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- El Fiji Grande (#3446)
The WA Blocs
When will we see a new one.
Introduction
A spectre is haunting Gameplay - the spectre of blocism. All the powers of old Gameplay have entered into a not yet official alliance to exorcise this spectre: Admin and Emperor, Glen-Rhodes and United Massachusetts, Southern Defenders and Western purge-squads.
Okay bad communism fan-fiction aside, those of us in Gameplay have probably noticed the World Assembly Voting Blocs which have risen around us. They are scary and big and are coming for all of our sovereignty. We will all end up democratic and will be forced to run elections every week, by the time they are done with us. Well maybe not necessarily. The current voting blocs are built on very specific circumstances that just do not exist elsewhere in the current diplomatic climate and the system they seek to dominate is just not one regions are obligated to care about.
The most prominent, successful, and the biggest boogeyman around is of course WALL, or the World Assembly Legislative League, consisting of: The North Pacific, Balder, Europeia, Europe, and the International Democratic Union. Less well known but still going strong is the Interregional Legislative Coalition, abbreviated to ILC, consisting of: the Democratic Socialist Assembly, Social Liberal Union, The Communist Bloc, The Internationale/Grenada, The Leftist Assembly, and The Versutian Federation. Finally, perhaps more known but a whole lot less successful is the Strategic Interregional Exchange for Growth and Equity, colloquially known as SIEGE. SIEGE is currently not an existing bloc and the membership list was never publicly announced; but we know it was proposed by The East Pacific and that The South Pacific, The West Pacific, and The Pacific were at the least in discussions in regards to it. These three blocs stand as the most high profile. Each was and is different however.
The Blocs In Existence
The ILC
The first WA bloc I would like to look at is the ILC. The ILC is a bloc created entirely of User Created Regions (UCRs). These UCRs with the exception of The Versutian Federation and the Social Liberal Union are members of NSLeft. A rather storied and the most closely knit UCR political sphere. Within the ILC we recognize The Communist Bloc as the largest and most dominant force, controlling almost fifty-percent of the delegate endorsements in the entire bloc and NSLeft as a whole controlling more than eighty-five percent of the endorsements. What is interesting is that even with The Communist Bloc as the dominant region size-wise, the current chairman of the ILC is from The Versutian Federation.. The ILC controls north of five hundred World Assembly votes which puts them as the smallest bloc, by a significant margin.
WALL
Now, we could not mention WALL without talking about The North Pacific. Because, TNP very much is WALL. Proportionally their position in WALL is even more dominant than The Communist Bloc in the ILC, TNP alone controls over fifty percent of the delegate endorsements This presence and dominance within WALL naturally elevates TNP to a leadership role in WALL. Furthermore, much like the ILC is built out of a pre-existing diplomatic sphere, so was WALL. Europeia, Balder, and TNP are all signatures of the Independent Manifesto and heavily base their regional diplomacy around that document. WALL as a whole controls over two thousand World Assembly votes, the largest World Assembly bloc in existence.
SIEGE
Now, SIEGE was being built with a motive in mind. The name alone should give away their intention to be an opposition to WALL. The four regions together would have had parity with WALL, and the addition of another region (The Rejected Realms for example) could have set them above. But they also would have had parity with each other. No member region of SIEGE would have had the WA dominance, and by extension bloc dominance, that TCB and TNP enjoy. Not necessarily a negative but a noticeable difference. However what is definitely a negative is the lack of a pre-existing diplomatic sphere. SIEGE would have been built on at best shaky diplomatic foundations. It would be generous to call the ties between the regions close, considering TSP’s and TWP’s recent historic diplomatic agreement is detente. Not a Treaty or even a Declaration of Friendship, just detente. It was indeed a historic agreement, but not exactly the foundations of a sphere. Looking at the numbers, the four regions combined would have been at twenty three hundred endorsements, two hundred ahead of WALL.
Why we will not see a new Bloc
Intro
Overall, I think the diplomatic foundations upon which WALL and the ILC were built are special and they do not exist elsewhere on NationStates. With WALL and the ILC we saw existing diplomatic spheres being capitalized upon and turned into the WA Blocs. These spheres range from rare to non-existent in the rest of NationStates. Furthermore, while WALL is very scary, the mechanical forces at play are not strong enough to force a new sphere into existence.
Diplomatic
Spheres like the Independent Sphere and the NSLeft just do not exist in the rest of NationStates. Aside from Out-Of-Character documents pertaining to the safety of individuals, there are not many multilateral diplomatic ties between major regions. Taking a look at the bloc-less regions, few of them are in a diplomatic position to form a bloc. In the UCR world itself, the chance of a legitimate bloc forming is next to nil. Of the five largest UCRs, two are in WALL already, one in the ILC, one is Ten Thousand Islands, which is a historically isolationist region, and the other is a blacklisted region. Then as you continue down the list, the regions and the WA counts continue to get smaller. If any bloc were to form in the UCR world, it would be tiny and irrelevant in comparison to the existing ones.
When we look at the bloc-less Feeders and Sinkers, they at least have numbers on their side. The East Pacific and The South Pacific alone both have the endorsement counts to outnumber the ILC. But I see these regions as lacking the diplomatic ties and the political will necessary to form a WA bloc. As we noted with SIEGE, it was built to counter WALL, but to build a counter bloc is to generate animosity with the other group. TSP and TRR are both regions that are deeply tied with The North Pacific, in order to start generating animosity with WALL, it would take considerable political and diplomatic will; diplomatic will that may very well not exist. Looking at the remaining GCRs, The Pacific stands rather isolated now, lacking treaties, and at war with Lazarus and Osiris. The East Pacific and The West Pacific would be the best bet for a potential bloc forming, but I doubt they would.
Mechanical and Interest
Now, to explain why I do not think TEP or TWP would form a World Assembly bloc, we must take a look back at the World Assembly itself. Overall, The East Pacific and The West Pacific can be characterized as Gameplay-centric regions, which means they do not care about the General Assembly and there is no incentive to care about the General Assembly. This is coupled with a Security Council that has grown rather unimportant and ineffectual. Both Commendations and Condemnations are seen as badges of honor. They may be nice to have, but do not affect anything. Liberations are the only resolutions with a mechanical effect but they diminish in value and priority with each passing day. We see joke proposals, like SCR 247 Liberate The East Pacific, or offensive liberations being the most common use for liberations. Neither of which help the situation, but the real nail in the coffin is the mechanical effect in and of itself. Liberations are for R/D, a segment of the game which can be best characterized as dying. There is no tangible benefit to forming a WA bloc and fight for control over a segment of a game that becomes less relevant every week.
WALL Plays Nice
The nail in the coffin of why I do not see another WA bloc rising is the very behavior of WALL so far. Frankly they have not behaved how we expected them to. They have not strangled the World Assembly in order to enact their pro-Democracy agenda. They have yet to bend the lemmings to their will and doom us all. Overall they vote for good resolutions and against bad ones. Maybe they will become the big bads in the future and NS will have to band together to stop them; but that has yet to happen.
Conclusion
So to wrap it all up. I do not think we will see another diplomatic bloc on NationStates. Nothing like NSLeft or the Independent Sphere, upon which the ILC and WALL are built upon, exist anywhere else. Furthermore, the mechanics of the World Assembly are not valuable or important enough to necessitate a group rising to oppose WALL and to complement it all, WALL has not behaved in a manner which demanded opposition.
Information Sources
I did not cite during the actual paper, these are just the sources I used to fact-check during the writing.
Member Regions of the NSLeft
https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=755229
Charter of the ILC
https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=978352
ILC NS Region
https://www.nationstates.net/region=interregional_legislative_coalition
WALL Treaty
https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=925087
WALL NS Region
https://www.nationstates.net/region=world_assembly_legislative_league
Independent Manifesto
https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=320363
I gave up on filling this up.
When will we see a new one.
Introduction
A spectre is haunting Gameplay - the spectre of blocism. All the powers of old Gameplay have entered into a not yet official alliance to exorcise this spectre: Admin and Emperor, Glen-Rhodes and United Massachusetts, Southern Defenders and Western purge-squads.
Okay bad communism fan-fiction aside, those of us in Gameplay have probably noticed the World Assembly Voting Blocs which have risen around us. They are scary and big and are coming for all of our sovereignty. We will all end up democratic and will be forced to run elections every week, by the time they are done with us. Well maybe not necessarily. The current voting blocs are built on very specific circumstances that just do not exist elsewhere in the current diplomatic climate and the system they seek to dominate is just not one regions are obligated to care about.
The most prominent, successful, and the biggest boogeyman around is of course WALL, or the World Assembly Legislative League, consisting of: The North Pacific, Balder, Europeia, Europe, and the International Democratic Union. Less well known but still going strong is the Interregional Legislative Coalition, abbreviated to ILC, consisting of: the Democratic Socialist Assembly, Social Liberal Union, The Communist Bloc, The Internationale/Grenada, The Leftist Assembly, and The Versutian Federation. Finally, perhaps more known but a whole lot less successful is the Strategic Interregional Exchange for Growth and Equity, colloquially known as SIEGE. SIEGE is currently not an existing bloc and the membership list was never publicly announced; but we know it was proposed by The East Pacific and that The South Pacific, The West Pacific, and The Pacific were at the least in discussions in regards to it. These three blocs stand as the most high profile. Each was and is different however.
The Blocs In Existence
The ILC
The first WA bloc I would like to look at is the ILC. The ILC is a bloc created entirely of User Created Regions (UCRs). These UCRs with the exception of The Versutian Federation and the Social Liberal Union are members of NSLeft. A rather storied and the most closely knit UCR political sphere. Within the ILC we recognize The Communist Bloc as the largest and most dominant force, controlling almost fifty-percent of the delegate endorsements in the entire bloc and NSLeft as a whole controlling more than eighty-five percent of the endorsements. What is interesting is that even with The Communist Bloc as the dominant region size-wise, the current chairman of the ILC is from The Versutian Federation.. The ILC controls north of five hundred World Assembly votes which puts them as the smallest bloc, by a significant margin.
WALL
Now, we could not mention WALL without talking about The North Pacific. Because, TNP very much is WALL. Proportionally their position in WALL is even more dominant than The Communist Bloc in the ILC, TNP alone controls over fifty percent of the delegate endorsements This presence and dominance within WALL naturally elevates TNP to a leadership role in WALL. Furthermore, much like the ILC is built out of a pre-existing diplomatic sphere, so was WALL. Europeia, Balder, and TNP are all signatures of the Independent Manifesto and heavily base their regional diplomacy around that document. WALL as a whole controls over two thousand World Assembly votes, the largest World Assembly bloc in existence.
SIEGE
Now, SIEGE was being built with a motive in mind. The name alone should give away their intention to be an opposition to WALL. The four regions together would have had parity with WALL, and the addition of another region (The Rejected Realms for example) could have set them above. But they also would have had parity with each other. No member region of SIEGE would have had the WA dominance, and by extension bloc dominance, that TCB and TNP enjoy. Not necessarily a negative but a noticeable difference. However what is definitely a negative is the lack of a pre-existing diplomatic sphere. SIEGE would have been built on at best shaky diplomatic foundations. It would be generous to call the ties between the regions close, considering TSP’s and TWP’s recent historic diplomatic agreement is detente. Not a Treaty or even a Declaration of Friendship, just detente. It was indeed a historic agreement, but not exactly the foundations of a sphere. Looking at the numbers, the four regions combined would have been at twenty three hundred endorsements, two hundred ahead of WALL.
Why we will not see a new Bloc
Intro
Overall, I think the diplomatic foundations upon which WALL and the ILC were built are special and they do not exist elsewhere on NationStates. With WALL and the ILC we saw existing diplomatic spheres being capitalized upon and turned into the WA Blocs. These spheres range from rare to non-existent in the rest of NationStates. Furthermore, while WALL is very scary, the mechanical forces at play are not strong enough to force a new sphere into existence.
Diplomatic
Spheres like the Independent Sphere and the NSLeft just do not exist in the rest of NationStates. Aside from Out-Of-Character documents pertaining to the safety of individuals, there are not many multilateral diplomatic ties between major regions. Taking a look at the bloc-less regions, few of them are in a diplomatic position to form a bloc. In the UCR world itself, the chance of a legitimate bloc forming is next to nil. Of the five largest UCRs, two are in WALL already, one in the ILC, one is Ten Thousand Islands, which is a historically isolationist region, and the other is a blacklisted region. Then as you continue down the list, the regions and the WA counts continue to get smaller. If any bloc were to form in the UCR world, it would be tiny and irrelevant in comparison to the existing ones.
When we look at the bloc-less Feeders and Sinkers, they at least have numbers on their side. The East Pacific and The South Pacific alone both have the endorsement counts to outnumber the ILC. But I see these regions as lacking the diplomatic ties and the political will necessary to form a WA bloc. As we noted with SIEGE, it was built to counter WALL, but to build a counter bloc is to generate animosity with the other group. TSP and TRR are both regions that are deeply tied with The North Pacific, in order to start generating animosity with WALL, it would take considerable political and diplomatic will; diplomatic will that may very well not exist. Looking at the remaining GCRs, The Pacific stands rather isolated now, lacking treaties, and at war with Lazarus and Osiris. The East Pacific and The West Pacific would be the best bet for a potential bloc forming, but I doubt they would.
Mechanical and Interest
Now, to explain why I do not think TEP or TWP would form a World Assembly bloc, we must take a look back at the World Assembly itself. Overall, The East Pacific and The West Pacific can be characterized as Gameplay-centric regions, which means they do not care about the General Assembly and there is no incentive to care about the General Assembly. This is coupled with a Security Council that has grown rather unimportant and ineffectual. Both Commendations and Condemnations are seen as badges of honor. They may be nice to have, but do not affect anything. Liberations are the only resolutions with a mechanical effect but they diminish in value and priority with each passing day. We see joke proposals, like SCR 247 Liberate The East Pacific, or offensive liberations being the most common use for liberations. Neither of which help the situation, but the real nail in the coffin is the mechanical effect in and of itself. Liberations are for R/D, a segment of the game which can be best characterized as dying. There is no tangible benefit to forming a WA bloc and fight for control over a segment of a game that becomes less relevant every week.
WALL Plays Nice
The nail in the coffin of why I do not see another WA bloc rising is the very behavior of WALL so far. Frankly they have not behaved how we expected them to. They have not strangled the World Assembly in order to enact their pro-Democracy agenda. They have yet to bend the lemmings to their will and doom us all. Overall they vote for good resolutions and against bad ones. Maybe they will become the big bads in the future and NS will have to band together to stop them; but that has yet to happen.
Conclusion
So to wrap it all up. I do not think we will see another diplomatic bloc on NationStates. Nothing like NSLeft or the Independent Sphere, upon which the ILC and WALL are built upon, exist anywhere else. Furthermore, the mechanics of the World Assembly are not valuable or important enough to necessitate a group rising to oppose WALL and to complement it all, WALL has not behaved in a manner which demanded opposition.
Information Sources
I did not cite during the actual paper, these are just the sources I used to fact-check during the writing.
Member Regions of the NSLeft
https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=755229
Charter of the ILC
https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=978352
ILC NS Region
https://www.nationstates.net/region=interregional_legislative_coalition
WALL Treaty
https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=925087
WALL NS Region
https://www.nationstates.net/region=world_assembly_legislative_league
Independent Manifesto
https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=320363
I gave up on filling this up.