Parliamentary franchise in Themiclesia
The parliamentary franchise of Themiclesia is the extent and manner in which Themiclesian citizens may participate in democratic politics by selecting representatives to the House of Commons, the lower chamber of the country's bicameral parliament. The upper chamber, the House of Lords, is an unelected body.
Pre-1700
The deepest roots of the House of Commons may be traced to institutions introduced under King Kl′ang of Tsjinh. Seeking to balance the heredity of bureaucratic clans with meritocracy, he ordered the aristocracy clans in each county to assemble and rank candidates according to their reputation, which determined the ceiling of their bureaucratic career. As this process did not distinguish the more from the less powerful clans, it effectively redistributed influence from the former to the latter. While this process implicitly acknowledged an aristocractic influence in politics, it was very distant from modern democratic politics. The assemblies deliberated but did not cast actual ballots, and those that were rated neither met as a legislative body not acquired influence on account of their election. Instead, it permitted popular clans to strengthen their faction in the bureaucracy.
Nevertheless, this institution proved resilient and withstood the revolution of royal dynasties. Clan-based factionalism dominated the court for at least the next five centuries, and the assembly was concretely conceived by the lesser aristocracy as their political entitlement. Functionally, the triennial elections were opportunities for aristocrats at court to sway the opinions of those not at court by supporting a candidate in an appropriate clan or political persuasion. For the throne, which periodically switched alliances with the most powerful clans, they were also a weapon against unilateralists that push policies unpopular with the aristocracy, who could elect new bureaucrats that opposed him. As the assembly could re-rate any of its elects and effectively remove their qualifications, bureaucrats during this period were typicall conscious of their reputation in office.
1700s
The while the long-standing civic elections did not create a legislative body, some conservative Camian authors in the 1700s rudimentarily analyzed it through the lenses of Casaterran philosophy as a constitution, or at least power-sharing agreement, of some kind. They say that the crown ultimately has no power without bureaucrats that supported him, so by electing bureaucrats, the clans were, effectively, controlling the crown. On the contrary, Tyrannians and their supporters in Camia used this idea to suggest that Themiclesians and Tyrannians could co-exist under the same political institutions, as long as the Themiclesian elites were willing to share this "political franchise" with their lessers. The purpose of this scholarship is somewhat controversial today, some asserting that the comparisons were made only to defend the civic elections' operation in Camia, which supported political cliquism and excluded much of the commoners there.
This form of thinking evidently had little impact in Themiclesia, most writers still taking the civic election as one of several "bureaucratic paths" (仕途), the politics of the 1st millennium now largely bygone. The 1600s and early 1700s was a period of centralization, with the crown gaining against the bureaucracy in government and aristocrats in the country. Literature provices that many voices were heard at court, and the rural gentry felt little compunction to elect candidates that opposed warfare and ridiculed the crown. Some writings also criticize the emperor for disregarding the views of the aristocracy, which was framed as an aberrance from the "harmony and normalcy" of former centuries. This reference to the past was a recurrent motif in Themiclesian politics, compelling monarchs exepriencing failures to reconcile his relationship with the aristocracy.
Despite such monitions, Themiclesia was in the largest part still a centralized, autocratic state, and aristocratic displeasure formed only an ineffective opposition to Emperor 'Ei and his disastrous and expensive wars. A closer reading of the history of the period reveals that the Emperor acquired clout by aligning himself with the bureaucracy and nurturing his own faction within it, while still (perhaps reluctantly) respecting the rules of civic elections and the underlying reality that, without their assistance, much bureaucratic experience would simply be inaccessible.
1800 – 1845
In the 1790s, Themiclesia suffered a series of defeats that weakened the emperor's position at court.[1] Emperor ′Ei's faction was built on aristocrats who, for one reason or another, had personal interests in Themiclesian power in the Halu'an and beyond. For their support in office, the Emperor awarded them more profitable opportunities and dignities, as well as domestic and foreign lands. Other aristocrats, however, felt that their interests, primarily agrarian ones, were unfairly burdened with the costs of the crown's hawkish policies and came to view ′Ei's relationship with his favourites as corrupt.
Though the royal faction was initially strong, the war's unenviable progress alienated the emperor's supporters. The Emperor was forced to sacrifice the interests of some supporters to protect those of others, while doubts developed, amongst the faction itself, of the Emperor's aptitude in both political and military affairs.[2] At court, the Lord of Gar-lang exploited this weakness and persuaded many of the emperor's supporters that, continuing in power, he would lead Themiclesia to financial and military destruction. In the country, he visited other aristocrats whose estates have lost both men and revenue due to royal taxes in name of war and claimed that "their money" either went into the pockets of royal favourites or into protecting them.
In 1798, the aristocracy's anger manifested as a petition to dismiss the prime minister, the Lord of Nap, who had an interest in textile exports to Camia and was therefore endeared to the throne's desire to rebuild the navy and re-subjugate Camia and Solevent. While the crown relented, Gar-lang's faction persuaded pro-crown peers to decline the premiership, which was saddled with the task of raising an army, rebuilding a navy, and fielding them while the treasury was bankrupt. With no prime minister for over a year, the emperor was left with no option other than Gar-lang himself,[3] who was a vocal proponent of disarmament. In office, Gar-lang refused to support the Emperor and instead began dismantling Themiclesia's armed forces, while ′Ei began sending letters to his former supporters, courting them once more.
In previous centuries, the Emperor always chose highly-regarded men amongst recently-elects to fill the secretariat, which drafted royal edicts and letters; this was a device by which the emperor disguised his opinions as those of men elected by the aristocracy itself. Given latitude in royal appointment, the secretariat was a tool to centralize power in some periods, while nominally retaining the aristocracy's approval. To counter the Emperor's epistolic manoeuvres, Gar-lang first appointed pro-crown royal secretaries to distant regions and urged his supporters to select anti-crown candidates, who packed the secretariat. Without a secretary to draft his letters, the crown was left bare and unable to proceed on the pretense of support from the aristocracy. Thus, by 1801, the crown was, for the first time in history, able to control neither his secretariat nor the Council of Peers.
See also
Notes
- ↑ In 1791, the Tyrannian Royal Navy landed in Themiclesia proper and burned down four-fifths of all the vessels belonging to the Themiclesian navy, outnumbering Themiclesian forces on Themiclesian soil; the responsible officer was one of the Emperor's favourites. The same year, Camia declared war on Themiclesia and deployed 40,000 men to assist a colonial revolt in northern Maverica. In 1793, Sieuxerr imports an army of nearly 100,000 to Solevent and, with great difficulty, overcame and expelled Themiclesian forces there. In 1795, the Camian Campaign, designed to alleviate logistical burden to Maverica and to divert the Camians' attention, fails dramatically. In 1796, Themiclesia was forced to cede over 1,000,000 km² of land to Hallia in exchange for a loan and a friendship treaty and another 400,000 km² to Maverica to end hostilities there. Themiclesia fielded an army of 300,000 and failed in each of these fronts.
- ↑ Conpare the case of Long Lêt, whom the Emperor made a general even though he had no experience organizing an entire military expedition.
- ↑ Tradition dictated that prime ministers must be peers.