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Yesterday we talked about our history of Political Takeovers and how they have affected our history. Today we take a look at Polarization in our world and how political takeovers contributed to that Polarization.

[a url=http://www.erepublik.com/article-484921.html]Political Takovers and Polarization Part One[/a]
Just to refresh your memory in case you forgot here are the Erepublik definitions of our topics.

Erepublik Definition
Political Takeover: (coup) When a highly organized group from a densely populated Country moves into a separate country and gains political power of said country by out numbering other citizens in an election. (Normally the General Election)
Polarization: When few or two superior countries or alliances gain enough influential power to be the commanding forces of the world against each other.


How Polarization Shaped our World

In the Beginning
About two months into the game citizens started to worry about polarization in the world. This fear came from mainly two things, the looming release of the war module, and the rapidly growing Sweden. For their time, Sweden's population quite frankly scared the crap out of most other countries. Pakistan and other countries began to bad mouth Sweden, giving the world someone to hate. Citizens spoke of how Sweden's size could easily overtake most of the world in wars and the word polarization came up. Because there was plenty of time before the war mod would be released, the world had time to analyze the situation. Because of the numerous amounts of countries, the threat of polarization seemed slim, especially because people did not understand how war would work. They took no chances though, as they feared Sweden so much, the illustrious Grev Per started the famous forum topic, [a url=http://www.erepublik.com/forum-topic-18712.html]Defend the WORLD against Sweden[/a]

Coincidently, the formation of alliances started in order to prepare for wars and the threat of polarization, however as we can see today it only contributed.

Releasing the War Module
When the war mod was finally released in April, the world began to see how wars really worked. Given the cost of starting a war, the fear of Sweden and its military power decreased as they would have to pay about 2500 gold just to declare one war. The fact remained however that all of the smaller countries would eventually be taken over and assimilated into the powerhouses of the world. as few months into war the world was starting to shape into what we know today. Pakistan began its push east by overtaking India, and eventually China. Norway acquired much land when conquering Russia. Sweden began to stretch it's empire south by taking the Netherlands and more recently Germany. Indonesia annexed Australia and increased it's territory later by annexing South Africa.

The World Today, Polarization Fears Realized.
Thanks to The_Mihai, we now have a world map outlining the different countries and the regions they control.

[a url=http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/904/erepublikworldmap4augmy9.jpg]Updated World Map[/a]
Without magnifying the picture you can see how Polarization has happened in the Eastern Hemisphere. Norway owns all land in Northern Asia, Pakistan covers a majority of southern Asia, Indonesia controls the southern oceans and the land surrounding and Sweden is the largest country in Europe. (in amount of land at least) Over in the Western Hemisphere, things look pretty balanced, however this is where we must take alliances into account. PANAM is an alliance of all American countries, so the entire Western Hemisphere can be considered one large force in the world. The MA, or Mediterranean Alliance consists of the southern European countries, so we can lump them together as one force. Now we judge all these groups by land because when V1 of Erepublik comes out, natural resources will be a key part of industry. In short, the countries with the most land will eventually have the most thriving economy. In this map we can see about 6 major forces showing up in the world. Hence polarization occurs within the world.


The Connection

So just what do these two topics have to do with each other?
Well, first, political takeovers help add to the polarization by decreasing the amount of small countries in the game like Ireland and Mexico. These smaller countries become a part of the world powers when under their political control. In this fashion because it is so much faster, and not as messy as a war, the idea of political takeovers becomes a suitable option for expanding an empire. As V1 of Erepublik approaches we can expect to see more political takeovers in order to gain more land for Natural resources unless the admins take affirmative action to stop it before it happens again. While it is not under the admins power to stop polarization, they can restrict voting rights appropriately, as their last attempt obviously did not stop many people in these last elections.

A Solution?
Defend the WORLD against political takeovers. Unite a country into voting for one candidate against foreign intruders in elections. Although polarization may not seem that bad in our world, it prevents the little guy from making a difference. In order to slow down the polarization in our world, we must first stop political takeovers!


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-Uncle Sam-


USA! USA! USA!