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Hinds #39; Sight By Dr. David Hinds Episode 9 | Guyana: AFC #39;s Pro Democracy Proposal
Dr. David Hinds comments on Guyana #39;s AFC #39;s proposal to lead a Pro Democracy movement aimed at defeating the PPP and attaining a Government of National Unity. For more on Dr.Hinds, Guyana...

By: Hinds #39;Sight: Dr.David Hinds #39; Guyana-Caribbean Politics

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Hinds' Sight By Dr. David Hinds Episode 9 | Guyana: AFC's Pro Democracy Proposal - Video

How Can we Heal the Heart of Democracy?
Political polarization in the United States is not a Washington DC problem, it #39;s an American people problem. But because it #39;s a people problem, the ultimate solution lies with them, with us....

By: Reinventors Network

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How Can we Heal the Heart of Democracy? - Video

LDP - A Valuable Giving | Khem Veasna LDP - Khem Veasna Speech 2014
Khem Veasna; born December 11, 1966) is an orphan, former movie star, movie boss, writer, director, Law student, businessman, cambodian politician, the founder of the League for Democracy Party ...

By: LDP Story

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LDP - A Valuable Giving | Khem Veasna LDP - Khem Veasna Speech 2014 - Video

BEIJING Hong Kong police said Tuesday that they would clear the citys main pro-democracy camp later this week, setting up a possible final showdown with protesters after a court order authorized the sweeps.

The operation, set to begin Thursday, reflects the waning support for demonstrators after more than two months of civil disobedience and clashes over Beijings role in directing elections in the former British colony.

Sympathy for the student-led protests was high at the outset, especially after police used tear gas on activists. But the prolonged occupation and the more-confrontational tactics of the radical fringe, whose members tried to break into government offices, eroded that support.

Authorities will begin clearing the main site, in Hong Kongs Admiralty district, at 9 a.m. Thursday, according to a lawyer representing a bus company that brought the court action.

Although the court order did not cover the entire protest site, police said they would take the opportunity to clear all the occupied areas.

After we assist the bailiffs clearing the areas in the injunction, we will clear the rest of the occupied areas according to the law, the assistant police commissioner, Cheung Tak-keung, said at a news conference, telling protesters to pack their belongings soon and warning that police would arrest anyone obstructing the operation.

Police will not take actions if protesters stick to their original principles of peace and nonviolence, but we have seen violence being used, he said. Protesters should not step up their actions or police will have to use more force.

Numbers at the protests have dwindled sharply in recent weeks, and morale appears to be flagging. Some activists have begun packing their tents and removing artwork from the site in anticipation of the final clear-out.

Hundreds of people thronged the site late Tuesday to capture what could be the last photos of the protest. The movement represents the most serious challenge to Chinas control of Hong Kong since the territorys 1997 handover.

Police shut down a protest site in another Hong Kong district, Mong Kok, late last month after a separate court order, making about 160 arrests in several nights of clashes with demonstrators.

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Hong Kong democracy protesters brace for final camp shutdown

By Hein Goemans December 9 at 8:00 AM

[Joshua Tucker:One of our regular features here at The Monkey Cage is summaries from political scientists of recently published research. Thanks to a generous collaboration from journal publishers, we have arranged for articles that are featured in this series to be "ungated" and made freely available to the public for a period of time following the post on The Monkey Cage. During this time, you can download (and keep) the article described in the post. So if you are interested in keeping up on recent political science research but do not currently have access to political science journals, these posts can be one way to get access to interesting recent articles. The current post (begins below the five stars) is from political scientistHein GoemansofUniversity of Rochester. The article is "Coups and Democracy," which is co-authored by Goemans and University of Mannheim political scientist Nikolay Marinov, appears in the current issue of theBritish Journal of Political Scienceand will be available forfree downloadthrough the end of October.]

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One of the less heralded consequences of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 90s and the subsequent financial difficulties of newly independent Russia was that a major source of foreign aid to poor and developing countries more or less vanished overnight. In a recent article in the British Journal of Political Science, Coups and Democracy (available here) we show this may have promoted democracy.

In the 90s, a new international norm was promoted by the EU and laterby the US: in the aftermath of a coup, any new regime must quickly schedule and hold elections. Failure to do so will result in the denial or withholding of foreign aid. With no alternative aid sources, coup leaders in countries dependent on foreign aid were forced to comply. (Note the example of General Salou Djibo of Niger pictured above who scheduled and held elections after his coup in 2010, but not before he had secured immunity for himself and his fellow coup plotters.) Thus, as we show in the article, after the fall of the Soviet Union, elections were scheduled and held significantly faster after a coup than before. If they were not, foreign aid was indeed withheld.

This sets up a selection mechanism whereby we systematically no longer see some kinds of coups. Now comes the kind of clever twist that political scientists particularly enjoy. Think of the incentives to potential coup plotters: if they successfully execute a plot, they will have to schedule elections in which the winner will be the median voter. The unpleasant alternative is a lack of funds to pay the troops and keep the economy going. Any coup plotter with policies closer to the median voter than to the current ruler wont mind: elections will leave him or her better off than under the current leader. But if potential plotters prefer policies closer to those of the current ruler than those of the median voter, elections would leave them worse off after a coup. In anticipation of this sequence of events, such potential plotters may prefer not to launch a coup in the first place. As a result, we end up with fewer coups overall. And indeed, as expected, we did indeed find a structural break in the data in the number of coups after 1992. There are fewer coups overall, because there are fewer coups by extremists but there still are coups by plotters who launch coups that move a country closer to the median voter and closer to democracy.

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Monkey Cage: A coup for democracy?