Kalistan

[Doc]

Kalistan voted "Freest Nation" in International Poll
Combination of personal freedom, economic security, and political stability all cited
Sulari, Duchy of Suldanor
June 7, 5725


Free City of Sulari in Suldanor cited as a Top 10 Global City in Poll

Kalistan has been voted the Freest Nation in Terra, according to a poll conducted by the International magazine Global Observer. The poll, taken between March and June of this year, asked more than 15,000 respondents from 42 different nations to rank countries based on categories like "personal freedom," "Civil liberty," "freedom from oppression", "Freedom of self actualization," "economic freedom" and "electoral freedom." When the categories were combined and totaled, Kalistan ended up at the top of the list.

"Votes don't lie," said managing editor Mark Fang Li. "This is the view that we got from the questionnaire. I myself was a little surprised at the result: I would have imagined one of the more liberal nations like Luthori or Valruzia would end up on top, but it turns out that the people who respond to the polls have a nuanced view of what 'freedom' is. Many people prioritize both types of freedom: Not just freedom from, say regulation or hard authoritarianism, but also freedom to, as in freedom to pursue one's dreams, freedom to participate as a full member of society, and freedom to move about securely. And so these types of nuances came out in the data, and I suppose then it makes sense."

Kalistan topped the list on several of the categories in the overall ranking. Notable among them were Personal liberty, Economic Security, and Political Stability. "All of these, political scientists tell us, contribute to freedom because they reduce anxiety about one's immediate and long term existence," said Fang Li. "Political scientists tell us that authoritarians rule through anxiety and uncertainty over one's condition. But Kalistan appears to be seen as a nation that has reduced much of that anxiety. From their massive social welfare system to their single party state, we can see that democracy and 'freedom' as a concept do not, and probably should not directly correlate, especially liberal and majoritarian concepts of democracy. The liberal states tended to fare worse simply because there is a lot of anxiety introduced by the market aspects of the economy, and incidentally, the market aspects of their political systems, making people uncertain if their lives will be the same the day after an election as they were the day before one."

Lower down the list, Fang Li says, you will find those he expected to see on the top. "Your Dundorfs, your Lodamuns, your Valruzias, your Hutoris, your Narikatons, your Egelions, your modern stable democracies and social democracies, yes they are all there, but to a greater or lesser degree they scored lower in the poll simply because they were strong in some categories, but weaker in others. N&D for example is quite strong in economic freedom, as one would expect, but those answering the poll didn't feel that elections meant much to the voters. Most multi-party democracies actually fared a little worse, because some said that these states substitute quantity for quality- Rather than having one or two really good choices, they give voters nine or ten mediocre choices and then expect them to select between them in an election, when the result is often the same regardless of who is selected. So being a multi-party state was not treated as a positive necessarily, and often times was seen as a negative, while a two Party state makes choices clearer, and a one party state removes all questions entirely."

At the bottom of the list for "freest Nation" was Rapa Pile, a nation which is entirely occupied by Vascania and treated as a virtual colony. "There are a number of countries which are deemed to not be free, though one might think they were," said Fang Li. "Trigunia/Nadiya is one of them. They have a multi level democracy. They have rampant capitalism. They have a confederated Government. But they ranked particularly low on things like transparency and consistency of the law. Some people wrote Nadiya's laws are so overlapping and multivariate, and there are radically different laws in different jurisdictions, and sometimes the Republics can out vote the National government, while other times the National Government is supreme, and sometimes the Church weighs in and influences policy, and much of the economy is not run for the people but for the benefit of private oligarchs, and there is a particularly overbearing capriciousness to law enforcement... The list goes on and on."

According to Fang Li, "This sort of insanely labyrinthine structure is the veneer of a deeply elite-dominated society that is operated for the benefit of only a few powerful individuals with the guise of something like democracy. It seems everyone in in the world can see it for what it is, except the Nadiyan people themselves, who are either too scared to oppose it, or not very well educated about the nature of their society to see it for what it is. I think most of those polled would rate Nadiya as a kleptocracy, at best, but certainly nobody except the Nadiyans who were polled, rated it as 'free' in any sense of the word." He did note though that a handful of other nations were far less free than Nadiya.

Respondents were also asked to name the top 10 best international cities in the world to live and work in. Topping the list was Fort William, Luthori, and Nowagard Valruzia, while Sulari came in at Number 4. Kaliburg-Port Davon did not make the top 10, because those polled said it was too expensive to live there, and a wide variety of job opportunities were not available there, as the city caters mostly to government and finance sectors, as well as the services needed to support them.

@LaModa