Utopia Two: Elect Utopia for PM

Election Central
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Hello TSP!

As you can likely tell, I’m running for reelection. I’ve been having a lot of fun in the executive as PM, and I’ve been delighted with the activity that’s been driven this term. I’m seeking reelection because I want to continue to drive our activity to newer heights. This past term I have worked on building up the executive from the structures in place before. Building up its size, building up its activity, building up its ability for people to engage. We have had one of the biggest executive branches we have seen in a long while, and with it we have seen a resurgence in executive action, in executive activity. This activity is not just restricted to within the executive either. Activity begets activity, and activity one place drives activity elsewhere. This election itself is an achievement of the activity that we’ve been able to drive, with 7 candidates running in this election, more than double the largest elections of the past few years, many of who have said they’re running because of the inspiration that I’ve instilled, and it brings me joy that I can inspire that kind of mentality. This kind of activity, where everyone wants to step in and participate is the activity I want to drive and want to continue driving with a second term as PM.

I plan to continue driving the kind of activity we have seen through events and projects, through increasing the structure and ability of the various executive groups, and through the elevation of those who have shown themselves to be pushing for more. We have the capable building blocks, we have the base of the foundation, and what we need to do now is continuing to build up the ability of our executive.

Ministries

The Ministries are the foundation of the Executive Branch, and the Ministries we choose reflect what interests we value. I plan on upholding the four core Ministries of my current administration, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Integration, the Ministry of Defense, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Within these Ministries, particularly for the domestic ministries of Culture and Integration, I will be utilizing double Ministers where I think it holds benefit; double Ministers being the effective structure of the current Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Defense, where I have two Ministers at the head. I have found a lot of success with the double Minister structure as it provides more flexibility and support, as well as easing individual workload while maintaining a strong output from the Ministry as a whole.

Integration

Integration is the core of our growth, bringing in new nations, getting them engaged, getting them involved, getting them active, and most importantly enabling them to find the fun we find in this community. Integration is the foundation of every region, every community here on this site.

This past term we’ve finally seen the implementation of the new Getting Involved Wizard, a project that has been in the works for a very long time. I am quite thrilled with the new Wizard, as it streamlines applications across the government and community in a polished form. We’re also in the process of publishing the first release of the Awards program, to put the spotlight on those who have been putting their all into this community. These two projects are still not complete, the Awards program is still in its initial phase, and while the Wizard may look fairly complete there is still work to be done on the application processing end to make everything run even more smoothly.

With the Awards program, the first release will be coming out in the next week or so. This project has been on the slower side to get off the ground, as once the initial structure and plan was decided upon, it has been still getting off the ground simultaneously with various other projects, some of which have focuses in the Awards program, requiring additional time to for those programs to run to identify who should be highlighted. I plan on continuing to lift this project off the ground, and improve it as it grows, building a structure to encourage and reward participation and activity.

Moving to the Wizard, I am excited that we finally have this off the ground and implemented. The interface for those signing up is clean, polished, and clear. It provides the full variety of things people want to get involved in, allowing for streamlined introduction to various parts of the region and executive. Despite its polished front face, the Wizard still needs polishing and organization in the back end with processing, as well as finding and getting rid of links that lead to the old wizard. I plan in the upcoming term, to have the Executive, the SPSF, and CitComm work together to create a joint processing guide to streamline applications. This guide has no relation to who the institutions accept or reject, or anything to do with the applicant specifically. Rather the processing guide is to streamline and clean up applications where the member is applying to various parts of our government and community. It is to allow for clear and concise information on what has been accepted, what has been rejected, and what is still pending. It will additionally direct the applicants to the resources they may need after they’ve been accepted to help streamline participation once accepted. We’ve made a lot of progress, but we still have improvements to be made.

There are a few additional integration projects that I’d like to keep on the backburner, mainly projects that require some technical and coding know-how and are as such not as simple to implement. My eventual goal is to have a system that can automatically ping new nations on the RMB, and a system to organize recruiters so they can reach out to new nations via telegram to welcome them and encourage involvement. Both of these I hope to set up with some permanent tools, so as to easily continue them indefinitely, but that’s a slower project do to the technical needs of who can fulfill it.

Culture

Culture is one of the most important aspects of our community. Just as Integration’s role of bringing in new members to our community, it is the job of Culture to inspire their desire to stay. Culture is the lifeblood of the region, and an integral core. When it comes to the Ministry of Culture this term, they’ve been doing an excellent job ensuring there are events and activities, and have been inspiring many people into participating, such as by the RMB Mayor position and by the culture groups. I am quite happy with the direction we’ve started down with the ways to get involved in the Ministry, and am looking to expand it further.

My first goal with the Ministry in the upcoming term is to provide more structure and leadership to the Culture Groups. Some of the culture groups have been doing excellently, and some haven’t had as much activity. The main difference between the two groups is leadership. The more active ones have had more direction from the Ministers, and the less active ones have been lacking. There is a lot on the plate of each Minister, and so my target for further adding structure to the culture groups is to create Project Heads, people responsible for leading and directing specific culture groups or projects, and given the powers to help achieve that where necessary. These are not general Culture leadership under the ministers, but rather more specific and directed positions. By having them more directed, it makes the ultimate goals of the position simpler to achieve and less nebulous. Through more specificity, it makes it easier to promote more people to the positions as needed, and allows for larger numbers of members if needed without creating conflict or overlapping aims. These Project Head positions will take some burden off the Culture Ministers as well, allowing them to invest more time in other areas.

When it comes to the specific Cultural Projects I want to work on, many of them are continuations of things we’ve been doing excellently this term. Here is a brief list of the projects I will continue next term:

  • RMB Mayor (Tin and Cayo have settled on an excellent speed and frequency)
  • Regional Holiday Celebrations (Coalition Day, Defender Day, and Independence Day are next term)
  • Poll Event Contests
  • RMB Awards
  • Resident Spotlights
  • The South Seas Gazette
  • TSP Game Nights (Currently the Southern Reef Games)
  • Card Giveaways

I will also hold another SPHL Tournament next term if elected: the Third Fudge Cup.

Many of the projects listed above are just bullet points, as I have gone over them multiple times in previous campaigns and elsewhere in discussions as well. I’ve kept them short to reduce the length of this campaign, but if there are any specific questions about them I’d be more than happy to elaborate.

Defense

Within the SPSF we have a strong Officer Corps and an influx of new Cadets. Our military is currently in great condition when it comes to membership, however we’re still facing the vastly diminished raider activity we’ve been facing for the past roughly half a year. My main aims for the SPSF are to conduct wargame events with our allies, as well as joint training events. The SPSF has the resources to conduct all manner of wargames and practice exercises. We can do simple things like detagging practice, all the way through more complex operations such as if we want to train how to liberate through an update bend. A number of practice operations have been conducted in Libcord over the past while, but I’d like to organize more official events with our defender allies as a way to strengthen our close ties further.

An additional aim I have for our military is to create a structure from which to be able to direct the Tidal force more effectively. The Tidal force has been left by the wayside, and is mostly just a role we ping on discord when we need pilers. I’d like to assemble a list of people’s nations on-site as well as on discord to be able to ping to gather and direct a stronger piling force that what we can currently accomplish just through discord. Additionally, I aim to set up some of the tools we have to enable Tidal force members who want more active duties to be able to conduct operations, and to train those members to be able to conduct off-update operations and duties. If we can elevate Tidal force members in this way, we can build a Tidal-force centric leadership to direct an active core in operations and increase operational capability.

Foreign Affairs

When it comes to Foreign Affairs, there are two main projects I’d like to endeavor on next term. The first is a structuring of the Ambassador Corps to allow for better initial introduction, and to make it easy for those involved to elevate themselves through the system. The second is a goal regarding upcoming events, with the aim to elevate the influence of the values TSP shares concerning the General Assembly.

The current structure of the Ambassadors has just been the simple assignment of Ambassadors to other regions. Most of the current Ambassadors are more established TSPers who took the potion partially to get the Corps off the ground. Since the initial assignment we’ve had quite a few new applicants, but haven’t had the structure or organization to shuffle Ambassadors as needed, or a direct path of where to expand sending Ambassadors to. My goal is to set up a system to allow for the quick assignment of new Ambassadors to regions without the need for any major shuffling, as well as a system to rotate ambassadors to allow for progression within the Corps and elevate those who are engaged and seeking more. Additionally, there needs to be a general path set out for how we assign Ambassadors to regions, to guide where to send people when we’ve already sent Ambassadors to all our allies and embassy partners.

When it comes to the General Assembly, recently NationStates has announced the return of GenSec, or the General Secretariat. Previously GenSec was responsible for declaring if proposals were legal or illegal. The new GenSec will be vastly different and will serve a wholly different purpose. The new GenSec will be able to put out voting recommendations to all WA nations, which will have a significant influence over General Assembly votes. The South Pacific stands as an International Federalist region, a region in support of the aims of the GA, and who wish to ensure positive legislation for the betterment of all. In our views on GA legislation, we stand against the national sovereigntist regions and their goal to repeal until the GA is nonexistent. The new GenSec serves as an opportunity to influence the GA, for both Intfed and NatSov. When the elections for GenSec are held for the first time in July I will aim to utilize TSP’s strength and size to promote International Federalist candidates who are aligned with our region’s views on the GA.

Promotion

One of the things I value about elections is how they can be used as a tool to highlight those seeking participation in the executive. It is integral to our region to be able to appoint the active and engaged to higher positions, and allow them to aid in the running of our region. It is a core mission of mine, in my current term and though whatever terms follow, to appoint and elevate those who are active and seeking participation in our government. It is a keystone of integration, but one often less considered than getting newer members engaged. Integration of active members into the upper parts of government is as important as the integration of new members into the community.

Conflict of Interest

Citizen and Legislator of TSP

Lieutenant of the SPSF and Junior Command in Libcord

Former MoC in TSP, Former MoRP in TSP

Current PM of TSP

Citizen and Former Delegate of Wintreath

Junior Command of CORAL (N-Day Alliance)

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Hi Utopia!

I have a few questions for you.

What will your second term do differently from your first, beyond scaling up what already exists? Do you think that you did something incorrectly or an idea didn’t work in your first term and are willing to improve on it this term?

There is also a lot of emphasis on expansion (double ministers, project heads, larger executive).

How will you prevent the executive from becoming bloated or inactive if participation drops?
At what point does adding more roles stop helping and start diluting responsibility? You kind of mentioned a solution in your campaign, but I didn’t really understand it that much. Can you clarify?

Will there be any ideas you will be scaling back that didn’t get much activity?

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I’ll be directing the same questions to all PM candidates.

In the course of Assembly debates regarding the next Chair, the idea has been raised that the government should or could have an affirmative legislative agenda, akin to what we see in many RL parliamentary democracies. Which raises three questions:

(1) Do you believe that the TSP executive should have an affirmative legislative agenda, and why / why not?
(2) Will your government be pursuing a legislative agenda if you are elected Prime Minister?
(3) If so, what are your legislative priorities?

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I’m really glad to hear about your plans to push for International Federalist candidates to the GenSec.

In regards to integration and the World Assembly, what plans do you have for getting more residents involved in the WA and increasing our delegate’s endorsement count?

One of the big takeaways from the recent report published by Jiangbei (https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=2770957) is that, while have the second highest endorsement count in the world, our regional voting power is low because our WA members are generally disinterested and don’t vote the same way as our Delegate.

How can we change this culture? This is something thay requires a whole of government approach including the Delegate?

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Besides various different projects where ones have been completed and others have arisen, I think the major different I want to do differently is put more focus into getting people into executive leadership positions. Perhaps that falls under “scaling up”, but largely I am happy with the aims of my current term and will be continuing those.

When appointing @Tin and @Vrigny as Ministers I appointed them as Assembly-Confirmed Deputy Ministers because that’s how I wanted to use that title, but I think a number of people were right in that I should have just appointed them as normal Ministers in title. Effectively and intent wise they have held the power and responsibility of a normal Minister, and they have been a full Minister with their Assembly confirmation and the work they put in. I won’t be using Deputy in any Minister titles unless I do intend for whoever to be in more of a learning position. The term Deputy really just didn’t contribute and caused minor confusion.

When I create roles I intend to always give them a specific purview and responsibility. I also don’t intend to have much overlap in that.

By giving someone a specific responsibility and purview, it puts more onus on the person to get stuff done. That alone isn’t going to eliminate bloat and inactivity, it will reduce it, but to eliminate it entirely that’s going to be up to me and my Ministers. The specific goals of the position makes it easy to tell if things are getting done, so then we can easily follow up with them to make sure stuff gets done, and if there still isn’t anything getting done it makes it clear and we can just dismiss the person.

Having a lot of people who have less individual responsibility is where large executives tend to get bloated. Bloat is also a matter of can those in charge promote activity and release the inactive.

I don’t think the executive should be expected as part of their goals to be seeking to enact/amend/repeal any specific legislation, but I think it is fine if they are. The executive should pursue a legislative agenda when it is useful to further the executive’s vision of how they are aiming to run the region. If there is no need to enact or amend legislation to achieve the executive’s vision, then there is no need for a legislative agenda.
I will not be pursuing a legislative agenda. If a Minister I appoint has a legislative agenda they wish to seek, then that’s another conversation, but there is no particular legislative agenda that I, as a PM Candidate, am specifically seeking.

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This is not a matter of culture, or something where we are able to mitigate the root problem.

When your typical WA voter casts their vote, they typically cast it in line with two things:

  • Their native delegate’s vote
  • The majority vote of the WA as a whole

Unlike most of the regions with high voter alignment, we haven’t been voting in line with the WA majority. This is a simple fact of our generally Intfed stance in a NatSov controlled GA. We have been losing voters to the WA majority, and really the only major way to combat that is to vote in line with the majority, something that isn’t actually a solution to pushing our power in the WA.