Look to the West: Thread III, Volume IV (Tottenham Nil)!

[ArKhan]

Gotta love the ENA's politics. With it's three levels of government, Multi-member constituencies, it's five political parties, and the fact that every second election is a major re-alignment of it's party system.

 

[Thande]

Long live silent Mo.

Glad you liked it

Gotta love the ENA's politics. With it's three levels of government, Multi-member constituencies, it's five political parties, and the fact that every second election is a major re-alignment of it's party system.

This bit wasn't intentional when I came up with it...the ENA just seems to have very volatile politics. I suppose you can make the comparison to Canada in OTL, which can go from this to this in less than a decade.

 

[mowque]

Glad you liked it .

He seems irascible enough.

 

[Googolbyte]

Remember that although the ENA is a multi-party system, it is not a proportional one; it's based on FPTP bloc voting, which means that a party can take advantage of a split vote to be elected with a small plurality.

Not proportional? Doubt that'll last long.

 

[Admiral Matt]

Excellent map, Hawkeye!

Am I the only one who gets the sense that it'd be quite a bit tidier to (eventually, once the region has settled, more populated, and has developed its own character) form some sort of Midwestern Confederation within the ENA? Something about those straight lines stretching for hundreds of miles is just...repulsive.

Well, technically on that projection I think they should be graceful curves.

 

[Admiral Matt]

Not proportional? Doubt that'll last long.

Why? We still use that in the US.

 

[TheBerlinguer]

So the Patriots grabbed a load of seats they haven't held since Artemas Ward's day. Whether they can hold onto them after the political landscape has settled down is another question: Grey's strategy only worked because the former Neutral vote is in the process of being fought over by the Liberals and the Democrats (in the west as well as in Virginia).

Hmm... So we have a lot of seats in the Virginian Confederation that were decided by who reached first a 30+% plurality, a feat that was very well within reach for the reborn Patriot Party. Now, it would be quite interesting to have a look at how political campaigning is performed in the Empire at this point, at least for the elections to the Fredericksburg Parliament. I just wonder how differently they have evolved from the Motherland in more than sixty years since the foundation of the ENA.

Then, do Whigs even bother to run candidates in the other Confederations or has their political machine completely retired in the Deep South?

 

[Googolbyte]

Why? We still use that in the US.

Well, that's one of the reasons seeing as ENA is reverse-USA in a lot of manners.

Then there's all these hints being dropped that the ENA is heading that way, the multi-party system, the move towards population based representation, the fairly dynamic government.

Plus there's plenty of precedent from OTL of proportional representation popping up in the 1800's in various countries.

 

[Thande]

Just FYI, I think the next update (for a bit of a change) will be one of the technology-and-culture-focused interludes. I'll finally get a chance to use some of the alternate terminology I came up with a while ago.

Hmm... So we have a lot of seats in the Virginian Confederation that were decided by who reached first a 30+% plurality, a feat that was very well within reach for the reborn Patriot Party. Now, it would be quite interesting to have a look at how political campaigning is performed in the Empire at this point, at least for the elections to the Fredericksburg Parliament. I just wonder how differently they have evolved from the Motherland in more than sixty years since the foundation of the ENA.

Then, do Whigs even bother to run candidates in the other Confederations or has their political machine completely retired in the Deep South?

Good questions: I would like to do a more 'on the ground' style update or perhaps a story looking at this. I would not have liked to try until recently but I know a lot more now about how election campaigning worked in the UK when we used a system like this. Of course you have to mix this with the different situation on the ground in the ENA (some of which can be derived from OTL American politics in this era) and the multi-party system.

The Whigs do 'currently' (1840) still run candidates outside Carolina and Virginia, in the hope that they might be able to once again capture the Catholic vote (especially with the whole Neutral split), but Eveleigh's presidency is too big a millstone around their necks, too many northerners now see them as 'those crazy slavery-obsessed southerners' to broaden their appeal again. The flip side of this, of course, is that with the demise of the "We are Neutral on that issue" party, there is now no other party than the Whigs that is reliably 'not anti-slavery or closeted anti-slavery' enough to get votes from paranoid Carolinians...

Remember of course as of this update we are still seeing a situation in transition.

Plus there's plenty of precedent from OTL of proportional representation popping up in the 1800's in various countries.

The fact that a form of PR was invented by Thomas Jefferson (albeit as a means of assigning electoral votes) also means that the OTL USA is arguably an example of 'the country that invents something, 200 years later, is the only one not to actually use it', which is a surprisingly common thing here in the UK.

 

[Makemakean]

Plus there's plenty of precedent from OTL of proportional representation popping up in the 1800's in various countries.

The interesting thing about systems of representation in popular assemblies prior to the 19th century was that surprisingly many were indeed proportional, they were just not proportional in the way we think about them. Back then, parties didn't exist as well-organized machines with a chairman, a constitution, and a manifesto for every election and they certainly weren't registered or anything like that. What really existed back then were closer to "alliances of independents", and even those seemed too organized to many politicians back then, like George Washington and William Pitt the Younger. Indeed, I imagine that if I tried to explain proportional representation such as we understand it to the Framers of the United States Constitution, I would have quite a hard time, because it presupposes a very sophisticated and organized framework of political parties, a framework which thitherto had never existed.

Instead, the systems of proportional representation back in those days focused on making sure that every class or profession got their fair share of the representation. This could created very elaborate, and in retrospect, very amusing and absurd electoral systems. Quoting from a PM I sent to Thande something like 6 months ago, the electoral system for Sweden's Estate of the Burghers is an interesting example:

How you Elect Representatives to the Estate of the Burghers of the Swedish Riksdag:

All cities are legally compelled to adopt a system as close to that of Stockholm which is described below, with certain guidelines as to how far they are allowed to depart from it.

It is to be declared before the council house and in all the churches that there is on the appointed date to be a general election, and on that date every burgher of the city is to come to the council house for the vote. A burgher is a person who is either an official or has received a charter to do commerce in the city[1] and has paid his or her tax to the crown and the borough. If you do not come, your vote will be considered forfeited.

At the council house, the voters are now to be divided into forty-eight classes according to their trade, wealth and position. There are to be twenty-four classes of people involved in commerce and twenty-four of those who are officials and civil servants. Each class elects one elector. Of those twenty-four elected by the merchants, twelve are to be grocers, and twelve are to be of the other trading guilds. There are specific rules regarding the eligibility to be elected an elector: You have to have been born in Sweden, you have to have lived in the city and been a burgher for a minimum of seven years.

Now these forty-eight electors are to elect the ten representatives of the city. This is done in the following fashion:

Six are elected by block-vote, wherewith the grocers have two votes, those of the other guilds have one vote, and the officials have three votes. Those six with the greatest numbers of votes have then become elected representatives. Interestingly, the law stipulates that this election is to be by secret ballot.

Now, in order to ensure a specific representation by the magistrate of the city, the forty-eight electors are to nominate six candidates out of the mayor and the council. Once these six candidates have been nominated, the magistrate are to elect four of these. The four of these to receive most votes are now become elected representatives as well.

And that is how you elect your Third Estate MPs!

[1] This mercantilist rule actually meant that women could in theory be allowed to vote, and in some places, like Kristianstad, they actually did and played prominent political roles.

 

[Thande]

The interesting thing about systems of representation in popular assemblies prior to the 19th century was that surprisingly many were indeed proportional, they were just not proportional in the way we think about them. Back then, parties didn't exist as well-organized machines with a chairman, a constitution, and a manifesto for every election and they certainly weren't registered or anything like that. What really existed back then were closer to "alliances of independents", and even those seemed too organized to many politicians back then, like George Washington and William Pitt the Younger. Indeed, I imagine that if I tried to explain proportional representation such as we understand it to the Framers of the United States Constitution, I would have quite a hard time, because it presupposes a very sophisticated and organized framework of political parties, a framework which thitherto had never existed.

Instead, the systems of proportional representation back in those days focused on making sure that every class or profession got their fair share of the representation. This could created very elaborate, and in retrospect, very amusing and absurd electoral systems. Quoting from a PM I sent to Thande something like 6 months ago, the electoral system for Sweden's Estate of the Burghers is an interesting example:

As I said at the time, it's very interesting: similar practices (but not as elaborate) were used in the UK on a local government level before the great municipal reforms of the 1830s. Arguably City of London elections still work like that to some extent today (see this video by CPGrey for instance).

 

[Makemakean]

As I said at the time, it's very interesting: similar practices (but not as elaborate) were used in the UK on a local government level before the great municipal reforms of the 1830s. Arguably City of London elections still work like that to some extent today (see this video by CPGrey for instance).

I probably shouldn't be too surprised by such a Byzantine system for the City of London, as you can still see many other traces of Mercantilism in how the city is run: charters, guilds, etc.

 

[Thande]

I probably shouldn't be too surprised by such a Byzantine system for the City of London, as you can still see many other traces of Mercantilism in how the city is run: charters, guilds, etc.

The City of London is basically "What happens if you have an enclave so powerful that it can say 'Yeah...we're not doing that' every time a government passes a law changing things" from about 1400 AD to now. It's interesting to speculate if the same could have happened to one of the microstates in the HRE, perhaps (you can argue Liechtenstein is close to this). Of course one consequence of this TL, though I haven't explicitly mentioned it yet, is that the British establishment has been so torn down by the Inglorious Revolution that even the City of London has been abolished as an entity...

 

[Makemakean]

The City of London is basically "What happens if you have an enclave so powerful that it can say 'Yeah...we're not doing that' every time a government passes a law changing things" from about 1400 AD to now. It's interesting to speculate if the same could have happened to one of the microstates in the HRE, perhaps (you can argue Liechtenstein is close to this). Of course one consequence of this TL, though I haven't explicitly mentioned it yet, is that the British establishment has been so torn down by the Inglorious Revolution that even the City of London has been abolished as an entity...

I am continually amazed that such a patriotic Briton with a small-letter-c-conservative mindset as you can be willing to throw the United Kingdom into such a maelstrom as you have done, if only in fiction.

 

[Nugax]

I am continually amazed that such a patriotic Briton with a small-letter-c-conservative mindset as you can be willing to throw the United Kingdom into such a maelstrom as you have done, if only in fiction.

You forgot to account for Thandes unrelenting loathing of London .

 

[Alex Richards]

The City of London is basically "What happens if you have an enclave so powerful that it can say 'Yeah...we're not doing that' every time a government passes a law changing things" from about 1400 AD to now. It's interesting to speculate if the same could have happened to one of the microstates in the HRE, perhaps (you can argue Liechtenstein is close to this). Of course one consequence of this TL, though I haven't explicitly mentioned it yet, is that the British establishment has been so torn down by the Inglorious Revolution that even the City of London has been abolished as an entity...

No! Not that as well.

Goddamit, at least tell me that Berwick-upon-Tweed's still being odd? The County Palatine of Durham? Monmouthshire's wierd semi-Welsh status? the intricate enclaves of Ross-shire and Cromarty? Just some quaint historical oddity surviving anyway.

 

[Thande]

I am continually amazed that such a patriotic Briton with a small-letter-c-conservative mindset as you can be willing to throw the United Kingdom into such a maelstrom as you have done, if only in fiction.

Ah, but that's the point, it can be regarded as an example of 'it can't happen here', or (a la the Draka / Decades of Darkness for the USA) flipping a country into a dark mirror of itself with inverted values but still recognisable, which is rightly a holy grail of allohistorical speculation. You can tell sometimes when I'm perhaps being a bit too blatant with the "EVERYTHING IS BACKWARDZ" schtick, like when in the framing story Wostyn refers to modern LTTW England as having gendarmes...

You forgot to account for Thandes unrelenting loathing of London .

Well, that too

No! Not that as well.

Goddamit, at least tell me that Berwick-upon-Tweed's still being odd? The County Palatine of Durham? Monmouthshire's wierd semi-Welsh status? the intricate enclaves of Ross-shire and Cromarty? Just some quaint historical oddity surviving anyway.

Nope! Not even Worcestershire's HRE-like bizarre exclaves. The People's Kingdom is really an example of the Redcliffe-Maud report attitude on steroids when it comes to ignoring historical tradition and precedent or even deliberately going against it just to spite the deposed establishment. Really I think the whole idea is under-explored in AH, there often seems to be an unspoken assumption that even a communist Britain is going to keep a lot of traditional 'eccentric' ways of doing something we just take for granted, but why should it?

Of course, as the intro to part 3 mentioned, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction...

 

[jmberry]

Ah, but that's the point, it can be regarded as an example of 'it can't happen here', or (a la the Draka / Decades of Darkness for the USA) flipping a country into a dark mirror of itself with inverted values but still recognisable, which is rightly a holy grail of allohistorical speculation. You can tell sometimes when I'm perhaps being a bit too blatant with the "EVERYTHING IS BACKWARDZ" schtick, like when in the framing story Wostyn refers to modern LTTW England as having gendarmes...


Well, that too


Nope! Not even Worcestershire's HRE-like bizarre exclaves. The People's Kingdom is really an example of the Redcliffe-Maud report attitude on steroids when it comes to ignoring historical tradition and precedent or even deliberately going against it just to spite the deposed establishment. Really I think the whole idea is under-explored in AH, there often seems to be an unspoken assumption that even a communist Britain is going to keep a lot of traditional 'eccentric' ways of doing something we just take for granted, but why should it?

Of course, as the intro to part 3 mentioned, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction...

Wow. Mr. L. Thomas is really setting up a reputation for history fans to argue over.

On a related note, his coal mining Welsh background keeps putting me in mind of coal-powered train engines. Given that his surname is 'Thomas', was that deliberate?

 

[Thande]

On a related note, his coal mining Welsh background keeps putting me in mind of coal-powered train engines. Given that his surname is 'Thomas', was that deliberate?

Heh, no; it's just a very common Welsh surname.

If we want to make children's steam engine based series references (overly narrow superlative?) a more relevantly Welsh one would be Ivor the Engine. I used to love both that and Thomas the Tank Engine When I Were A Lad.

 

[Kaiphranos]

Just FYI, I think the next update (for a bit of a change) will be one of the technology-and-culture-focused interludes. I'll finally get a chance to use some of the alternate terminology I came up with a while ago.

Ooh, good--I always enjoy those.

Heh, no; it's just a very common Welsh surname.

If we want to make children's steam engine based series references (overly narrow superlative?) a more relevantly Welsh one would be Ivor the Engine. I used to love both that and Thomas the Tank Engine When I Were A Lad.

With the early Russian adoption of railways in this timeline, maybe there's an "Igor the Engine" running around instead?