National Social Consultative Conference (Menghe): Difference between revisions
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The National Social Consultative Conference (Gomun: 全國社會協議會, Sinmun: 전국 사회 협의회, pr. Jŏnguk Sahoe Hyŏbyihoue), also translated "All-Nation Social Consultative Conference" and usually abbreviated NSCC in official English translations, is a political advisory body in the Socialist Republic of Menghe. It convenes once a year in November to compile reports drafted by its working groups, and to vote on a series of non-binding advisory resolutions, which are passed on to the National Assembly and Supreme Council.
Representatives to the NSCC are broken up into nineteen "social backgrounds," each corresponding to a given occupation. This gives the body a distinctively corporatist character, defining representatives in terms of occupation rather than political party or geographic area.
In contrast to the National Assembly, the NSCC is not a formal legislative body and lacks the power to draft or pass laws. Instead, its annual meetings are devoted to compiling non-binding advisory reports for the National Assembly and Supreme Council to consider. Its members are not subject to direct election, but are appointed indirectly by the Provincial Social Consultative Conferences.
History
Menghe's Social Consultative Conference system first emerged in 1993, after Choe Sŭng-min issued a proclamation encouraging village- and county-level governments to "organize all-societal conferences for constructive negotiation between representatives of the Five Classes." The vaguely worded document did not lay out detailed guidelines for selecting representatives, nor did it specify what the "Five Classes" were. It also treated the conferences as informal events organized by local Party branches, rather than formal state institutions. As a result, early village and county conferences differed dramatically in composition and structure.
The class-occupation structure of the Consultative Conferences stemmed from Menghe's ongoing economic reforms, which had already brought noticeable growth but were also generating tension among hardline Socialists. By giving farmers, workers, and employers a place to negotiate collectively under state oversight, local Conferences aimed to alleviate labor unrest, and to ensure that development was mutually beneficial to all groups. In the process, the Party implicitly recognized laborers and early private entrepreneurs as equals, signaling Choe's pivot toward a corporatist vision of Socialism.
In May 1998, at the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Socialist Republic of Menghe, the National Assembly formally amended the Menghean Constitution to enshrine the Social Consultative Conference system in law. The amendment laid out detailed election procedures, designated specific class categories, and added indirectly elected conferences at the Prefectural, Provincial, and National levels, with the latter forming today's NSCC.
Delegates
Most delegates to the NSCC are elected indirectly by the Provincial Social Consultative Conferences. The main exceptions are the Army and Navy delegations, which are appointed by the Ministry of Defense; the Socialist Party delegation, which is elected by the Central Committee of the Socialist Party; and the Cultural Arts and Academia delegations, which are elected by their relevant associations under the Ministry of Culture.
In all election areas, the Consultative Election Management Board screens candidates to ensure that all are loyal to the MSP's rule and will not call for radical change. Similar screening takes place at lower levels. Even after selection, the NSCC Personnel Board can suspend delegates at any time for "desabilizing remarks." Among delegates who support the Party, however, the selection process is relatively competitive, with an average of three candidates considered for each position in the Provincial SCCs. Since 2002, NSCC delegates have not been required to hold membership in the Menghe Socialist Party, though over 60% do.
Each NSCC delegate is assigned to a "social background," and is expected to advocate for the problems of citizens sharing a similar background, though not at the expense of cooperation with others. Geographic representation is treated only as a secondary concern. This corporatist structure formally recognizes negotiation based on social group. In the 19th National Social Consultative Conference, which convened in November 2017, there were nineteen recognized "social backgrounds:"
| Social background | Number of delegates | Percent of total |
|---|---|---|
| Appointed groups | 527 | 18.1% |
| Socialist Party leading cadres | 207 | 7.1% |
| Army officers and personnel | 118 | 4.0% |
| Navy officers and personnel | 96 | 3.3% |
| Scientists and academics | 64 | 2.1% |
| Artists, Poets, Musicians, and Cultural Figures | 42 | 1.4% |
| Elected Groups | 2,391 | 81.9% |
| Employers and large entrepreneurs | 211 | 7.2% |
| Self-employed and small business owners | 362 | 12.4% |
| Police and security personnel | 216 | 7.4% |
| Doctors and medical staff | 53 | 1.8% |
| Clerks and office workers | 171 | 5.9% |
| Skilled workers and professionals | 97 | 3.3% |
| Street-level civil servants | 86 | 2.9% |
| Women outside the labor force | 183 | 6.3% |
| Pensioners and retirees | 75 | 2.6% |
| Industrial laborers and construction workers | 402 | 13.8% |
| Private-sector service employees | 124 | 4.2% |
| Farmers and pastoralists | 298 | 10.2% |
| Fishermen and sailors | 68 | 2.3% |
| Miners, oilmen, and resource workers | 45 | 1.5% |
| Total | 2,918 | 100% |
The sizes of the different delegations are set by law, but are revised annually. They are not proportional to that occupation's share of employment, with the result that upper- and middle-class occupations are over-represented at the cost of their working-class counterparts. Nevertheless, workers and farmers are better-represented in the NSCC than in the National Assembly, where all representatives are full-time government employees.
In order to maintain their workforce connections, delegates are expected to remain in their occupations while the NSCC is not in session, and are only paid with an annual stipend for travel expenses. Since 2014, they have been permitted to partner with government assistants to handle requests from constituents, but they are not allowed to hire full-time staff of their own.
Lower levels
The structure of the NSCC is replicated, with modifications, at each administrative level of Menghe.
At the Village and County levels, Social Consultative Conference representatives are popularly elected; each voter can list as many names as there are seats in the district, generally 3-5. Candidates are nominated by the general population if they can gather twenty signatures, but they must be approved by the local Electoral Commission to approve on the ballot, a process which screens out potential "troublemakers."
After elections are over, village SCCs convene once a month, and county SCCs convene four times a year. At these levels, there are no formal requirements on class background, though Electoral Commissions may adjust the screening process to ensure an adequate distribution of class voices. Village and County Consultative Conference meetings sometimes discuss labor and economic issues, especially during development initiatives or periods of labor unrest, but for the most part agenda-setting stresses issues of interest to the whole community.
At the Prefectural and Provincial levels, most representatives are indirectly elected by the Consultative Conferences at the next level down. Seats may also be reserved for representatives of local trade-union branches or "prominent cultural persons." These conferences set more stringent guidelines on class representation, with loose quotas for each occupation group. Meeting once a year (twice a year in some Metropolitan Cities), they discuss proposals submitted by Village and County governments, and pass on reports to the next level up.
The schedules of these different conferences are timed to allow recommendation documents to more easily flow upward: the NSCC convenes in early November, Prefectural and Provincial SCCs in late October, and County SCCs in September, with each discussing selected documents from the earlier level. This delay is also necessary because all representatives selected through indirect election concurrently sit on lower-level conferences. The only exception are village SCCs, which meet year-round every month and can convene on an emergency basis.
Role
In spite of the NSCC's limited formal power, recent scholarship has identified it as an important institution of "consultative authoritarianism." The bottom-up structure of the SCC system and the requirement of concurrent seats for representatives enable a steady upward flow of information on the public's policy preferences, which are then passed on to national officials with actual policymaking power. In this sense, it serves as an important feedback mechanism, allowing the government to adjust non-critical policies in ways that maximize popular support and monitor the implementation of central policy initiatives.
Additionally, the corporatist structure of the NSCC co-opts emerging economic elites by giving them a disproportionately large voice in the system, while also maintaining a protected voice for the lower classes. While local conferences sometimes generate heated arguments over labor rights, national and provincial conferences are carefully regulated to present an image of inter-class harmony, while still alerting government officials to cases of labor unrest and possible solutions.
Nevertheless, the NSCC and its local counterparts cannot be considered democratic institutions, as the selection of representatives and the setting of the agenda are overseen by Socialist Party organs. Most SCC debates deal with "everyday" issues such as law enforcement, environmental protection, and development projects; "critical" issues such as freedom of speech and multi-party competition are seldom discussed in Village and County conferences, and almost never passed all the way up to the national level. The SCCs also lack the ability to pass laws, giving unelected Party and Government officials full discretion over how, and whether, their non-binding resolutions should be implemented. In this sense, at most they represent a form of "bounded representation," designed to support the regime's popularity without substantively changing its authoritarian nature.