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Old 02-05-2024, 10:10 PM   #781
Johnny1A.2
 
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

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Originally Posted by Irish Wolf View Post
I also note that, much like Verhoeven, a lot of these people somehow missed the fact, made quite explicit in the text, that "federal service" did not mean military service, but any service the government needed done. It was stated quite clearly in the novel that the majority of full citizens had spent two years shuffling papers for government agencies, then were free to seek whatever employment they wanted. We followed Juan Rico in the Mobile Infantry because the story itself was about that, but that wasn't the focus of the worldbuilding overall. (Remember that Juan's high-school buddy Carlos, who signed up the same time as him, served as a research physicist at the lab on Pluto, and died only because a Klendathu ship bombed the facility. He never went through any sort of military training, because he wasn't military.)
Verhoeven didn't 'miss' anything, he just openly despised the source material and admitted as much, so instead of filming ST he filmed a whole different more or less intentional parody of it.
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Old 02-05-2024, 10:18 PM   #782
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

Back on topic, here's a concept that I have a hard time imagining actually being implemented, but would produce some interesting results: imagine a society where the ruler's main job is to appoint the chief minister who actually runs the government. Nothing unusual there, we see that principle in parliamentary democracies and mayor/city manager arrangements.

In mayor/city manager systems, the mayor/council appoints a city manager, usually a professional bureaucrat of some sort, to actually run the city day to day. Most of what the council/mayor does is choose the CM, and maybe set broad policies and legislate.

Imagine that same principle at the national level, where the elected or hereditary ruler's main task is to appoint the chief minister who runs things day to day. But the twist is that the chief minister has to be a foreigner. He can be dismissed by the ruler at will, but the replacement must also be from outside the ruled polity.

Imagine if the Prime Minister of the UK was not permitted to be a UK subject. An American, a Frenchman, a Japanese, could be appointed, but not a citizen.

The argument for it would be that a properly selected foreigner would be neutral, he would not be a member of a native faction or party, and the fact that he can be easily dismissed and replaced limits the harm he can do if a bad one is chosen.

Like I said, I can't see it actually being tried in a pure form, but something a little like it seems to have been common in the Islamic world at one time, where Sultans could appoint foreign (but still Muslim) viziers, and often did.

There seems to have been something just a little like this in the form of an international bureaucratic class in pre-Qin Shi Huang 'China'. The closest equivalent in the modern West would probably be the international 'NGO class', and it's not very close.
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Old 02-06-2024, 09:15 AM   #783
Michael Cule
 
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

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Imagine that same principle at the national level, where the elected or hereditary ruler's main task is to appoint the chief minister who runs things day to day. But the twist is that the chief minister has to be a foreigner. He can be dismissed by the ruler at will, but the replacement must also be from outside the ruled polity.

Imagine if the Prime Minister of the UK was not permitted to be a UK subject. An American, a Frenchman, a Japanese, could be appointed, but not a citizen.

The argument for it would be that a properly selected foreigner would be neutral, he would not be a member of a native faction or party, and the fact that he can be easily dismissed and replaced limits the harm he can do if a bad one is chosen.

Like I said, I can't see it actually being tried in a pure form, but something a little like it seems to have been common in the Islamic world at one time, where Sultans could appoint foreign (but still Muslim) viziers, and often did.

There seems to have been something just a little like this in the form of an international bureaucratic class in pre-Qin Shi Huang 'China'. The closest equivalent in the modern West would probably be the international 'NGO class', and it's not very close.
This was the system depicted in one of the acts of G B Shaw's play BACK TO METHUSALA (which was mostly about the need for mankind to live long enough for people to grow up).

The British Parliament was deliberately recruited from lunatic asylums and the chief minister (under a British figurehead) was a Chinese Mandarin while China was being controlled by British Expats.

Yeah, a slight feeling of disquiet at that nowadays hopefully not based on the same feelings of disquiet it raised in the British back in the 1930s.
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Old 02-06-2024, 07:28 PM   #784
jason taylor
 
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

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Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2 View Post
Back on topic, here's a concept that I have a hard time imagining actually being implemented, but would produce some interesting results: imagine a society where the ruler's main job is to appoint the chief minister who actually runs the government. Nothing unusual there, we see that principle in parliamentary democracies and mayor/city manager arrangements.

In mayor/city manager systems, the mayor/council appoints a city manager, usually a professional bureaucrat of some sort, to actually run the city day to day. Most of what the council/mayor does is choose the CM, and maybe set broad policies and legislate.

Imagine that same principle at the national level, where the elected or hereditary ruler's main task is to appoint the chief minister who runs things day to day. But the twist is that the chief minister has to be a foreigner. He can be dismissed by the ruler at will, but the replacement must also be from outside the ruled polity.

Imagine if the Prime Minister of the UK was not permitted to be a UK subject. An American, a Frenchman, a Japanese, could be appointed, but not a citizen.

The argument for it would be that a properly selected foreigner would be neutral, he would not be a member of a native faction or party, and the fact that he can be easily dismissed and replaced limits the harm he can do if a bad one is chosen.

Like I said, I can't see it actually being tried in a pure form, but something a little like it seems to have been common in the Islamic world at one time, where Sultans could appoint foreign (but still Muslim) viziers, and often did.

There seems to have been something just a little like this in the form of an international bureaucratic class in pre-Qin Shi Huang 'China'. The closest equivalent in the modern West would probably be the international 'NGO class', and it's not very close.
Magistrates were often foreigners in the Italian City-states for just that reason, and many of the most trusted royal counselors were foreigners like Prince Eugene. Aristocracy was transnational in those days.

Then too several Europeans had court Jews as did Ottomans (it may have been more common among Ottomans). Clerics were also often recruited for royal counselors. Further east eunechs were used.
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Old 02-06-2024, 08:29 PM   #785
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

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Magistrates were often foreigners in the Italian City-states for just that reason, and many of the most trusted royal counselors were foreigners like Prince Eugene. Aristocracy was transnational in those days.

Then too several Europeans had court Jews as did Ottomans (it may have been more common among Ottomans). Clerics were also often recruited for royal counselors. Further east eunechs were used.
Foreign mercenaries were also at times common, and for similar reasons. They are less likely to get tied up in troublesome local politics, and are dependent on their patron much more than local troops would be. If the emperor loses the loyalty his army, they become a major threat. If he loses the loyalty of his foreign mercenaries, they become invading foreigners against whom the emperor can rally his nation. And they know this, and have one more reason to keep their agreements (beyond losing their pay and reputation).
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Old 02-08-2024, 08:37 AM   #786
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Foreign mercenaries were also at times common, and for similar reasons. They are less likely to get tied up in troublesome local politics, and are dependent on their patron much more than local troops would be. If the emperor loses the loyalty his army, they become a major threat. If he loses the loyalty of his foreign mercenaries, they become invading foreigners against whom the emperor can rally his nation. And they know this, and have one more reason to keep their agreements (beyond losing their pay and reputation).
Mercenaries/Emergent professional troops generally in a feudal or similar system - if, as a king, you rely mainly on the levy of your vassals to provide an army, and you cannot rely on your vassals, you have a problem. The more men you have that work directly for you the better, so allowing, encouraging and even forcing vassals to pay scutage rather than provide feudal service and then spending that money on troops of your own (whether foreign or not) seems like an easy win for a king. Much as some of the other Tudor experiments with undermining the feudal magnates by moving civilian offices of state out of their hands and into those of the middle class seemed like a good idea at the time.
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Old 03-03-2024, 10:58 PM   #787
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

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Foreign mercenaries were also at times common, and for similar reasons. They are less likely to get tied up in troublesome local politics, and are dependent on their patron much more than local troops would be. If the emperor loses the loyalty his army, they become a major threat. If he loses the loyalty of his foreign mercenaries, they become invading foreigners against whom the emperor can rally his nation. And they know this, and have one more reason to keep their agreements (beyond losing their pay and reputation).
Italian mercenaries were private armies that made elaborate contracts with different cities. As so often they looked weird exactly because they took things to the logical extreme.
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