This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum lives in or might be interested in. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Amending that part of the Constitution has a 'it is everyone's obligation to have an armed revolt.' Hence, letter-of-the-law observence.
For your second paragraph, I'd disagree with your characterization on multiple grounds.
Skirting laws to prevent powerful executives is incredibly normal across democratic systems the world over- it's practically a joke that modern uncontestedly democratic leaders have more formal and informal tools of power than all but the most totalitarian of leaders of old. Fighting gang violence by changing the balance of civil liberties and prosecution is incredibly normal. Having a living history of tensions between the military and civilian government is absolutely normal. These may not be desirable from the perspectives of democracies with already established and comfortable status quos (typically status quos of empowered multi-term executives, low crime, established informal political elite-media alignment, and long times since military-civil disagreement), but they're absolutely normal across the global and last century's experiences of many states that are now considered democracies, particularly those that have faced extreme domestic violence issues (such as insurgencies) in the last century.
More options
Context Copy link