Beta 007: Corruption and campaign finance law

[[violet]]

Beta 007: Campaign Finance Law decreases Corruption & increases Integrity

Proposed Change: Normally, less political freedom is associated with greater government corruption. This beta reverses that effect for legislation that specifically restricts the influence of money in government. It also includes Renormalization (beta 013), which monotonically increases all nations' scores that lie between 1.2 and 40.0.

[Consular]

I somehow thought that would have a greater impact on me, because I think I banned donations to parties. Perhaps I reversed that and forgot though.

[Phydios]

Beta 007: Campaign Finance Law decreases Corruption & increases Integrity

Proposed Change: Normally, less political freedom is associated with greater government corruption. This beta reverses that effect for legislation that specifically restricts the influence of money in government. It also includes Renormalization (beta 013), which monotonically increases all nations' scores that lie between 1.2 and 40.0.

I thought the game recognized the freedom to be corrupt as a political freedom. Are you changing direction on that matter?

[[violet]]

I somehow thought that would have a greater impact on me, because I think I banned donations to parties. Perhaps I reversed that and forgot though.

You are firmly moderate on campaign finance law at the moment, so there's no great effect one way or the other.

I thought the game recognized the freedom to be corrupt as a political freedom.

No, that's not the case. Corruption can result from freedoms (or the lack thereof), but is not itself a freedom.

[Iron Fist Grizzlies]

Does this mean it possible to run a low political freedom nation with low corruption (aka a clean dictatorship). Is this something that is possible already? I assume it is since this is a game that allows for planned economies with good economic values (even if it is difficult)

[[violet]]

Yep, they have more work to do, but there's nothing stopping a nation with low Political Freedom from also having low Corruption.

The easiest way would probably be to relentlessly fight corruption for a while, then suddenly abolish elections. If you start as a dictatorship, I think it's more challenging.

[Trotterdam]

Interestingly, Milostein sees a small change (for the better), even though it isn't democratic and doesn't have any campaigns to finance. However, Trotterdam, also undemocratic, doesn't.

Yep, they have more work to do, but there's nothing stopping a nation with low Political Freedom from also having low Corruption.

The easiest way would probably be to relentlessly fight corruption for a while, then suddenly abolish elections. If you start as a dictatorship, I think it's more challenging.

I've been a dictatorship since day zero, and my Integrity is pretty impressive.

---

EDIT: Integrity seems to be rather high in general. I did a random sample test, and it displayed only two nations with an Integrity below 90 (one of which gets refactored above 90 by this change). Perhaps a monotonic rescaling is called for?

On the Corruption table, I'm seeing a lot of nations that receive a pretty big change (20 or more), but on closer inspection all of these seem to be in the 1.2-40.0 range that's getting renormalized, so those probably aren't from the campaign finance change.

[Phydios]

I thought the game recognized the freedom to be corrupt as a political freedom.

No, that's not the case. Corruption can result from freedoms (or the lack thereof), but is not itself a freedom.

Interesting. The second spoiler in the OP of the Unusual Issue Effects megathread says this:

"The right to influence politics with bribes / lobbying / money is a political freedom. That is, the freedom to be corrupt is in fact a political freedom. Political freedom isn't just a positive."

Is this wrong?

[[violet]]

Interestingly, Milostein sees a small change (for the better), even though it isn't democratic and doesn't have any campaigns to finance. However, Trotterdam, also undemocratic, doesn't.

Yes, I did have a poke around at making it a more substantial change in nations where elections are more free, which makes intuitive sense. But the way it works in practice means this is balanced out already, so I've left it as a simpler model.

Integrity seems to be rather high in general. I did a random sample test, and it displayed only two nations with an Integrity below 90 (one of which gets refactored above 90 by this change). Perhaps a monotonic rescaling is called for?

There is indeed a dearth of nations between about 15 and 90, which doesn't look right. This ranking doesn't use the same scaling algorithm as the one being Renormalized by beta 013 (it's a 0-100 scale, not a 0-infinity scale), but I plan on checking it out.

all of these seem to be in the 1.2-40.0 range that's getting renormalized, so those probably aren't from the campaign finance change.

Right.

"The right to influence politics with bribes / lobbying / money is a political freedom. That is, the freedom to be corrupt is in fact a political freedom. Political freedom isn't just a positive."

It's explaining that freedom (of money in politics, in particular) and corruption can be positively correlated. There isn't an actual "freedom to be corrupt" metric.

[Minoa]

It seems that my corruption score goes up (https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta? ... tion=minoa) but I am not sure exactly if this is to do with the re normalisation in Beta 13, or the methodology change.

[Excidium Planetis]

My "Most Corrupt Governments" score goes up, but so does my "Least Corrupt Governments" score. Is that normal?

[Trotterdam]

My "Most Corrupt Governments" score goes up, but so does my "Least Corrupt Governments" score. Is that normal?

I suspect that the actual effect of the change is to make your nation less corrupt (Integrity goes up, Corruption goes down), but the renormalization then makes your Corruption score appear higher again... although your old value, 1.1 (and by extension your new-value-without-renormalization, if I'm right), is in fact just below the 1.2-40.0 range that's supposed to be affected.

[Merconitonitopia]

I've been a dictatorship since day zero, and my Integrity is pretty impressive.

presumably because your political freedoms would be relatively high even for a democracy, certainly no less an autocracy. you allow much liberty unto the populace in the political sphere -- except the liberty to tell you your time in power is up.
likewise my nation is a democracy, although only in name, as the party retained a tight strangehold on the gov't after the transition.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

It's explaining that freedom (of money in politics, in particular) and corruption can be positively correlated. There isn't an actual "freedom to be corrupt" metric.

I've removed the offending sentence, for clarity/accuracy.

[Bluelight-R006]

I’m late but I just want to reopen this with my opinion:

In my opinion, it is true that nations with lesser political freedom would have the more corrupted government. However, some nations don’t deserve the change as they’re a Benevolent Dictatorship. Maybe just exclude those nations out? Would be better for me too cuz everyone thinks I’m corrupted when I’m much the opposite.

[Far Eries]

With that change, the corruption level in my nation will rise to +762% . Ouch.

[Tyronian Socialist State]

will there be any sort of re-balancing of previous issues, by that I mean, in ye olde days when there was no 'state owned' industry any issue to do with the economy, employment, or industry (provided private industry was banned) would drastically raise your corruption figure when you chose an option to do with increasing any of those 3. I understand that this was a long time ago and what not, but I was just wondering if there would be any consideration for nations that were around at that time.

[Nerdayn]

I’m late but I just want to reopen this with my opinion:

In my opinion, it is true that nations with lesser political freedom would have the more corrupted government. However, some nations don’t deserve the change as they’re a Benevolent Dictatorship. Maybe just exclude those nations out? Would be better for me too cuz everyone thinks I’m corrupted when I’m much the opposite.

I got slapped with an 2550% increase in corruption, despite having an 2:1 wealth gap between the rich and poor, low unemployment with high income and strong industry, very low crime rate, lay in the top ten precent in public education, health care and public transport, this list goes on.

But I despite all these achievements for the citizens wellbeing I somehow deserve to be catapulted up to the top 15% most corrupt states in nationstates, and yes most of these things does not directly correlate to corruption but if I have such a widespread problem with it would not a big portion of the money allocated get squandered away?

But this is just my take on it

[[violet]]

I got slapped with an 2550% increase in corruption, despite having an 2:1 wealth gap between the rich and poor, low unemployment with high income and strong industry, very low crime rate, lay in the top ten precent in public education, health care and public transport, this list goes on.

But I despite all these achievements for the citizens wellbeing I somehow deserve to be catapulted up to the top 15% most corrupt states in nationstates, and yes most of these things does not directly correlate to corruption but if I have such a widespread problem with it would not a big portion of the money allocated get squandered away?

But this is just my take on it

I posted this in your other thread:

The jump was 100% caused by the beta, mostly because the new system counts Nerdayn's lack of any restrictions on money in politics as contributing towards corruption. This is one of the few political freedoms that Nerdayn has; the rest of the voting process is tightly controlled, which protects the interests of those in power and generally leads to higher than average corruption.

[Nerdayn]

I posted this in your other thread:

The jump was 100% caused by the beta, mostly because the new system counts Nerdayn's lack of any restrictions on money in politics as contributing towards corruption. This is one of the few political freedoms that Nerdayn has; the rest of the voting process is tightly controlled, which protects the interests of those in power and generally leads to higher than average corruption.

Yah, i was just gonna post about it in this thread

[He Qixin]

I'm sorry, but I'm not satisfied with the beta which reverses the effect of high political freedom on low corruption. I believe political freedom should at least account for 50% of the corruption levels, and the money spent on politics would also account for 50% of corruption levels.

[Leutria]

It's not a beta any more since it has been implemented. Anyway, to go to the text of the beta:

"Normally, less political freedom is associated with greater government corruption. This beta reverses that effect for legislation that specifically restricts the influence of money in government. It also includes Renormalization (beta 013), which monotonically increases all nations' scores that lie between 1.2 and 40.0."

You have to remember, NationStates has stats that the player cannot see. This specifically made it so allowing "the influence of money in government" (so campaign donations, bribes, etc.) increases corruption (or at least does not reduce it?). The way other political freedoms factor in was not changed.

You might have also been affected by this part: "It also includes Renormalization (beta 013), which monotonically increases all nations' scores that lie between 1.2 and 40.0". That change was just to correct a scaling problem, so if you were in that range you would have seen an increase in your corruption score, but the underlying number was not changed. The scaling done before it is shown to you was just fixed/improved.


Now, disclamer, I am not an admin, this is simply my understanding. The thread from when this was still a beta is here: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=429174 . Feel free to read the conversation here and double check what I said matches what was said there.

[He Qixin]

Change this please.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I'm sorry, but I'm not satisfied with the beta which reverses the effect of high political freedom on low corruption. I believe political freedom should at least account for 50% of the corruption levels, and the money spent on politics would also account for 50% of corruption levels.

You've misunderstood what the fix is, I believe.

Both the old and the new system associate higher political freedom with lower corruption.

This system, however, specifically excludes one particular political freedom, which is the freedom to influence politics with bribes, financial donations and other monetary inducements.

We didn't believe it to be logical that making it easier to bribe people should make a country LESS corrupt. See 229.3 for an example:

"It's really not THAT bad, is it?" asks @@randomname@@, your Minister of Commerce, fiddling with a large gold ring before sliding a thick envelope across on your desk. "Maybe it's all just a prank. Maybe it will all just... go away?"

Before the change, that option would have decreased corruption. Now it increases corruption.

[He Qixin]

This still sucks, because sometimes I have to SACRIFICE my political freedoms for HIGHER integrity.