parliamentary forms of democracy, which seem to intentionally reduce the power of the middle and lower classes by creating positions for elected officials that only the very wealthy or those they support can afford. The second goal is to avoid bogging down the day to day operations of society that could occur with a direct democracy in a society of any significant population size.

A case in point can be seen in Apolytonia, where issues normally decided by a legislature, such as declarations of war, confirmation of judicial appointments, impeachment and the like; are left to the the people to decide. Furthermore, many decisions left to the Executive Branch (consisting of the President, Vice President, and the Ministerial Board) are made after polling the people for their opinion. In any given week, several polls may be conducted to determine the will of the people, in order for the President and his Ministers to conduct business; which can be quite overwhelming at times, but certainly not to the level one would expect in a purely direct democracy. Though often the results of the polls are used merely as gages, rarely, if ever in their history, has a polling official failed to follow the will of the people. Additionally, the people have control over what Laws are added to the Code of Laws in Apolytonia, normally, in other democracies, considered to be too complicated for the average citizen to comprehend.

While normal Legislative decisions are left to the people whether directly or indirectly, the day to day business of Apolytonia, as in many other democracies, is left to the Executive Branch. This is done to avoid the very trap mentioned above that a purely direct democracy would run into were every decision left to the general populace. Again, though, often the people express their opinion through polls, and the Executive Branch follows that opinion. Additionally, this power held by the general populace has lead to a very vocal citizenry, when they are disatisfied with a decision made, and so those in power are extremely mindful of what the populace is thinking.

The power the people have in Apolytonia is very significant compared to other democracies, and is clearly the result of having no legislative body; and this power has resulted in a weakened political party system which thrives in other democracies, such as the United States, and also has resulted in a very sizeable independent voter block. In recent elections, only one candidate openly listed as a member of one of the major parties, was successful. The remaining victorious campaigners were listed as independent. While the DIA party has recently attempted to reignite itself, the UFC has broken up, leaving only its ultra-conservative wing, the Hawks. Both parties attempts at organization are always hampered by attacks from independents, and this clearly has impacted their success at the polls. Many important party members have left their party to improve their political chances, or simply have succumb to the arguments of the independents, believing that the arguments for no political parties are with merit. In either case, the loss of members and party leaders has taken their toll on both parties.

Despite the significant power granted to the people of Apolytonia, elections and polls often find less than 1/3 of the polpulation voting. One can safely argue that it is a result of the weakened political party structure. While many believe there is little to gain from political parties, it is easy to see that one of the positives political parties have provided to democracies is their ability to "get out the vote" and entice some interest from even independent voters in an election. Another cause of the low voter turnout comes from the large amount of independents found in Apolytonia. It has become clear from studying other democracies that independents vote less than those affiliated with a major party, and this has impacted Apolytonia's voter turnout.

In summary, the unique mixed democracy found in Apolytonia has found itself with an interesting dilemna. The very strength it proposes to give to its populace, is the very cause of its own poor voter turnout. The strength given to the people, has caused them to want more and turn away from political parties; which in turn has cost them the organization that political parties can provide. Whether this can be overcome without resorting back to the ways of political parties currently shunned by its independent voters is not clear, but it is clear that some other group will need to step up and to increase voter turnout.

[Aro]

Very interesting analysis, jdjdjd.
One side note: people don't like parties in Real Life. You can see it in many posts in each session of the forum. Especially the people from US, This may be caused by the two parties system. It seems to be annoying for most of them.
IMHO, this is the main reason for the low interest in parties here, in our game.

Another reason: We have a form of direct democracy; there is no more than 40, 50 active citizens in the game (probably less). Everyone with an idea starts a thread, and that thread works, many times, like a temporary party (better saying, temporary parties, with fight and debate). Those temporary parties exist only when necessary, and they die as soon the subject dies. Exactly like in the ancient Athens (well, not exactly, we don’t have slaves here… )

This post is just some kind of "free association" thought.

[Arnelos]

Not too shaby there, jdjdjd.

Comparative Politics happens to be my field of research, so I can tell you that your classification of different types of democracies sorta glosses over many of the major differences, but that's not the point of your piece here: the point is to discuss Apolytonia. You have a pretty astute analysis here, very good work.

As for the issue of voter turnout, research indicates that voter turnout in democracies most directly relates to whether (as one researcher put it) "the big questions" are being fought over or have mutually acceptable answers in a society.

For instance, the democracy with the highest turnout anywhere in the world is Israel, for the simple reason that the "big questions" directly relating to the life and death of the citizens are things voters believe are at stake in every single election.... the result is that people are highly likely to turn out to the polls. The contrast could be made to the United States, with notorious low turnout, largely directly caused by a general feeling in the populace that how they vote in the next election isn't going to have an enormous (or even very large) impact on the "big issues" which are either agreed to by ALL parties (Democrats, Republicans, etc.) or just aren't issues in the U.S. right now.

The exceptions in U.S. and European politics are generally when there's a divisive issue that some small group cares A LOT about and they show up the polls in droves while the rest of the society stays home because they really don't feel affected by the issue. The hot-button issue of this sort in the U.S. has been abortion for at least the past 2 decades. In France, voter turnout was fairly low in the first round of their recent Presidential race (even with the skyrocketing crime rate, a lot of people just didn't bother to vote), but the second round saw big voter turnouts from voters across the political spectrum horrified to find Le Pen on the ballot in the second round.

In local elections or elections with small electorates for various reasons, turnout tends to be greatly impacted by whether the election is (1) contested at all and is (2) controversial/adversarial. Since many races in the presence of a very small electorate are either unopposed or the candidates are fairly nice to each other (the community being so small that its in their own best interests to get along even if they don't necessarily like one another), voters just don't have that much of a compelling reason to vote unless there's some huge issue at stake (the same issues that bring out voters in mass democracies... life or death issues being the best).

The unfortunate result, as I'm sure many of us who've participated in the politics of local civic organizations or stuff like that know from anecdotal experience, is that the only consistent way to boost turnout is controversy - typically when the opponents get nasty in the campaign and people show up just "see the fireworks". That things have a tendency to get most adversarial when there are more critical issues at stake means those two factors reinforce each other in boosting voter interest and thus turnout.

Small civic organizations the world over have tried mostly in vain to find ways to boost voter interest in ways OTHER than having a big fight, but little other than having a big public fight seem to be *consistently* successful.

So I'm not quite sure what to recommend to the Apolytonian democracy if we want to boost turnout. I think I'd just argue that a 1/3 turnout in an election where most candidates are unopposed is actually EXTREMELY high and perhaps we shouldn't complain . Afterall, the types of people who are citizens of Apolytonia, by virtue of self-selection to be citizens in such a democratic system, are far more civically involved than the average human. Understandably, people who CHOOSE to be citizens in a democratic system of this manner for the purpose of "enjoying it" are going to be more likely to actually participate. So an extremely high turnout, even when there doesn't seem to be any compelling reason to vote, isn't all that surprising.

So, in conclusion, I think we've got it pretty good here, all things being considered.

[Aro]

Wow! Brilliant, Arnelos!
Btw, we ARE a direct democracy, do you agree? I mean, we are directly involved with the decisions, we know who are our leaders and we talk directly with them, in threads or turnchats. The "quick poll" is very used in the chats.
Note: my English is quite poor, I barely can express simple thoughts, but I can read very well. I'm really impressed with your analysis.

[Shiber]

Yeah, we're just like the ancient Greeks in that aspect.
Excellent pieces everyone!

[notyoueither]

Good points all. If I may add...

Many of our citizens are worldly folks and may be away from us for prolonged periods of time. Given that we have no means for absentee ballots or news, they would miss a lot of polls and elections simply due to being unavailable during the time allowed.

The result? I'm not too worried by what may seem like low voter turn out. It may very well be reasons other than apathy which keep the head count low.

[Duddha]

I've been saying for a long time that we need a legislative body. My latest idea was to get rid of the city planner office, formalize the regions, and make the governor an elected office. Together the governors would act as a legislative body and elect a Majority leader from among them to relay the orders during the turn chat. Food for thought.

[Reddawg]

cough, autocracy, cough

[Thud]

nice posts arnelos and jdjdjd.

I have only one thing to say about Aro's posts. In RL, in America, I don't like parties. Here, I do. Go figure.

[Aro]

Thud,
I'm not against parties. Especially here, in the game (in RL too: I'm a member of a party, in Brazil ). It's part of fun. I'm just saying, I can understand some of the reasons to make the parties less "massive" than they could be. The apolytonian parties are very different of that mess of corruption and incompetence we can find in most parties in RL, I pretty sure of this. Nevertheless, in fact, the other civilian societies are doing part of their job, discussing ideas and proposing actions and debates. If the parties could do this, they certainly will increase their participation in the game.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Isn't it great how our little civilization provides news and politcal analyses SO much more interesting than in RL?

I have often reflected on the idea of "Virtual Democracy", a government form from CTP, and what exactly it entails. I can barely remember playing that game (and I can't bring myself to do so now), but I don't remember whether there was much of an explanation for this concept, but I always equate it to our own little corner of Poly. What else could a Virtual Democracy be but one where the citizens get to vote on almost every little law that must be passed? Where the country's leaders are not given a mandate to govern every few years, but perhaps every few months, or perhaps Government as we know it ceases to exist. Where the Executive "executes" orders straight from the people. Where the only decisions NOT made by the people are those that require instant action, or ones specified in a Constitution, previously agreed to by the people?

Such a system of Government would be truly revolutionary in thought, but would require technology that is available to ALL. If such a system is how I imagine it, are we not a microcosm of a nation-wide Virtual Democracy? Perhaps groups like us are even the first prototypes for future Government forms?

Could we be blazing the trail for some very dramatic changes?


It is so good to think that, true or no.

[jdjdjd]

Originally posted by Arnelos
Not too shaby there, jdjdjd.

Comparative Politics happens to be my field of research, so I can tell you that your classification of different types of democracies sorta glosses over many of the major differences, but that's not the point of your piece here: the point is to discuss Apolytonia. You have a pretty astute analysis here, very good work.

Thank you, and thank you for adding the below additional analysis.

Originally posted by Arnelos
As for the issue of voter turnout, research indicates that voter turnout in democracies most directly relates to whether (as one researcher put it) "the big questions" are being fought over or have mutually acceptable answers in a society.

For instance, the democracy with the highest turnout anywhere in the world is Israel, for the simple reason that the "big questions" directly relating to the life and death of the citizens are things voters believe are at stake in every single election.... the result is that people are highly likely to turn out to the polls. The contrast could be made to the United States, with notorious low turnout, largely directly caused by a general feeling in the populace that how they vote in the next election isn't going to have an enormous (or even very large) impact on the "big issues" which are either agreed to by ALL parties (Democrats, Republicans, etc.) or just aren't issues in the U.S. right now.

The exceptions in U.S. and European politics are generally when there's a divisive issue that some small group cares A LOT about and they show up the polls in droves while the rest of the society stays home because they really don't feel affected by the issue. The hot-button issue of this sort in the U.S. has been abortion for at least the past 2 decades. In France, voter turnout was fairly low in the first round of their recent Presidential race (even with the skyrocketing crime rate, a lot of people just didn't bother to vote), but the second round saw big voter turnouts from voters across the political spectrum horrified to find Le Pen on the ballot in the second round.

I would agree with this, and I would again wonder why in Apolytonia, where the citizens have such an impact, i.e., their vote really does count, that they do not then use that vote? Perhaps its other reasons you mention below...lack of controversy, RL makes them too busy, or what not...but my feeling is that the political parties initially were much more active and voter turnout and interest was much higher. I think that political parties in Apolytonia do have a purpose if not only to try and stir voter turnout, but also to get candidates on the ballot, thus creating more elections where you have multiple candidates, because clearly a one man race is boring and people may not vote because basically, whats the difference?

Originally posted by Arnelos

So I'm not quite sure what to recommend to the Apolytonian democracy if we want to boost turnout. I think I'd just argue that a 1/3 turnout in an election where most candidates are unopposed is actually EXTREMELY high and perhaps we shouldn't complain . Afterall, the types of people who are citizens of Apolytonia, by virtue of self-selection to be citizens in such a democratic system, are far more civically involved than the average human. Understandably, people who CHOOSE to be citizens in a democratic system of this manner for the purpose of "enjoying it" are going to be more likely to actually participate. So an extremely high turnout, even when there doesn't seem to be any compelling reason to vote, isn't all that surprising.

Your second point is perhaps one that is the most perplexing. People voluntarily joined this game, so why do they not particiapte? We have expanded the game to allow any more people to get involved when we added deputy ministers, regional governors and the Court. Additionally, there is the Jungle Gazzette and the political parties. So why are the voter turnouts so low?

Just to show some examples (Note: The total member list of the game is 304.):

1. Election of City Planner, poll start: 8/12: This is the close election between OPD and Godking, where GK won by 4 votes:

68 people voted
22% of total pop

Note: 80 people voted in the 7/12 election, punkbass ran unoposed.

2. Election of Science Minister, poll start 8/12: Apocalypse v. Odin, not a close race, but to contrast above:

59 people voted
19% of total pop

Note: 84 people voted in the 7/12 election, three way race that civman2000 won easily, with 63% of the vote.

3. Court Amendment: poll started 7/17: Much debate over its set up and it appeared to be very popular idea, and it added five more people to be directly involved in the game. Before school would start:

55 people voted
18% of total pop

4. War with America: poll started 7/24: very popular idea, direct imact on the game. Before school would start:

58 people voted
19% of total pop

5. Constitutional Convention Enabling Act: poll started 8/19, very popular idea, again gets additional people involved in the game. Also, before school would start:

42 people voted.
14% of total pop

__________________________________________________

I think this shows something, perhaps, that parties do get out the vote, perhaps by causing some controversy. They also get people on the ballot. Some addl comparisons:

Position: 7/12 8/12
Economy 96 votes, 1 candidate 59 votes, 1 candidate
Science 84 votes, 3 candidates 59 votes, 2 candidates
VP 106 votes, 2 candidates 61 votes, 1 candidate
IE 100 votes, 3 candidates 59 votes, 2 candidates
FAM 90 votes, 2 candidates 57 votes, 1 candidate
City Planner 80 votes, 1 candidate 68 votes, 2 candidates
SMAC 103 votes, 3 candidates 74 votes, 1 candidate
Public Works 89 votes, 2 candidates 49 votes, 2 candidates
President 149 votes, 2 candidates 84 votes, 1 candidate

__________________________________________________

These numbers not only show that voting has dropped from 7/12 to 8/12, but that people running for offices has also dropped. Some could be written off that school was starting, at least for involvement, but it does not explain that drop in voting. Also, it is of interest to see that many times, an uncontested election draws more votes than a contested election.

So to draw my final conclusion, party involvement is a positive in a game such as this because it can draw out voters and candidates. While in RL, many things such as corruption and negative campaigning may turn people away from the polls, here we do not have the element of corruption and the negative campaigning for the most part is done in fun. Without parties, then we will need to come up with some other creative way to increase involvement.

[mtgillespie]

I'm sorry to be a dissenting voice, but i have to say i disagree with your analysis. Your figures show a drop in turnout, but you have not in any way shown a correlation between this fall and the lack of parties.

Personally, I don’t find it surprising that numbers have fallen. The game has been continuing for months, and people are naturally more committed in the early days, when everything is new. There is also the factor of school and holidays, which has removed many of the more vocal members of the community for lesser or greater periods of time.

The reason I don’t agree with your theory on parties is that I believe they are formed out of necessity in real life, a necessity which we don’t have. Not one for forming groups of like minded people or organisational reasons, both of which they do, but simply for identification. The biggest problem for candidates of a representative democracy, even in this media obsessed age, is getting your message across and being known. Not to the party activists and involved people, but to the largely disinterested masses. Being a member of a party immediately aligns you with a set of values, which you can then alter subtly during your campaign. That is why generally independent candidates do not do well in real life elections. The second reason they do badly is because large number of voters vote for whichever candidate their party puts up, regardless. The extreme example of this is the last US elections, where one candidate managed to win despite the fact that he had died 5 days before the election!

In apolyton, we have no or few such preconceptions, so to “be known”, you merely beome active on the boards, and immediately you have reached everyone you want to. Secondly, we generally do not have entrenched voting lines when it comes to people, even if we do on the building/war issue. Thirdly, as we are in most cases a direct democracy, if you support the DIA but a UFC member gets in (or vice versa), you still have a say in what actions are taken, as most issues are polled, and we trust our ministers to follow the will of the people.

[DAVOUT]

I think the mtgillespie argument is quite pertinent, and I would just add two comments :

- political parties in the game, if they are not founded on an ideology (and the building/war issue is no longer an ideology), cannot be more than role playing, with a very limited effect on the game, and consequently a limited number of people interested ; I repeate hereunder some suggestions I made in an other thread in view of building ideologies which could have more impact on the game.

- the number of people voting does not summarized the participation and involvment of the members in the game ; 1/ many members are interested in observing the game, but have their own reasons not to participate, and they enjoy the game; even one of them wrote a post just to say so ; 2/ a practical measure of participation is the number of threads opened, the number of people opening threads, the number of posts, and the number of people writing posts ; these figures, and their variations would tell us more on participation than only the number of people voting.

-------------
Political parties are created when several citizens share a common ideological attitude ; in the demo game we have started parties on the argument of strategies (builders versus warmongers) ; the game has demonstrated that this point is not ideological (it is purely practical in view of optimising the result), and therefore cannot be the basis of political parties.
So, we should search the ideological attitudes that we adopt toward the demo game if we want to incorporate in it some flavour of politics. These attitudes appears in the arguments used in the discussions. For instance, the following arguments could be in one or several political programs:

- it is just a game : The pro IIJG argument feels that it is harmless to do ANYTHING just because it is not real. The anti IIJG feels exactly the contrary. He cannot be rationally convince that the other side is right. This is political.
- Real Life : Should we try to replicate RL in the game or not? Both attitude have their own logic and interest, but are clearly in opposition. This is political.
- It will slow the game : in a demo game, we could expect that the priority is given to the democracy aspects, since the Civ 3 game is only the pretext of the demo game ; but we observe that anytime the demo mechanics could postpone the playing of some turns by a few days, the IWSTG argument justify any disrespect of the law. This is also a political choice.

[Aro]

mtgillespie and DAVOUT,
Great arguments.

Note: As you can see, this discussion is ideological.

[UnOrthOdOx]

I am pleased to see so much interest in the voting, turnout, and political system. Would some of you, however, go make a point over here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=62450

On my proposal to actually get these views public, inspire controversy, and gain activity between the parties, or simply dissenting views.

[GePap]

I would argue that the disapearance of the political parties is not the cause, but symptom, of the forces that have lead to a decline in voting numbers and the number of candidates:

First, of course, is the important issue of time for the citizens, and that many of our citizens have new preoccupations that make thier involvement in the game less common. As a trend, this will continue to grow until the chrismas season: as school gets underway and tests and essasy eat up more student time. I would argue that come december, a spike in voters will occur.

I will agree with Arnelos, that the urgency of the times also boosts participation: ours was a very teneous beginning, with a terrible starting position, and how to advance from such a weak starting point did bring up many issues about how to play a civ3 game in general, this one in particular. The biggest elections came on the verge of our first major war- a war that made us, so to speak. the last set of elections came on the verge of new wars, wars that have also helped us grow. Th crisis has passed, and we have become pre-eminent in the world- we have settled down smewhat, so people loose some interest.

This second trend might be changing, which is in fact, why parties are making a slight comeback. In fact, from the time of MWIA election, party affiliaion actualy returned to the ballot for OPD's- a significant change from the strong anti-party backlash after Ninots election. Why then is this trend bac? Because we are reaching a point of 'crisis', not an immediate , civ threatening crisis, but a crisis of ideas, of paths. Now that war, the UFC platform, has taken us so far, what's left? Wat shall our path be after we conquer the Persian homeland (The change in policy from punishing Persia to conquering Persia happened with little debate)? how quickly will we capture America? And then what?

This last question is key: we have reached a point were peaceful growth is possible- so will the campiagning end? Will public works become more vital than SMC? And as we move forward, the grand issue- of what victory we want, looms. in fact, i think it is a valid issue now- since if we aim for dominion, we must continue to campaign vigorously- and if we aim for conquest, the same. As the issue of vctory becomes more pressing, look for parties to grow and particiapion to also grow. Again, by december.

[joncnunn]

Activity level can change rapidally as various people's Real Life activitys change.