Office of GM Foucaulf - POLICY AGENDA POSTED

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I very much like Flo's idea.

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And se

With Flo's map, why not just leave the 12 countries and French Guiana as separate seats? A solid 13 isn't a bad idea at all.

And seats could always be easily added, through the division of big countries like Brazil, Argentina, Colombia or Peru. I could throw together a 20-21 seat map if people are interested.

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Part of my opinion on country choice is also how much the GM knows about it. I would prefer U.S. or Canada because I know about them a good deal, but if anyone gives me resources on South America I'll pour over them.

What kind of resources? Like, a constituency map? I'd be willing to do that.

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That, and sites where I can look up the history, major policy issues and all.

Sure, I'll make a map once I get off work in a few hours time. In terms of sites, besides Wikipedia (especially Spanish Wikipedia if you're able to make that out), I can recommend the book Modern Latin America which does a really good job of covering the history and issues of the most important countries (except Venezuela and smaller countries like Bolivia, Ecuador, or the guays). It's available here. I could also plug in my blog, since I feel like my articles on the recent elections in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Venezuela were decent enough

Some ideas for issues:

• Abortion, given that South America has restrictive laws on the matter and that it's recently become a more contentious issue in politics
• Poverty reduction strategies, particularly stuff like Brazil's Bolsa Familia
• Land reform/land ownership issues, which is less important nowadays but still fairly important in places like Brazil (where you have a large agrifood industry) or Colombia (post-conflict reconstruction)
• Trade issues
• Mining and natural resources, which are huge issues in places like Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia. Involving multinational foreign mining giants, environmental issues, indigenous rights and land claims and nationalist sentiments over resource ownership
• Political corruption, clientelism and so forth. I really feel like this adds an exciting layer. I don't want this game to be filled with unrealistic saint-like politicians committed to values and laudable ideas, if we want this to be realistic we'd need some corrupt political bosses, dirty deals with sketchy people, illegal campaign financing and clientelistic networks
• Drugs, drug trafficking and drug-related gang violence, which is a big issue in basically every country especially Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil and even Argentina now (afaik)
• Foreign relations, naturally with the US but also now with China, India, Russia, Europe and so forth
• Income inequality (see also poverty reduction strategies)
• Economic and fiscal issues, and debates between neoliberalism and socialism
• Education, healthcare and the provision/improvement of such basic services
• Infrastructure issues, dealing with stuff like roads, railways, waterways, airports, electricity/utilities, water - still very important issues in Brazil, Colombia and so forth
• Church-State relations, would be central in any historical write-up and explaining any Liberal/Conservative partisan division which we may create. Less relevant nowadays, but could still be seen in debates over moral issues

and plenty more...

With these issues at stake, I think there's tons of stuff to provide some really interesting ideological competition and lots of room for radical left parties to have a really strong voice (and for it to be realistic).

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20 seat map for South America:



Giving one seat to each country except Guyane-Suriname, and then 2-4 seats for the five biggest countries. Brazil is badly underrepresented if you're going by population, since it would get about 9-10 seats if we're doing equal population. I'm pleased with how I divided Peru, Venezuela, Argentina and even Brazil; but I don't like my three seats in Colombia since it completely destroys geographic regions but the concentration of Colombian populations make the country a real bitch to divide up nicely.

IMO US-Canada would be very boring, since there's nothing very exciting in that. The UK would be boring, although I guess western Europe could be fine. I still love the South American idea myself.