Government Structure - Executive and Legislative Branches

I don't think there is need even if there are more than a hundred.... People will come foreward who are leader-types, and people will generally speaking fall in line with them regardless... There aren't issues such as transportation, costs, and business that prevent anyone from being active on this board...

Basically a legislature is a response to physical problems which I do not believe will effect us in a virtual format... I may be wrong about this, as I am new, but the fact that previous demogames do not generally appear to have used legislatures would seem to indicate that they are unneccessary

Like I said, I was just trying to stir things up. That said, the whole legislature thing was merely an imaginary construct--even with fewer than 100 people, only a few people (political independents) would be actual members of a legislature; hopefully, a majority would be political parties. Because good political parties always vote in blocs, the seven or so members of a party could control as much of the legislature as they got votes for.

Anyway, a nonpartisan system with universal membership in the legislature:

The Legislature

1. The Legislature shall be named the Chamber of the People.
2. The Chamber of the People shall have all legislative power.
3. The Chamber of the People shall have the power to elect the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.

The Executive

1. The Prime Minister shall be the head of the Government of [country name].
2. The Prime Minister shall nominate candidates for the Cabinet, subject to the approval disapproval of the Chamber of the People.
3. The Cabinet and Prime Minister shall be called the Government of [country name]; it should seek the confidence of members of the Chamber of the People to have a parliamentary majority; the Government cannot serve without a parliamentary majority.
4. The Government shall be dissolved automatically after [fixed term].
5. The Government may be dissolved before [fixed term] by virtue of a Motion of No Confidence. If the Motion of No Confidence passes, the Government is deemed to have lost a parliamentary majority.
6. A parliamentary majority may also be denied:
   • If a bill introduced by the Government and designated a Measure of Confidence fails, or
   • If a bill concerning taxes, the budget, Civics, or religion introduced by the Government fails (equivalent to Loss of Supply in Westminster-style governments).

I have other ideas, as well.

I do like your executive plan very much...

Although, depending on the civilisation we end up with, I would propose the Head of Government's title be renamed to something more flavourful...

Does the Head of Government also serve as head of State in your system, or are we assuming that that position is held by the in-game leader (Bismark or Caesar or whoever), or does it just not matter? I'mk never quite clear on Heads of state vs Heads of government...

I don't really think a Head of State matters, since we don't really need a symbol. However, we could add a popularly-elected, fixed-term President (or equivalent) to serve as a "caretaker" ruler during disputes and to appoint a Prime or other Minister when none are willing to run.

(head of state=symbolic leader of the nation; head of government=person who actually runs things. Absolute monarchies and presidential republics--e.g. the USA--combine the two positions. Parliamentary democracy does not. Semi-presidential systems--like France--are in the middle).

I like the idea that we don't appoint people for jobs until we need them, but it doesn't make sense to me to not set up a position until its already needed, when we know we will probably need it in the future.

I propose we elect a 'National Council', as Lockesdonkey proposes, although this chamber will not in itself have any power. It will serve as a pool for the president (elected seperately) to choose his cabinet (all the ministers), as well as to fill minister vacancies during his term and fill newly created offices as well.

I don't know how succesful this would be in practice, but it would help prevent game delays when some new position is needed- i.e., we won't have to stop for a week the first time we find another civ or get in a fight with a barbarian.

This plan would help 'keep the ball rolling' in the early turns, which would increase the game's excitement for everyone and possibly even prevent some from leaving out of boredom.

After minister positions get settled down, we could revert to just electing them directly, but in the initial phase of a suggested 'build as we go' style government, it would be benificial to have this system.

OK, three different models that I've thought up.

First, no council, nonpartisan (same as above):

The Legislature

1. The Legislature shall be named the Chamber of the People.
2. The Chamber of the People shall have all legislative power.
3. The Chamber of the People shall have the power to elect the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.

The Executive

1. The Prime Minister shall be the head of the Government of [country name].
2. The Prime Minister shall nominate candidates for the Cabinet, subject to the approval disapproval of the Chamber of the People.
3. The Cabinet and Prime Minister shall be called the Government of [country name]; it should seek the confidence of members of the Chamber of the People to have a parliamentary majority; the Government cannot serve without a parliamentary majority.
4. The Government shall be dissolved automatically after [fixed term].
5. The Government may be dissolved before [fixed term] by virtue of a Motion of No Confidence. If the Motion of No Confidence passes, the Government is deemed to have lost a parliamentary majority.
6. A parliamentary majority may also be denied:
   • If a bill introduced by the Government and designated a Measure of Confidence fails, or
   • If a bill concerning taxes, the budget, Civics, or religion introduced by the Government fails (equivalent to Loss of Supply in Westminster-style governments).

Council/upper house, non-partisan:

Legislative

1. The National Assembly of [country name] consists of the Chamber of the People and the Chamber of Deputies.
2. The Chamber of the People shall comprise all citizens of the Demogame; it has final lawmaking power.
3. The Chamber of the People shall elect from among their number twenty people (or fifteen, or something--I'm pretty sure we'll get to 100 citizens within a day or two) to the Chamber of Deputies.
4. The Chamber of Deputies shall elect from among their number the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, subject to the approval of the Chamber of the People; it shall have no part in the process of making and/or debating law except in the right of Deputies to speak/vote in the Chamber of the People.

Executive

1. The Chamber of Deputies shall, as outlined above, nominate the Prime Minister and the Cabinet from among their number; the Chamber of the People must approve.
2. The Cabinet and Prime Minister comprise the Government.
3. The Government must maintain a majority in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Chamber of the People.
4. The Government shall be dissolved automatically after [fixed term].
5. The Government may be dissolved before [fixed term] by virtue of a Motion of No Confidence in either the Chamber of Deputies or the Chamber of the People. If the Motion of No Confidence passes, the Government is deemed to have lost a parliamentary majority.
6. A parliamentary majority may also be denied:
   • If a bill introduced by the Government and designated a Measure of Confidence fails, or
   • If a bill concerning taxes, the budget, Civics, or religion introduced by the Government fails.
7. A loss of a majority in the Chamber of Deputies requires that the Chamber of Deputies elect a new Government. However, if a Motion of Confidence in the Government passes the Chamber of the People, then the Government remains in place and a new Chamber of Deputies shall be elected.*
8. A loss of majority in the Chamber of the People requires that both the government and the Chamber of Deputies be dissolved and new elections held.

*Complex. Essentially, if the Deputies don't like the government and the people do, it's the Deputies who get the boot.

Council/upper house, partisan:

Legislative

1. The National Assembly of [country name] consists of the Chamber of the People and the Chamber of Deputies.
2. The Chamber of the People shall comprise all citizens of the Demogame; it has final lawmaking power.
3. The Chamber of the People shall elect the Chamber of Deputies in the following manner:
   • Citizens will vote for political parties. Parties shall take imaginary seats in the Chamber of Deputies proportional to the percentage of votes they win in the election.
   • A single poll option will be open for people who wish to vote for individuals. Those citizens who vote for individuals should PM a list of individuals, ranked by preference. Those who vote for individuals may not vote for parties.
4. The Chamber of Deputies shall elect from among their number the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, subject to the approval of the Chamber of the People; it shall have no part in the process of making and/or debating law except in the right of Deputies to speak/vote in the Chamber of the People.

Executive is same as the nonpartisan version with an upper house. For the purposes of offices, parties can choose which people occupy their Chamber of Deputies seats. If the number of seats is larger than the party, all party members are Deputies.

If I had to chose between these three, I'd chose the first. Simpler is better.
However, I don't really like the cabinet all acting together, and failing together. I think that a simple bill/initiative/whatever not passed shouldn't be the end of the cabinet.

If you're talking about loss of supply, then there's two things:

If the people and the Government disagree about money, civics, and religion, what can they agree on?

In addition, the poll options can be constructed thus:

Question: Do you agree with this tax increase (or civic change or budget realignment or religion change)?

Yes
No, but I retain confidence in this government
No, and I have lost confidence in this government
Abstain.

hmmm under a TRUE democracy the citizens would control all the decision making powers.. now.. if we run a democracy rather than a democratic republic we risk tons of red tape and buearacratic(sp) nonsense.. i say avoid the *citizens control all* style of leading and instead stick with the *citizens picked this guy to make decisions for them* style.. of course im in no way advocating the complete disassociation with the populace.. im just saying that voting on every little decision will slow everything down to a crawl..
peace,
Jon

I admire the perserverence shown in trying to advocate a parlimentary style structure, but it doesn't seem a good fit to the way DG politics actually turns out.

Although the names of offices are quite different, and there are some nuances between this and what we've tried before, it's really very similar to two past experiments.

In Civ3 DG6, we tried a two layer government with a strategy council making up overall policy and a tactical layer implementing that strategy with specific instructions. Only a few (2-3) people really understood how the work flow was supposed to happen, and it resulted in mass confusion.

In Civ4 DG1, we tried another two layer system, with a Triumvirate of President, State, and War; and a cabinet made up of the remainder of the offices. If we ignore the difficulty caused by DLs and look strictly at what we did with that system once the game started, the first things we did were to take out the aspects where the Triumvirate acted as a single unit. In particular the ability of the citizens to vote "no confidence" (it was called a recall instead) in the whole Triumvirate was struck down very early.

You might want to argue that the veterans dominated and wouldn't allow the process to deviate what we were comfortable with, but in fact it was veterans who advocated for and allowed these two experiments to proceed. We found the hard way that complicated is bad, simple is good.

All this leads to my opinion on the matter. Just my opinion but I'd not be surprised if a lot of people share it. Unfortunately the parliment style is too complicated for a game which is in a rebuilding state. Perhaps it would be worth looking at for the next one.

As a person who lives in a RL country with a completly functional unicameral legislature, I think that having two houses is a completly useless waste of time and money... (Well, I suppose it dosen't cost us anything here, but still...)

i think an office for each civic category should be in place when we get the 2nd stage of that category... like no Minister of Economy until we get Mercantilism, no Minister of Law until vassalage is discovered........

The government will be ruled by the president until one of the civic goes stage 2, then we will have the president leading the 4 other civic (like a despot leader) and 1 minister to rule the civic that just went stage 2

Am i making any sense??

yeah i was thinking around the same thing lordogre.. but i think that will be a little bit too cumbersome to enjoy.. i say we keep the same offices.. maybe adding some more as we go.. but rather than make them different.. rename them lol

Furius said:

As a person who lives in a RL country with a completly functional unicameral legislature, I think that having two houses is a completly useless waste of time and money... (Well, I suppose it dosen't cost us anything here, but still...)

Click to expand...

Perhaps. But I don't think that the House of Representatives includes all five million or so New Zealanders...it would be d*** hard to elect a government that way...take it from an American, Presidential elections are annoying.

In any case, upon reviewing the old demogames, I don't think that my simplest system (Model 1) is any more complicated than the old systems; and remember, I am a DG novice myself. In fact, it should completely understandable to the majority of the democratic world that runs on parliamentary lines. I explicitly modeled it on the Westminster system (loss of supply is unique to the UK and UK-derived parliaments).

Everyone see that okay?

It's time to determine our government structure. Various options have been proposed, time to get the proposals out there. Sometime on Sunday, I will go through this thread, from this point on, and create a poll listing each proposal. That poll will be multiple choice. The top three (and any ties) will be single polled, with the option getting the most votes being the form of government we adopt. Each poll will last 4 days. That will give us a March 1 start date.

Please, when you post your proposal, name it. When discussing a proposal, use that name. That will greatly help keep things organized.

Sounds a bit hard, but we've been dancing, dallying and wasting time. Time to

-- Ravensfire

Citizen's Initiative - The Tribal Government Act of 4000BC

In order to function, the structure of the Government must be defined, and duties allocated. In all of the offices declared below, the specifics of how the office is run are left up to the office holder. Office holders can delegate duties, but not responsibilities. This means an offical can have another citizen conduct actions in their name, but the official is responsible for the actions, or lack thereof.

As our nation is small, this government reflects it.

The Warlord is the supreme leader of our nation. They control all units and have all powers not granted to another official. This includes overseeing Elections and the Designated Player pool.

Each city will have an Elder. The Elder controls all functions of the city. If a city is founded in mid-term, the Elder will be appointed by the Warlord.

Officials may be removed from office by a Coup. To declare a Coup, any citizen may post a thread in the citizen forum declaring a coup against an official or group of officials. If two other citizens support the coup, a poll is posted asking if the citizens support the official(s) targeted by the coup. This poll is private, single-choice, and must be set to expire in 4 days.

If the number of citizens that voted to not support the officials exceeds by number of citizens that voted to support the officials by at least one and a half as many votes (a 3/5 majority), the coup is successful. The citizen who originally called for the coup immediately replaces the official targetted by the coup. If more than one official is targetted, the citizen may choose which office they take. The citizens removed from office may not be reappointed to any office for 7 days.

If the coup fails, the citizen calling for the coup is removed from any elected office they hold. They may not be appointed to any office for 7 days. They may not call for another coup for the remainder of the current term.

Any appointment may be challenged by a confirmation poll. If a confirmation poll does not already exist for an appointment, any citizen may create such a poll. This poll must be created within 48 hours of the action, and must ask "Do you approve of <description of action>", contain only Yes, No and Abstain options, be marked privte, single-choice and expire in 2 days. When the poll closes, if the majority of citizens, not including abstain, voted No, the appointment is overturned. Any other result confirms the appointment.

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EDIT:
This would elect a Warlord and an Elder in the first term, in addition to the Judiciary. I tried to have a little fun with this, in both the titles, and the "coup". For those that remember, this is just a renamed impeachment, with a slight twist. This should be a nice ruleset, adding 1-2 offices, for 2, maybe 3 terms. After that, it will need revamping and adjustment. Given the differences between Civ3 and Civ4, and the utter failure of the C4DG1 government format, that may be a good thing. After 2 terms, we probably have a better idea about the needs of our Government

-- Ravensfire

I would ask each proponent to state the offices which would be elected at the beginning of the 1st term. This will eliminate any uncertainty in the election process, should the proposal be selected.

Lockesdonkey has posted his proposal here.

-- Ravensfire

If more than one official is targetted, the citizen may choose which office they take.

Click to expand...

And the other office is filled by appointment by the Warlord?

dutchfire said:

And the other office is filled by appointment by the Elder?

Click to expand...

I think it says the Warlord appoints to empty offices.