Paging @laderafrutal.bsky.social and @johncarey.bsky.social

You mean that coups don't have threads? Or do coups in the US not have threads. This is so new here that I'm not sure what the rules are.

And when that is gone, people turn to other approaches to “resolving” conflict.

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A military intervention currently seems implausible in the US. But a system in which one party has at best only limited ability to assert governmental power, even when it has majority public support, is a system that lacks effective, peaceful arena for channeling conflict.

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Lacking an effective arena of compromise or a constitutional ‘exit’ from the crisis, the formerly stable but now chronically polarized Chilean democracy was destroyed by a military intervention” (p. 203). This is chilling.

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(especially where one side has majority support but institutions prevent that majority support from having access to the levers of power): "What Chile needed was an institutional way to resolve a deadlock that had reached insurmountable proportions.

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(although we didn’t know then that such a system was already on the way in the US).

I’ve always been haunted by that discussion and especially the below, where they note the problems of a system that doesn’t allow for institutional paths to compromise

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There is so much brilliance in it, but my favorite is Ch9, which turns Cox’s efficient secret sort of on its head. In an amazing discussion they offer on the fall of Chilean democracy, S&C actually foreshadowed the dangers of a new, more programmatic US party/congressional system

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Ok, reupping my thread from a couple years ago--the problem is with us now:

My favorite work in Political Science is the 1992 Presidents and Assemblies by Shugart (@laderafrutal.bsky.social) and Carey (@johncarey.bsky.social). And it speaks in chilling (pun not intended) ways to our world today.
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We have obviously seen a big increase in threats of political violence – but this all gives us especially good reason to fear even more what’s to come as elections draw near.

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the stakes in elections (certainly congressional & state legislative/gubernatorial elections & state supreme court races and DEFINITELY presidential elections) have risen to horrifying levels.

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of course much, much greater now—in particular bc of the combination of 2, interrelated pieces: 1. The US IS “lacking an effective arena of compromise or a constitutional ‘exit.’” 2. With the authority the president is asserting now,

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Thank YOU for being one of the very, very few two-time guests! 🙏