There was also a thwarted coup attempt in the Philippines earlier this year, which had been in the works for long enough so there were some rumors of it when I was visiting this time last year.

IJ: Populism, inasmuch as it can be called a “philosophy,” holds that the interests of the lower classes are oppressed by upper classes. You can call that democracy if you like, but it’s a pretty narrow/warped view of how a republic should operate. America’s political system works for two reasons: 1.) the majority rules, but 2.) it’s safe to be in the minority, i.e. the minority is protected from the majority. And that’s why it’s increasingly hard to call places like Bolivia and Venezuela real democracies.

Or as Jonah Goldberg put it…

...in its purest form, democracy is little more than the system by which 51 percent of the people can pee in the cornflakes of 49 percent of the people. In a pure democracy — i.e. no courts, no constitution, no authority given to tradition — the mob rules. If numbers make the law, then whoever has the most numbers on his side can do whatever he likes. If ten men can vote to rape one women in a democracy, you can see how democracy and liberty aren’t synonymous.

More on the EU-China relationship. They seem to be coming to an agreement that the level for acceptable political behaviour should be set by the WTO.

Aren’t coups going to be the typical result of political systems that are grafted onto a society? Maybe, we Westerners, should begin to re-assess the value of democracy. Most Americans look at the U.S. as a democratic state, despite the fact that the framers of the constitution were rather offended by the idea of democracy (the pure Athenian type.) Yet most Americans can not differentiate between a participatory, federal republic and democracy. Maybe, it is time to discard the buzz word “democracy” and begin to allow non-Western countries to develop their own civil institutions that will lead to political structures that allow for the attainments of their own ends (and not Western ends.) Just a thought.

Regards,
TDL

Germanicus,

My knowledge of that specific period of Imperial Rome (and Imperial Rome in general) is limited. At that stage of Roman power, however, hadn’t the Praetorian Guard essentially institutionalized coups? I remember reading that the Praetorian Guard in one year (I do not not what year) assassinated three different emperors, after all (?) had bought the position from the Praetorians. I wonder if there is a more recent example of institutionalized coups (maybe Turkey?)

Regards,
TDL

TDL: I believe you’re talking about the Year of the Three/Four Emperors between the downfall of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and the Flavian Dynasty, and only one, Galba, was killed by the Praetorians.

But certainly the point is correct: the Praetorians were institutionalized as the only armed power permanently within the walls of Rome, and they meddled in Imperial affairs for at least two centuries. The difference between then and now is that today, military coups require the strong backing of at very least a large minority of the populace to be successful. Back in ancient times, it was the raw pecuniary interests of the cohort and little else.

Alec: Kaplan is basically saying what I said above: the military is institutionalized as an important part of the balance of powers: “Whereas power in the United States is divided among the president, Congress and the Supreme Court, in Turkey it is divided between generals and politicians. But the Turkish military is not a branch of government: It operates more like a powerful lobby that has managed to run government from within.”

‘And with the spread of democracy across the globe over the past decades without the requisite growth of civil society, a middle class, literacy, and outstanding ethnic and religious strife, and as new democratic governments are unable to meet these challenges, coups may become more, not less, common in the coming years.’ = a meaningless sentence!! Ignoring the fact you started the sentence with a preposition, I presume what you mean is: ‘And with the spread of democracy across the globe over the past decades, without the requisite growth of civil society, a middle class, and literacy, and as newly democratic governments are unable to meet the challenges of continuing ethnic and religious strife, coups may become more, not less, common in the coming years.’ Or something of the sort? (Ignoring the fact that I just started a sentence with a preposition.)

Subadei: TDL said:

I remember reading that the Praetorian Guard in one year (I do not not what year) assassinated three different emperors, after all (?) had bought the position from the Praetorians.

To which I responded:

I believe you’re talking about the Year of the Three/Four Emperors between the downfall of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and the Flavian Dynasty, and only one, Galba, was killed by the Praetorians… the Praetorians were institutionalized as the only armed power permanently within the walls of Rome, and they meddled in Imperial affairs for at least two centuries.

So yes, yours is one popular example of Praetorian meddling. (Of course, Caligula’s assassination was carried out by “a” Praetorian; the cohort played no role in the the assassination, and probably annointed Claudius because they feared a return to the Republic would lose them their jobs.)

Interesting chart on imperial relations with the guard here. It’s worth noting that while the Praetorians may have done the actual killing, they never acted on whim and were frequently carrying out the will of both the aristocrats and the plebs in hastening regime change.