Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

This started off as a simple idea for a quick little article. It grew…..

How rulers gain their offices should be reflected in the society around them.

Think about that for a moment.

How rulers gain their offices should also be reflected in the personality and capabilities of the ruler, either at the time of selection, or at some subsequent point in time.

Spend a moment reflecting on that, too.

The gulf between the theory and the practical reality can be huge, and that complicates utilizing those two basic principles in an RPG. Those three thoughts are the subjects of this series of articles (which started out as just one short article). But first, a little context… (You can skip everything that’s indented if you aren’t into politics – though I recommend that you read it).

Appointments with the voting booth

2019 is the year that decides the shape of 2020, far more-so than usual. In less than 100 days, if the announced schedule is maintained, we will have a Federal Election here in Australia, and the deeply unpopular Coalition government will almost certainly be consigned to the history books.

Before that happens, there’s a State Election, which has just taken place. The opinion polls were forecasting a much closer contest for this one, but all the by-elections in recent times had seen unprecedented swings against the Coalition State government, which has been enveloped in scandals and controversy, has a record of poor decision-making and worse explanation of those decisions, and has also been beset by inconstancy of leadership over the last few years.

On the other hand, the current opposition leader is relatively new, has just been the target of some vicious mudslinging, and is what feels like the tenth such leader in five years (though I know, intellectually, that this is a vast exaggeration). Furthermore, the Australian electorate has shown a definite predilection for voting the opposite way in State elections than their intent in Federal ones. So it was considered possible that it could be quite tight, or quite surprising.

Well, the returns are in and the State government – which has shown no competence at leadership – has nevertheless been returned to office for another four years. In the last week, the opposition shot themselves in the foot quite badly, and in a contest this close, that was enough. What’s more, one of the most obnoxiously right-wing politicians in Australian History has been elected to the upper house where his divisive rancor will once again contaminate good order and the process of governing.

A Confusion Of Brexits

Over in the mother country, it’s now 17 days until a hard Brexit that many don’t want. Or maybe it’s 3, or maybe 58 – that confusion is emblematic of the entire Brexit mess. The whole Brexit story is one of self-delusion and wishful thinking – the promise of Brexit was ‘if we quit the European Union, we can transform the country into the land of milk and honey’, but it should have been, ‘If we quit, and have everything go our way in the divorce, we may be able to transform the country into the land of milk and honey’.

And this seductively over-optimistic view was enough to sway just enough people into voting ‘yes’. Unsurprisingly, the EU negotiators were unwilling to cater to British fantasies, and the deal that was eventually struck favored the economically dominant partnership, in particular in relation to Ireland, which actually voted to leave Great Britain in preference to leaving the E.U.

And, because it was not the promised yellow brick road to the land of milk and honey, the deal was rejected, even though it was probably the best deal that was ever going to be struck. Equally unsurprisingly, the EU negotiators were no more willing to indulge the British the second time around. A deal agreement had, after all, been reached in good faith, only for the Brits to throw it back in the E.U.’s face. And then it was rejected again. And a slightly-modified version was then rejected a third time.

Much of this angst is because rejecting the deal suited the petty domestic political aspirations of factions within the British Parliament. But not all of it.

Political Junkies Rejoice

That will be coming to a head at around the same time as those two elections. And by the time they are done, we will be mid-year, and the primaries for the US nominations will be getting seriously underway, the Mueller investigation has just submitted its report but we have yet to see the fallout embodied in the 20-odd sealed indictments still lurking in the shadows, not to mention the many congressional investigations launched by the House Democrats. On top of that, we only have BarrÆs summary by which to judge the findings of the Mueller Inquiry. If that summation is accurate, why wonÆt he release the full report? By not doing so, he only fuels speculation that his summary is more spin than a top.

By the middle of the year, opinion polls will be everywhere and The Siege of Trump will have begun, one way or another û he is too divisive a figure for that not to happen, he is almost certain to face a looming primary challenge from within his own party in the course of the year. I expect him to win that challenge – but potentially at the expense of a further slippage of his approval rating, potentially a fatal one in 2020 given how slim his margins were in 2016.

For anyone with any interest in politics whatsoever, 2019 will be a year to watch, and speculate. Never will there have been so much hot air by so many pundits of so little actual meaning. But a few things will have been decided in the course of the year – so much of that hot air will be about what the results actually mean for the future.

Economic Downturn Ahead

All the major economic indicators bar one or two are pointing toward a global slowdown at the moment. It’s into that context that political events have to be analyzed.

Trump’s Tariff War is having a stultifying effect on the US economy at exactly the same time as middle-income householders are filing their tax returns and the true cost of the Republican Tax Costs are biting. On top of that, there are potential market jitters about the election, and the longer-term effects of the government shutdown earlier this year – which is estimated to have cost the US Economy about 14% of it’s growth, though a little more than 2/3 of that will eventually be recovered, provided that there isn’t another one in the near future. So the US market is already prone for a Recession, and would normally be looking to Europe for some “Stability”.

If they do, they won’t like what they find. Whatever the Brexit outcome, it is sure to be a shock to the global financial markets. That in itself might be enough to trigger a short period of global recession, never mind with all the US economic factors piled on.

That leaves only the Asia-Pacific markets, which are dominated by China, who have already signaled an intentional slowing of their economy. You see, China don’t want to displace the US as the dominant world currency; it brings with it too many pressures and influences from outside their borders, and they prefer to keep strict control over their internal economy.

Wherever people look, then, they will find stories of economic doom and gloom. That will spell opportunities for those whose economies are still strong. During the GFC, Australia’s current opposition party (then government) ensured that the country came through it without even a period of recession – though growth did slow. Admittedly, we had a mining boom under way at the time, and that has since come to an end. But that could well factor into what is already shaping to be a landslide in the Federal Election here – just to bring the whole discussion full-circle.

The Social Impact Of Bad Times

Two opposing themes always manifest in times of economic strife. No, three.

The first is an upswing in lightweight, overtly optimistic, music and entertainment; people like to escape their problems and look ahead to better times. This often means good times for comedies and sci-fi and RPGs.

The second is an upswing in angry, rebellious music and entertainments. Heavy Metal, Punk, Grunge, these genres all have their roots in times of economic distress. Darker tones in movies also do well in such times, because there’s something viscerally satisfying about shouting and rebelling against a society that has seemingly failed people. This can also be a time when RPGs do well, though they often grow grimmer and more violent in tone.

And the third is that those sentiments often express themselves in changes of government, should the opportunity permit. The next general elections aren’t due in England until 2022, and Australia will have just had its election. That leaves Japan, Canada, and a number of European elections in later 2019, and the US Primaries, New Zealand, South Korea, and a great many Eastern European and African elections in 2020.

Depending on how deeply any downturn is felt, and in particular how the US copes under Trump, it might be all over by the date of the US Federal Elections in late 2020 (in which case Trump could well walk it in on his newly-minted economic credentials, and perhaps deservedly so) or they might be the first Depression elections since 1932 which gave America FDR and The New Deal.

The times in which you live always impact your personal life. Always. And any impacts on your personal life tend to find some form of political expression. And that brings me back to the theme of this series.

Past Art

This is hardly the first article on the selection of leaders here at Campaign Mastery.

• Pulling That Lever: The Selection Of Leaders In RPG Societies

was directly about the subject.

• City Government Power Bases was a series by Johnn, each part of which dealt with a different basis of power for a particular government. One of these days, I intend to enlarge that series – I have a list of twelve more to add to the eight that Johnn wrote about, and a 22nd part to tie the whole series back together – and maybe a 23rd on how to use it.
• Phase 5: Surroundings & Environment from the “New Beginnings” series covers Geography, Economics, Culture & Society, Politics, and Races, amongst other topics.

That’s good, because I don’t want this article to be about the selection of leaders or even government types. Instead, I want to focus on the consequences as they should manifest in the lives of ordinary people – which usually includes the PCs, and certainly includes the majority of the NPCs with whom they will interact. And that gives you some sense of how important this is, and why this article – which I started drafting more than a year ago – is probably long-overdue!

Five Accession Methods

To start with, I’ve boiled all the detail that I don’t really want to talk about in this article down into five very broad categories, which form the title of the series: Appointment, Inheritance, Victory, Desperation, and Need.

Every government achieves it’s position of authority through one of these five methods, perhaps two.

Nor do I want to get bogged down (this time) in societal structures (as happened the last time I attempted to write an article on this subject). That also means a great deal of generality in the treatment of effects on citizens.

Each of the five accession methods will be given its own article. After a brief examination of the significance of the accession method, the Impacts on citizenry of a government which achieved its position will be examined under 14 sub-headings.

Because of the generalization involved, these examinations are also fairly brief; there will be room within each subtopic for a GM to customize the analysis to fit his own world and the societies within it. These are just starting points.

So, let’s get started with the first of the five: Appointment.

Appointment

Someone – who, rightly or wrongly, believes they have the authority to do so – has appointed someone to be the head of a government. They have chosen those rulers from the pool of available candidates for a reason – one that may now be out-of-date, or might be still current, or might even be potentially imminent. That reason may or may not be known to the public, who might or might not agree with it if they knew the specifics. The public also might or might not know who the people making the choice are.

Social Impact

All of those potential unknowns need to be answered by the GM, and they have a cumulatively profound effect on the psychology of the common people within the society. This is a society which is profoundly aspirational – either a commoner can aspire to qualify for the pool of candidates, the next time an appointment needs to be made, or can aspire to qualify to the ranks of those who choose.

This provides a stabilizing outlet that can quell anger and discontent – for a while – if there is cause for these emotions. However, they tend to build up over time until they discharge explosively unless relief is given of some sort.

Ironically, the social mobility implied often makes the societies that appoint such governance more aware of class distinctions and less tolerant of them.

Social Expectation

Aspirational societies tend, broadly, to be optimistic, glass-half-full. There is an expectation that the rulers will have the best interests of the society as a whole at heart, and provided that the public feel that expectation is being met, they will be largely content.

Who Chooses?

There are two possible models – appointment by popular acclaim / election, and appointment by some elite or representative group, who may or may not themselves be elected.

The first is what Americans have – a system of electing a head of state and two houses of government. Their choices are made from a pool of potential candidates that are winnowed out through primaries in some cases and open to anyone put up by the party leadership as a potential representative in others. What’s more, while no other options can be seriously contemplated from outside the pool of two (plus running mates) for the Presidency, others can and sometimes do throw their hats into the ring without major party support in the lesser contests.

The second is what we have in Australia. The citizens elect a party, whose leader as chosen by the party in advance is then appointed to the position of Prime Minister. There are two specific situations that need to be understood: Majority and Minority government. Majority means that the party chosen has enough members elected from the different voting regions that they can rule outright in the lower house, where the laws are written. Minority means that they don’t, but have been able to reach an agreement with the “cross-bench” – independents and representatives of minor parties – that results in them having an effective majority. This can mean that the major party with the lower total number of elected representatives gets to form government if they are more capable of reaching such an agreement.

British governments – and those of most of Western Europe for that matter – are almost always of the “Minority government” variety.

It’s also possible that no-one knows who chooses the leader, that we’re talking about some secret council or something. If that’s the case, there will usually be some overt display of some other mode of appointment or even a different mode of accession.

In more ancient times, it was not uncommon for some sort of Council to rule on the eligibility of heirs and claimants to the throne.

Who Chooses Who Chooses?

In most major modern governments, that means that it’s the power-brokers who put potential leaders into positions to be elected that really make the selections. At best, some of the voters get to select from a short list, a process often named “pre-selection”.

These are the people who get to select what “menu items” the people who choose the leaders get to pick from. That’s considerable authority, as was shown in a Yes Prime Minister episode in which he has to appoint a new Archbishop from amongst the candidates selected by the Anglican Church. One of the candidates is extremely mainstream and would perpetuate the system that put him in place; the other is a clearly unsuitable maverick. When magicians do this sort of thing, it’s called a “Magician’s Force”: “Pick a Card,” they say, offering a selection of two. If the mark picks the one the Magician doesn’t want, he tells them that this is the card that has been “spared” by their choice, sets it aside, and performs his trick with the card that he wanted all along.

Quite often, the people who are selected to choose who chooses are selected to perpetuate established forms and norms, continue established and accepted policies and political ideologies. Where those traditions are under challenge, this can maintain the status quo, but if they are not, selecting an ‘enthusiastic believer’ can result in policies being pushed farther than is reasonable, inciting a corrective backlash.

There are two types of politicians who lack the patience to play the long game: the very young and the very old. The Young want to fix everything that’s “wrong” right now and worry about unintended consequences later, while the Old keenly feel the shadow of death at their shoulder and want to complete the task they have set themselves to burn their names indelibly into history; they are worried about their “legacies” and how they will be remembered.

Knowing who was choosing when the last set of choices were up for consideration is often the key to understanding the real forces and trends of history.

For example, if you read the comments above and in the next section regarding leadership and elections, you might get the impression that our system in Australia is quite stable. A glance at our recent political history will swiftly erase that impression.

In 2007, Kevin Rudd was elected for the Labor Party. In 2010, the Labor Party dumped him as leader and his former Deputy, Julia Gillard, became our first Female Prime Minister in what was widely viewed as a coup; surprisingly, he did not resign his position as the elected Member for Griffith, as was traditional. Two and a half months later, their party was successful in winning a second term at the Federal Elections despite popular anger over this change of leadership, much it deriving from surprise and an inability to explain to the public why it had taken place. Three years later, the party were facing defeat at the 2013 elections according to popularity polling; they chose to dump Gillard as leader, who promptly resigned (upholding the tradition), and reinstate Rudd. Less than three months after that, the Party were defeated at the Federal Election and this time, Rudd resigned. It was suspected that throughout his time out of the leadership, he had been destabilizing the government that he had once led.

In his place was elected Tony Abbott of the Liberal-National Party coalition. Abbott quickly made a huge number of extremely unpopular decisions that led to his government losing 30 popularity polls in a row, something that was unprecedented in Australian politics. Three days short of his second anniversary as Prime Minister, he was dumped as leader by the Liberal Party, and replaced by Malcolm Turnbull, who Abbott himself had rolled for leadership of the party while they were in opposition. Like Rudd, Abbott did not resign and was very obvious in his attempts to destabilize the Turnbull government, both directly and indirectly. Nine months later, Turnbull won a narrow electoral victory despite his government not being much more popular than Abbott’s had been. Turnbull’s first elected term was beset by leadership speculation as the government lost opinion poll after opinion poll and endured scandal after scandal, and almost three years later, he faced a new leadership challenge. Although he won that challenge, it was by such a small margin that it was clear to most observers that his government was living on borrowed time.

A week later, the inevitable took place, but Turnbull had spent the intervening time ensuring that those who wielded the knives would not succeed him, instead bringing his Treasurer, Scott Morrison, to the preeminent role. Morrison barely registered an uptick in the popularity polls, and the coalition has continued to lurch from unpopularity to unpopularity, losing by-elections by record margins that astonished everyone. Later this year, as I noted earlier, he will face the electorate’s judgment, and it is widely expected that his party will experience a crushing defeat, bringing a new Prime Minister to power.

But even if that doesn’t happen, count them up: Rudd x2, Gillard, Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison – six Prime Ministers in 12 years, when they are supposed to be good for 6 (or more!) years apiece, based on prior electoral patterns. None of them have managed to go a full electoral term from election to election in that period of time. If I look six Prime Ministers further back, I find myself looking at the elections of December 1971, a full 36 years prior – and the last time Australia saw such a period of political instability.

So here’s the key point: in only one of the cases listed did the former Prime Minister resign after losing an election, the tradition in Australia. That’s one in six. All the rest were appointed by the elected members of their respective parties. Two of the six did go on to win elections, but were then ousted before their elected terms were complete.

To many Australians, it feels like our right to choose our leadership has been usurped by politicians making back-room deals and more than a few have “had a gut-full” of it. Hence the record run of unpopularity numbers I mentioned several times in this sidebar. If you want to understand Australian Politics over the last 12 years, it’s not enough to look at who the leader is – you have to look at who chose the choices.

Duration Of Appointment

How long will the selectee hold the position to which he has been elevated? The usual answers are a span of years (with or without some flexibility), or for life.

Those appointed in Olden Times were more frequently appointed for life – though the appointment itself could profoundly alter the span of that life, both through overwork and hostile measures by enemies of the individual or of the state. When someone’s death is the only way out of what is seen as an intolerable situation, someone’s going to try and kill someone else.

Having a regular turnover of leaders – or just a reaffirmation of popularity – can avoid the need for assassinations. It won’t stop them, but it will reduce the number of attempts – unless the process has been thoroughly corrupted, which is what happens in dictatorships and banana republics.

That’s why the US has Midterms for part of Congress while another part of Congress shares the electoral “bill” with a Presidential Election.

In Australia, things are a little more flexible and complicated. There is a fixed limit to the term of a government – so long and no more – and, it is normally held, a fixed minimum before you will inflame the public with an unnecessary election. As a rough rule of thumb, these are four and three years, respectively. Within that window, it’s the prerogative of the government – within certain constraints – to choose the election date that suits them. There are exceptions – if the government has the same piece of proposed legislation rejected by the Senate twice, they gain a “trigger” for a “double dissolution” – the complete dissolving of both chambers of government and fresh elections for both; and if a government ever loses a vote of no confidence or has a “supply” bill blocked in the lower house, the government is immediately dissolved and the opposition is asked if they can form a government that is actually capable of running the country. If they say ‘yes’, they are told to do it; if they say ‘no’, fresh elections are immediately called, and a caretaker government installed. Quite obviously, both these forms of failure become more likely in the event of a Minority government, so these are often considered less stable than Majority governments.

The other major difference here is that there are minimum terms for Senators. Normally, only half the Senate is up for election at any one time; double dissolusions change that, and so do the dates of the next election to be called. If it’s past a certain threshold, the Senators whose terms are running out have their replacements (if they aren’t re-elected) elected at the same time; if not, these have to be elected separately, at what is considered great inconvenience to the public..

Practical Impracticalities

There are always things that a government can’t or won’t do, for political reasons, even if they are the practical solution to the problems that face them. Politically, they are impractical to implement. At the same time, there are measures that a government will put in place for political reasons, even if they are not a practical solution to the problems that face them, or will even generate fresh problems for subsequent governments to deal with.

Both are examples of Practical Impracticalities.

With appointed leaders, its the leadership that generally gets to decide what’s practical and what isn’t. Quite often, there is a grain of truth in even the most partisan and ridiculous of these policies, but oppositions rarely acknowledge what the current government is trying to achieve with its regulations or lack thereof.

For example, take Environmental Protection policy in the US. It’s entirely possible that the Republicans are right when they claim that the levels of regulation demanded by prior administrations had built up to the point where it was impractical for business to meet their obligations under the system. So, they found a simple solution to the problem: cut out what regulations they could get away with, and cut enforcement of regulations they didn’t think the public would accept being cut. This is pruning your garden with a chainsaw. A better, but far less ideologically practical, solution would have been to simplify the regulations enormously to make them no less comprehensive but less stifling for business to achieve – “The Department of the Environment will produce a government standard hereafter referred to as the US Environmental Standard XYZ, and update it regularly as scientific discoveries warrant. Any excess of pollutants beyond the levels deemed safe in US Environmental Standard XYZ will be deemed excessive and the perpetrators of such excesses will be subject to the following measures…” This rolls a bucket list of specific regulations into one broader one. Instead of 50 or 100 places that businesses need to look to find out what their obligations are, this puts it all into one. But, while this may be a practical compromise between Environmental Protection and Business, it would not have been ideologically practical to implement. Instead, the red tape has been cut at the price of weakening protection. It will be left to some subsequent government to enact legislation that will restore a measure of protection – hopefully in a practical way so that all the gains (and there are clearly benefits to business) are not lost. But that might mean conceding that the Republicans had a point – not something that Democrats usually find politically expedient, either. Protecting the environment is a good thing, but so is cutting Red Tape. The trick is to find a way to do both at the same time.

Whenever a government is appointed, the political stance they hold in terms of what they deem practical and what they deem impractical is also, effectively, appointed. If those choosing the pool of candidates are wise, or partisan, these will be amongst the selection criteria applied – the qualities deemed desirable in a candidate – and so those who are appointed by those making the choices will, at the very least, value those qualities. Should the perception of balance be desirable, it can always be achieved by putting forward a contrasting candidate who also possesses some personal quality or flaw that will make them completely unacceptable at the final hurdle.

Vested Interests

Whenever you have the power to make appointments of substance, you will be expected to take advice on the choices. That opens the door to appointed representatives of various factions, groups, and lobbies. These are then known as Vested Interests.

In theory, you can balance the biases of one against the opposing biases of another, but in practice, one group of related interests will more greatly accord with the partisan perspectives of an individual or collection of like-minded individuals, and will receive a more cordial and fruitful reception as a result. Those with competing interests will naturally seek out those on the opposition side of the political ledger, expecting (not unreasonably) to find them more receptive to their proposals. It only takes a small point of preference or distinction, and eventually positions on every issue can be divided along partisan lines.



A year and a half ago, I pointed out in Influences, Styles, Trends, and Oscillations that any ‘push’ to one side of a balance point produces an inevitable reaction, a counter-force that first drags the pendulum back toward the balance point and then overshoots it.

But real life is more complicated than that. Trends can persist longer than expected, can be stronger than expected, can occur in fits and starts instead of smoothly, can be delayed, there can be a bias to one side or the other, or all of the above at once to varying degrees. Statistically, over time, everything except possibly a bias will even out.

Vested Interests provide a bias. They also try to amplify change when it is in the direction they favor, and minimize it when it is not. And accelerate change when they amplify it, and delay or obstruct it when they don’t.

The Role Of Wealth

Wealth buys leverage and influence. More importantly, it provides the leisure time to manipulate situations. It also provides the educational opportunities that frequently make the wealthy suitable candidates for selection.

In theory, it can be argued, this is beneficial to society as a whole; the wealthy are more resistant to vested interests because their needs are already met. In practice, the wealthy will always favor policies that first, protect their wealth, and second, grow their wealth. That’s because wealth is a form of power, and if someone else has more, that someone can strip you of your own wealth – it might come at great cost, but it can always be done. Jealousies and Rivalries abound in such worlds, and greed beyond reasonable needs is the norm.

Wealth, and altruistic influences, have very little relationship to each other.

Wealth is, in fact, inherently conservative, and thus wealth acts as a bias within the system towards conservatism. The great fear amongst the wealthy of the neuvoux rich is that the latter may have opinions rooted in their more commonplace origins that run counter to the vested interests of the old-world wealthy. It’s a fear that has been amply justified at times. However, it’s also true that such experiences may make the wealthy even more fearful of losing their current prosperity, making them even more archly-conservative.

Selection by appointment is always a complex of competing interests, and the wealthy are the focal points of those interests, at times pulling society in one direction, and at times pushing it in another.

Special Interests

There always needs to be a careful distinction made between vested interests and special interests. The latter are felt but not shared by those with power and authority, while the former have a direct impact on them. Quite often, the two are in conflict, but special interests are treated as a necessary exception to the general rule. For example, the wealthy and conservative nevertheless are frequent donors to charity.

It doesn’t matter whether or not they receive some benefit from doing so. It is nevertheless acting contrary to their general philosophy.

Any special interest can be viewed as being accorded a disproportionate influence in the minds of the individual, and those factors will also find expression in those they appoint in equal measure. You don’t have to have wealth to be inherently conservative in nature; you don’t have to be poor to be fundamentally progressive in attitude. The cliches may be more prevalent, and therefore represent another form of bias within the system, but they are not absolutes.

Moreover, in an appointment oriented system, failures of an appointee to protect a special interest are rarely held principally as a failure on the part of the appointee, but rather a failure on the part of those doing the appointing. “He or She is doing their best, but they should never have been put in this position in the first place” would be a common form of criticism.

Cabinets and Capabilities

The term “cabinet” is one that can mean different things in different political systems. In the broadest definition, members of a Cabinet are afforded a defined specialty and function as a focal point for the perspective of that specialty when it comes to administration and policy. This function requires no great expertise; the cabinet are nothing more than a communications channel for others.

But cabinet functions rarely stay so confined. It usually starts when an administration has a particular agenda and a plan for achieving it; the cabinet are expected to issue instructions to their areas of specialty and manage their part in the “great plan”. Once this is established, there is added value to selecting individuals of some achievement or knowledge of their portfolio.

Such individuals usually have their own opinions on how their portfolio should be managed, and expect to play a more hands-on role. They will expect to contribute to policy as it affects their portfolio. Initially, they will just advise; but before long, they will be creating and implementing policy in any area that they are not overridden. They become powers behind the throne.

When it comes to cabinets, there are always three considerations: Who’s eligible, who’s in charge of the appointments, and how much authority will be delegated to the cabinet member. These factors vary more from political system to political system than a lot of people realize.

In the US, the cabinet is appointed by the President, and can be anyone he likes. They are often treated as supplementary sources of expertise, as a result. It’s also traditional for the members of the cabinet to furnish signed and undated letters of resignation that the president can exercise at any time, and for the cabinet to resign just prior to an election so that the President is spared the ignominy of having to fire them.

In Australia and the UK, the cabinet is comprised of senior members of the governing political party. The specialty element of the appointment is separated, and performed by Ministers, who are often also members of the cabinet. The cabinet thus has less direct power, but often greater indirect power, and is more ideologically driven. In particular, the likelihood of expertise within their policy area is far smaller.

Who Gets Chosen?

All of these considerations influence the primary function of the choosers – selecting who gets chosen. Depending on the political system and the nature of the appointment, the choice may have immediate effect, or might be the subject of some other mechanism such as ratification, election, or voting, either by the general public, by the political party/faction, by a select group within the political party/faction, or by a specific individual. There may or may not be an expectation that the appointment will be accepted, regardless of the individual’s desire to serve. The appointment may or may not be seen as doing someone a favor, incurring an obligation of gratitude.

There is often a compromise between the people those doing the choosing would like to choose and those who can be successful at getting through these processes. Those with a longer view often seek to manipulate the process towards candidates of the general type of which they would approve rather than direct intercession in any specific case. As a general rule, the more direct the appointment, the less the need to compromise.

There are those who would argue that the need to compromise is an asset to the system, ensuring that broad general acceptability is served; there are those who would argue with equal vehemence that the compromise ensures that mediocrity becomes a key selection criterion, to the detriment of the system as a whole.

The View From The Street

Quite often, the ordinary person has no idea of the merits of an individual or the criterion by which they were chosen. Many will be ignorant of who is doing the appointing, and hence where the ultimate authority lies within their system of government. Only when divisive or controversial appointments are considered do they become aware of the process, if at all.

This can have a huge impact on identity politics. It is common in Australia for advertising to expressly target votes for or against an individual leader as though they were the sum total of their political party. In reality, most of the public has absolutely no say on who these leaders are; they are presented as fait accompli to the electorate, who have little or no idea how they got to that position.

At best, the voters in the electorate of the nominal party leader may veto the choice by rejecting him as a candidate, even should his party win government. Beyond that, the voters select a short list from amongst those nominated for consideration by the parties, and that short list then chooses the party leader.

There are three separate considerations at play: perceptions of competence, perceptions of character, and perceptions of affiliation, which carry with it perceptions of policy. In general, only perceptions of character are usually fatal to one’s electoral chances, though occasionally someone will be denied for reasons of abject incompetence even thought they are considered ‘a good bloke’. More often than not, a failure of competence is perceived as a failure of character, i.e. a failure to seek out and implement good advice.

Unpopular Decisions

From time to time, unpopular choices will make their way through the system, and this is more likely to happen with direct appointments. These sometimes happen because competence is valued more highly than popularity, or because of ideology, or as a quid-pro-quo, or even to make someone ineligible for a more sensitive position. Unless the people doing the choosing are well known to the public, and the criteria that they have applied are clearly explained, the popular perception will almost always be one of ideological bias as the basis of appointment, rightly or wrongly, and even when those conditions are met, some will blame ideology anyway.

There is almost always a backlash of some kind to an unpopular appointment. With persistence and competence, sometimes an initially unpopular appointment can acquire public respect and even approval; but one misstep and opposition will once again rise.

You Say You Want A Revolution

if an appointment is sufficiently unpopular, you may get a revolution, or demands for one. Because the appointment mechanism is generally shadowy and indirect, the target is often misplaced, confusing a symptom for the cause – or, in this case, the appointee when it’s the appointers who should be taken to task. Indeed, clever selectors can sometimes cause such occurrences with the view of dissipating built up anger before it becomes so widespread as to impact on them. Appoint an unpopular figure, wait until protests become widespread, then remove the unpopular figure from office, giving the people the illusion that they have accomplished something, when in reality, the status remains very much quo.

The Game Practicalities

Whenever you have a system of government by appointees, it becomes essential for consistency and imparting of the right social ‘bias’ on the game world that you understand the characters of those who do the choosing. That then shapes the choices that they make, which are ultimately what the players, their characters, and the majority of the public see and judge.

The influence of who gets to choose will permeate the game. That can be a good thing for the GM, if controlled and chosen carefully, or it can be a confused mishmash – or, worse still, a train-wreck.

Decide who will get to choose. Decide on the criteria they will employ. Decide on what negotiations and compromises have to be made. Use all of that to create the people appointed. Then feed in the public’s expectations and reactions.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that Appointment is a dynamic process, responsive not only to the perceived needs of the moment, but the anticipated needs of the future – both of which are often swamped in consideration by the needs of the recent past, even if they no longer apply.

And that’s the essential road-map to governance by appointment.

In part two, governance by those who inherit the position. The dynamics are completely different…