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Minister of Media · 03-01-2022, 10:39 PM

The Southern Journal
The Official News Outlet of the South Pacific

Feeder Democracy: Alive and Well?
By Wizard Ferret

The three largest regional communities in NationStates; The North Pacific, The East Pacific and The South Pacific; all hold a common political ideology. TNP announces it immediately in their regional motto, prominently displayed on their WFE, which begins, “Where the democracy is strong”. Their reasons to join TNP pamphlet proclaims the region “the preeminent democracy in NationStates.” TSP’s new player guide emphasizes the region’s status as “one of the oldest democracies in the game.” Both TSP and TEP are signatories of The January Accords seeking to “promote the ideals of democracy.” They are all clearly regions who are more than just democracies, they define their regional identities by it.

Democracy must be actively maintained but more than that it requires active participation to keep its strength. It must be reaffirmed as central to the community by its members over and over again. In Feeders that process of reaffirmation must also include making the pitch of democracy to the constant stream of foundling nations they receive. Less active participation will likely not put the regions at political risk (the security apparatuses of all three regions are not dependent on participation) but a shift in participation patterns may change regional identities. If new community members do not become active participants in their respective regional democracy, the strength of that democracy as a regional identity will be decreased.

With that in mind this article will evaluate the engagement levels of region members with their democracy by examining the two most basic actions a member can take to become a participant in it. The first being registering for voting. All three regions require a forum application of some type before considering an individual eligible to vote, although all three refer to it in different terms. In TNP this means applying for citizenship, in TEP and TSP, where citizenship is automatically conferred with residency, this means registering to vote and applying for legislatorship status respectively. The number of applications received in each region and the resulting number of eligible voters present are key indicators of participation in regional democracy. Further, with the concept previously mentioned of making the pitch of democracy to new members, the applications specifically are a key indicator of the efficacy of that pitch. The second basic action is voting, participation in democracy at its most fundamental and therefore probably the best measure of the health of a democratic culture.

In order to fully evaluate democratic engagement in the GCRs a time period of four years has been used to gather data. In each year the number of applications (whether they be for citizenship in TNP, voting registration in TEP or legislatorship in TSP) has been determined for January. The choice of one month being used both to enable efficient research and because founding rates differing each month would improperly colour the analysis. Active citizen totals have been taken from the electoral rolls published alongside election results in the first major election of each of the last four years. For TNP this is the January General Election, for TEP this is the February Delegate Election and for TSP this is the February Cabinet Election. Similarly the ballots cast total has been taken from each of the last four elections previously mentioned to allow a year over year comparison that should eliminate most background statistical noise.

Applications and Eligible Voters

The graph at left shows a distinct pattern for each region. Overall decline in TNP applications, overall increase in TSP applications and mostly steady TEP applications (January 2022 is not representative due to legislative change from citizenship applications to voter registration applications occurring in that month). The raw totals still very obviously favour TNP but the decline in applications is significant and difficult to explain from a cursory look. Unlike the structural change that explains TEPs 2022 collapse, TNP application procedure has remained shockingly uniform, continuing in the same thread and with the same application form for all four years covered in the data. Here perhaps we do see a sign of democracy, and participation in it, losing its centrality to a region’s identity. TSP and TEP have more comparable numbers to each other than TNP. What’s really of interest is the 2021 TSP spike aside, applicant totals are below TEP totals, well below in 2019 and 2020. What made TSP applications trail so significantly? Is the Legislator title, the only meaningful difference between the three region’s application process (prior to 2022 TEPers applied for Citizenship, just like TNPers), perhaps too intimidating to new nations?

The citizens graph at right is not as useful in TEPs case as by my understanding they were not required to keep public voter rolls until the Voter Registration Act was passed. As such only information regarding citizens (which will be used as the blanket term from here on out for anyone with voting rights, even if citizens in TSP and TEP are defined differently) at the time of the February 2022 Delegate Election is presented. Before considering TSP and TNP I will mention again, the graph only demonstrates citizens at the time of the first major election in each year. The TSP graph is almost identical in shape to the applications graph above. This would seem to indicate a very fluid base of registered citizens, increasing and decreasing based on the increasing and decreasing rate of applicants. The negative implication of that is TSP would therefore appear to have less holding power on accepted applicants, completely opposite to TNP where the applicants graph is almost perfectly reversed here. TNP’s citizen count increases year over year (with the exception of 2022) despite applications declining each year. Therefore it would seem reasonable to conclude TNP has better retention of applicants than TSP.

Ballots Cast

Now for what is likely the most reliable measure for determining the importance of democracy to regional culture, the voting records. Here we’re presented with a near mirror of TNP’s applications graph. How does that make sense if citizen levels were not impacted by decreasing applications? New citizens are the most likely to vote, as often an approaching vote becomes the impetus to apply for citizenship, so with the decline in applications comes a decline in votes. TSPs voting trends results in almost the same graph as for applications and citizens (subtle increase from 2019-2020, sharp increase to 2021, decrease to 2022 but still higher than 2020 levels). This description holds true for all three TSP graphs. TEPs total ballots cast waver more, it is difficult to get a sense on an underlying trend especially absent the voter rolls before 2022.

Comparing between the graphs gives an indication of how they impact each other. Interestingly from the limited data gathered it appears more likely that applications influence ballots cast more than citizenship totals. The real importance though is in determining what all the graphs mean when put together. Clearly TNP participation in democracy is declining. The two main measurables put forward to start, applications for voting rights and exercising those rights, have both declined four years running. TSP participation has, in the main, increased in those two categories with a notable jump in 2021. TEP is more scattered but participation in both regards appears relatively steady.

All of these numbers however are most relevant when compared to the nation total of the regions. When considering the strength of democracy as a regional identity, more nations should mean more participation. A decline in participation coupled with a decline in regional population does not necessarily represent a decaying democratic culture, there are just less nations to espouse it. Over the four years studied however, regional populations have almost uniformly increased. Over the four years covered in the data above the average nation count of the three regions has increased from below 8,000 to around 10,500 at the time of the most recent election for each region (and has only continued to increase since). Since all regions have increased in nation count all regions should have seen an increase in electoral participation if the centrality of democracy to their identities was being maintained. Yet only TSP saw an increase in participation and even then not anywhere near as much as the changes in nation count should indicate. For this we can turn to the table below.
[Image: ZKwMqG1.png]

TNP’s participation as a percentage of nations was by far the best throughout the entire period which is a given considering the totals presented in the above graphs. Additionally every region’s percentage participation declined from 2019, TSP faring the best only losing .08% while TEP and TNP lost close to half their 2019 percentage. The surge of Brazilian nations is no doubt responsible for the 2022 numbers being particularly bad, after all just looking at the nations graph shows a massive spike for all regions year over year that can likely be attributed to that rush. Disregarding that year and focusing on 2021 instead has better results but even then only TSP improved on their 2019 participation.

Clearly participation in democracy, either percentage based or the raw totals gathered, is in decline, partially so for TEP and TSP and inarguably for TNP. For a region that features its democracy most prominently this should be somewhat concerning for TNP. Although their total numbers remain far and away the strongest, the pace of the decline might put those in doubt sooner rather than later.

Ultimately this examination brings another issue to light. Instead of simply a change in the importance of democracy to regional identity perhaps there is a change in how players fundamentally approach NationStates. There is clearly no issue with new nations being founded in NS, the GCR population graphs mostly increase with the usual erratic spikes in between. All these new players may be engaging in the game in a different way, placing less importance on and showing less interest in the regional government format that has been accepted practice. The shift this data identifies may be one away from government activity and toward treating NS as another space for community interaction similar to a social media hub.

So is Feeder democracy alive and well? Well, it’s certainly not close to death, even with percentage participation at recent lows the total citizen populations remain strong. The real question is what trends will carry forward through the eventual change to F/S. Will lower founding rates increase percentage participation again? Or is the reason participation has declined tied to a different perception of NS and less foundings will simply mean even less participation in government?