Post by elfijigrande on Apr 13, 2016 7:36:05 GMT
International Northwestern Union
April Foreign Update
El Fiji Grande:
I'd like to begin by saying that we as the International Northwestern Union are ecstatic that our regions have officially opened embassies. New or old, we're sure that our relations will be meaningful, mutually beneficial, and active. We thank you for your time and consideration, and hope the future is bright for both of our regions.
That said, allow me to begin the update. A lot has happened in the International Northwestern Union (INWU) lately.
In mid-late March, my current administration took office unexpectedly, following a chaotic and disastrous former delegacy. Due to extensive cultural problems, regional misunderstandings, and poor leadership in the old administration, a significant portion of active nations left to form another region: [region]The Hanover Republic[/region]. This marked the second time in our regional history in which a split occurred. The INWU was conflicted and feeling down. I ran for office on the platform of putting the region back on its feet and pursue a remerge of our regions. I won the election overwhelmingly, putting me into office as delegate for the third (non-consecutive) time. I immediately worked to resolve the issues that led to the split, among which was regional culture. I also invested a nontrivial amount of time into improving our forums, foreign relations, and regional dignity.
In the first few weeks of my delegacy, I've been rather successful so far. Three of the six most active nations that left for The Hanover Republic have happily returned to the INWU. The region is booming, with incredibly activity and progress. We've transformed ourselves immensely in the last few weeks. We also wrote and passed an entirely new constitution due to the failings of the old by a large supermajority. The new constitution revised our legislature yet again. We changed from being a pure direct-democracy to creating something called the Regional Council. This is effectively still direct democracy; there is simply a clause which states that members need to be active, non-apathetic, and (hopefully) informed. Voting also occurs on the regional forums for efficiency and fraud protection rather than by employing the NS polling system.
Speaking more on the Regional Council (RC) system and the problems that have developed as a result, here is Othelos:
"Currently, due to a lack of wide participation when developing the constitution, a conflict has arisen about the balance of power between the branches. Because of low participation, the creators of the constitution (essentially Othelos with Estradia as editor) did not foresee that the Justices would be upset about not being able to vote in the newly formed Regional Council.
The Regional Council is structured so that only nations who have enough active interest can participate. The Judicial branch was designed to remain outside of it, to avoid the conflict of interest presented - that is, voting on legislation and then having to rule on its constitutionality. However, the two leading executives of the region, the World Assembly Delegate and the Chancellor, are permitted to have votes in the Regional Council, to ensure that citizens not in the Regional Council have elected representation.
What has emerged is a struggle between the Executive and Judicial branches over which should have power in the Regional Council. Unfortunately, due to the nature of how the government is structured, there is no clear solution to the issue. Since the Court is locked in this battle over power as well, it is impossible to ask for an objective opinion based on the constitution.
Essentially, at the moment, there is a constitutional crisis. Solutions have been presented, but it's quickly becoming clear that someone will lose out from this struggle unless we create an entirely new government."
Othelos was right when he predicted chaos and uncertainty. There was yet another conflict that threatened to push us back and cause further strife. Eventually, one side did lose out, but did so willingly to allow the region to move on. It wasn't much of a compromise - the result was to simply allow justices to vote in the regional council along with everyone else who met the basic requirements. A proposal was written and proposed in the regional council to that extent, and is currently on track to be passed within the next day or so.
We once had it that the region's government was deliberately small to increase efficiency and clarity. But this logic is definitely flawed, at least - or especially - on NationStates. In a reversal, we've quickly increased the number of government positions and opportunities for newer nations to get involved. It's still a fairly small group, but when combined with the Regional Council, in which anyone can participate if they stay active, the system works. Below is a chart made by Albiorix that displays our current government system:
You may notice on the right-hand-side is the Regional Newspaper. This is an experimental initiative led by Savalen meant to boost interest in foreign affairs among our own members, and interest in our region from our foreign embassies. We shall see if it is any good when the first edition will be published in early April. We're currently using a tiered (multi-stage) polling process to determine a name for the paper. The three names that have made it to the semi-finals are: The NorthWest Star, The Compass, and The NorthWest News, each a reference to our region's name. The NorthWest Star is currently overwhelmingly in the lead, in part because of my explanation that it's nearly a pun on the North Star, which is why it carries symbolism, direction, and meaning, despite Othelos' comment that it sounds like a small rural Kansas newspaper.
Here's Savalen with his update on the progress of the regional newspaper:
"Hello everybody! I bring exciting news from the INWU – we will be publishing an all new newspaper! The newspaper has two primary aims: the first is to promote the INWU on the Inter-regional stage, the other is to strengthen the ties between us. We hope that you are as excited as we are for this news!
Why am I putting this in the Regional Foreign Update you may ask? Well, this isn’t just a paper for the INWU, it’s a paper for everyone! Whether you are a small or massive, RP or serious region, we invite you to write up an article for the so far unnamed newspaper. We hope that this will prove to be a different and enjoyable way to collaborate with people from around NationStates!"
We've also been working on improving our regional flag. The Regional Council approved a proposal to create a new flag for our region, to replace the old, which is poor example of proper vexillology. Proposals are currently being submitted, but the one that everyone seems to love the most incorporates some of our old symbolism (like the justice/compass symbol at the top of this update). Voting for that will begin after the current regional newspaper name poll is concluded.
On the topic of roleplay, another facet of many great regions, each administration of the INWU has attempted (and failed) to start it up. I hope that my administration will be the one to change that. Tracian Empire - a veteran P2TM roleplayer - was elected to throw his hat into the ring to make roleplay more interesting and the people more interested.
"Alright, so, this is Tracian Empire here. As some of you might know, I am the current Minister of Roleplay of the [region]International Northwestern Union[/region].. During the emergency elections, I was elected as MoRP and ever since then, more or less, I’ve tried to do my best in order improve the roleplaying situation in the region. Unfortunately, from the very beginning, the INWU has suffered from a rather big roleplay apathy, with the only roleplay that managed to have a little success being the canon map roleplay, which has been plagued by countless problems and arguments, resulting in a poor roleplaying experience for everyone in the region. Fixing it has been and still is my main objective.
Mainly, I tried to focus on rebooting the roleplaying activity by creating multiple roleplays, trying to make roleplays which would be interesting to the other members of the region, in accordance with the roleplay survey Fiji had started. Trying to target both P2TM and Regional Forum roleplays, I’ve mainly created character roleplays , centered around apocalyptic scenarios, and various nation roleplays, like a medieval nation roleplay currently in its signup stage, and a sci-fi roleplay who is the same stage. During these little experiments, who only had a medium to low success, I’ve realized that we need a way to wake up an interest for roleplaying in the people of the region, and that’s why I started working on a roleplaying guide, which shall be finished soon. With the guide, I hope to introduce a series of roleplaying tutorials which will hopefully start waking up a regional interest in roleplaying. I’ve also tried to reboot the regional map, by moving to a new one, a map which is currently under work, and will probably be launched over the next few weeks.
There is still a lot to do, but I hope that what I’m trying to do will serve as a beginning for a bright roleplaying future of this region.
Thrace"
And that puts us in our current position. In just the last few days, given that our region has stabilized and is confident once again, I have made an effort to streamline our region's government - from creating several regional welcome guides to reorganizing our offsite Foreign Office. Our ambassadorial program is rather new, so please be a bit lenient with our officers in these first few updates. We have made a significant effort to reach out to other regions, expanding our original regional alliances and embassies from Taijitu, Wintreath, and The Rejected Realms to now also include Lazarus, Spiritus, Albion, and the Renegade Islands Alliance, with pending applications in 10000 Islands, Balder, Texas, and Europeia. It's certainly been a busy month, and we look forward to keeping it that way!
I hope you've enjoyed this month's update, so - until next time then!
So long, and thanks for all the fish! (common INWU saying)
~ the International Northwestern Union Foreign Office