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Dear citizens of the eNetherlands,

As you may have noticed I'm in a bit of a writing frenzy lately to spice up our community/media and with the coming Congressional Elections I'd like to do something I'd always wante😛 Making up a 'Political Compass' to show the differences between the main political parties in the eNetherlands. Of course, with low population numbers and the lack of almost any 'active' citizen that isn't in a party it doesn't serve much use to inform people of their voting preferences, so consider this for fun mainly.

The traditional left/right & authoritarian/libertarian paradigms in eRepublik fail to really define the parties in the eNetherlands. Reviewing the political discourse in the eNetherlands for the last few years, one can only conclude there are other issues that are much more defining. I've made up two axis that in my view make clear what defines the parties in the eNetherlands.

First of all, Populist versus Institutionalist. This is broadly whether or not a party views our current forum-system and traditions of governance as good or whether or not our institutions should be modified to better represent the 'populi' (whether true or not). The second, Bureaucratic versus Pragmatic is loosely connected to that and serves the question whether a party believes actions should be taken according to strict pre-defined rules or whether these rules can be bypassed at will in presumed cases of 'emergency' or need.

The different parties have been graded on these axis by the following 'believes' in 0-5 scale. I'd thought about asking all Party Leaders to grade themselves but time was short before the Congressional Elections; perhaps if people like this or there is enough discussion about it I will in the future:

- Opinion on use of forum
- Believes DAF should be strictly regulated by Government/Congress
- Believes Finances is a matter of austerity

- Believes laws should be upheld no matter what
- Stability in eNL is more important than risky adventures
- The eNL is doing relatively fine; no need for changes

Without further ado the Political Compass for the political parties in the eNetherlands:


I believe this image sheds a correct picture of the parties and their differences in the eDutch political arena. By no means take my ratings for 100% accurate, though, as I am by no means 100% objective (but I tried). In recent times, when there were more 'political scandals' we could clearly observe the battle between the 'radicals' of on the one hand I&W and on the other hand ReL (and GPN) as shown in the graph. Iron & Wine rules the 'institutions' (Forum/DAF etc) with a firm hand, while ReL and GPN reacted by for example boycotting the Forum. The main foundations of these parties seem hard to unite and only the lack of political action and individuals in the parties willing to cooperate make this fight less visible these days.

DemNL & VN have always been in the 'crossfire' of this fight, both slightly leaning on to either side. DemNL is a firm upholder of the law and our democratic traditions, but (aided by the MoFA/CP/MoD mostly being DemNL) are willing to be pragmatic at times to supplement in-game actions with democratic justification. VN has been very critical of our (forum-)system, but is by no means a party of troublemakers. They do believe greatly in the continuing stability of the eNetherlands, but are willing to change things around cautiously. Both parties are therefore able to work with almost anyone and are generally considered neutral.

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Tell me what you think about this overview of our political arena and most importantly; don't forget to vote the 25th during the Congressional Elections!