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Leadership and pretorians

This is an issue it's been there in front of my eyes all the time, but I hadn't acknowledged yet. It's party leadership.

It's been controversial how leaders and democracy cope to distribute power within parties. Not only in New Era but in every party, many members of any party have had a disgusting feeling: I'm rather unimportant, it's that elite who decides things.

In some cases, in my previous opinion about the matter, party democracy seemed absent in some parties: TUP. In others, like ESO, democracy seemed a kind of matter of aristocratic rite performed within certain elites. Now I can understand the full process.

They key of such enlightment was Keers' new proposals of seminars, ingame and, even, low import tax. Why were such proposals unthinkable to be proposed by anyone else than Keers? Why didn't Bohemond or Talon ever propose such things ? Leadership.

Leader holds the "axiomatic" essence of the party, in simpler words, leader blocks things that can't be discussed and that must be hold as absolute Truths. This may sound horrible, but, in fact, it's a rather safe and healthy thing. Democracy doesn't imply to have a saying in any aspect by anybody. Why not? Ethics or simple human dignity.

In democracy or in any political system, some things are out of discussion, or they should be: respect to basic human rights. Freedom of speech, life, movement and political participation shouldn't be threatened by any law, including death penalty. Some of you will disagree with me about which specific rights are decidable, votable or not. But most will agree that such core of basic rights are out of any poll.

Back to party democracy, I strongly believe such core of axioms, absolute and undiscussed truths, must exist in every party. Well, as a matter of fact, they exist. Where are those truths kept? In the chest of leaders or in the coffers of their wills : Party Constitutions. Withouth such truths, party would swing back and forth ideologically, they would be spineless, and absurd changes would be possible, such communist parties voting for extreme-right policies.

So, basically a leader or his Constitution is nothing more that the "spirit", the basic common background of the party. Some of you may argue that a Constitution is better than a sacred leader. I think, that, in most cases, the footprint of the leader is so firmly set in that Constitution that, in practice, it's just the same.

If we review some "constitutional"-driven parties like ESO, IA (quite recent), we find that the hand of the leader is behind them, and you can't effectively withdraw his influence. Partially, because leader's spirit has spread within the party and its most fanatical followers ( yes, one can be fanatical of a non-fanatical party), so that Constitution is, a matter of fact, defended by this pretorian guard. Just join one of those parties and try to change its Constitution, it'd be just the same than challenging or attacking his beloved leader.

It'd be tempting to consider that some small parties, like PCP, IA, WRP are the only truly democratic since everything is discussed and approved by its small group of members, and, for the same reason, it's misleading that large parties, UKPP , TUP and NE could be considered as leader-oriented, and without democratic roots. First, because even tiny or small parties have their own "constitution" or leadership, so they have their share of core axioms ( out of any poll), and secondly because such small parties are the same size that pretorian guards of bigger parties. So the ammount of active players is just the same, regardless of the size.

In fact, and current number participation suggests, the ammount of actively involved people and with a real voice in any party (of any size) is surprisingly similar, around 5 to 15, no more, no matter the size of the party is 10 or 300. Can that number be increased ? How ? As we see, in party elections, (NE comes to mind), we had around 60 votes (out of 160), that is a 30% of the whole, and other parties and in any other elections are around same percentages. Wether we like or not, 40%-60% of parties are composed of inactive member:the mass. There's a 40% partly interested in politics, and of those, only 5-15 members are very active, or even active enough to have a sub-leadership attitude: a pretorian role. So there's no special magic when tiny parties get to be fully democratic, it's just that their mass component hasn't developed yet.

So, what party is the best? The god-given leader driven party ? The pseudo-pro-constitutional? The truly but tiny democratical one? What's the best for me ? Well, as matter of fact, it depends on YOUR ROLE and your CAPABILITIES or preferences.


If you want to go for a party with little axioms, undefined, you should go for UKRP or UKPP. Both parties have no known strong leader nor constitution, so the "pretorian guard" rules, you can be one of them, if you tune in sync with them. In both cases, the power in them is so loose, so spineless, that people with strong personality may fit very well there, without a big shadow of strong leader. Both, UKRP or UKPP, haven't strong axioms, if any. Nor they have a strong axiomatic reference to stick to. Some would say that UKPP is pro-war and anti-TUP, but nothing (and no clear leader) prevents them from changing.

If you want to like to experience settled and low level of leadership, you can go for ESO, which certainly has a known leader ( and HIS expression in form of Constitution). ESO has a strong "pretorian guard", which allows jamesw to stay out of the scene, most of the time.


If you go more for technical aspects such improvements, tweaking or simply play, and strong personality you can go either TUP or New Era. Both of them have very defined personalities and policies. You may like them or not, but they're there. Go TUP if you prefer a "safer" path both to power or to eUK situation, that is, less wars, less experiments,... Go to New Era, if you agree with the outlines of Don, and the Constitution of New Era, that implies a more active and risky gameplay, eager to war and testing and improving things, and (why not ?) to test how far democracy, direct democracy, can go within large parties.

Do not expect a change in the party you join. Simply, you can't join ESO and try to change its axioms, nor TUP nor New Era.

Under this light of leadership and pretorian guards is understable Dr Hugh's movement and creation of Independence Alliance. His own axiomatic corpus was incompatible with Dapper's. He felt that Dapper's leadership (Dapper's axioms) would block certain axioms of his own. Hugh felt as a true leader and he acted as such. No other exit other than split was possible. Hugh's axiom are respect, union and an almost professional handling of politics, all that wrapped by direct democracy. He's wise and he knows democracy will only work for small groups, as it works in every party. So he's eager to fulfill his axiom of full democracy within a small party. And anyway, small parties are very often attracted by big parties, as a redemption of the shortcomings of relative lack of democracy and to acquire some of the prestige such small parties have. As I say, this prestige has no merrit, just the size allows such wonderful expressions of (small) democracy. So, a small party can be as rewarding (parliament, ministries, CP even) for party members as big parties, if they know how to play their cards.

Under this model of leadership and pretorians is understable Keers movements. Could Bohemond have leaded it ? I have strong doubts, and if so, he only could by a direct and strong support of Keers. Keers is literally starting a revolution, changing the axiomatic corpus of TUP: trying ingame communication, trying low import taxes, lowering itself to speak openly about policies. Only the leader can touch the axiomatic core. He has made me understand the true nature of leadership in eRepublik, which is not that different from Real Life leadership.

Alfagrem and all the parties he has founded is an interesting case. Most pretorian guards are composed by "technicians", being technician the term opposed to "pure leader". I do think Alfagrem is an exceedingly good technician, one that is able to solve problems, and supplies, party founding, damage delivery are all of them problems. But Alfagrem has realised the "blind" and axiomatic, stubborn, nature of leadership and he refuses to exert it fully, somehow he lacks that touch of dogmatism needed.

Summing up, no party is better than other. And none is the best. Every one represent a different stage of the tuple ( leadership, size, axioms). Find the party that suits you better for your own personality, jump from one party to another till you find YOUR party.