Table of Contents for Governance Systems Design

Dynamics

Beginning

founding

constitutional compromises to secure support eg us senate eg military role in some governments eg guaranteed ethnic factional representation

Ending

revolution

intentional dissolution

other endings

Revolutions

i define as an extra-procedural change to procedure in a way that alters who will have power note: there are also temporary deviations from procedure; this is not quite a revolution

a pivotal moment is often when security forces refuse to fire upon the people/revolutionaries/protestors

power is multifaceted (eg de jure, popular support, support of those who control physical force, perceived legimacy by these various groups of ppl); a critical mistake made by the outgoing authorities is often neglect of some of these facets

a dynamic: once you break away from procedure-following, another more extreme group breaks away,etc, leading to splintering. eg French revolution. eg esperanto.

'Boardroom coups'

more power when leader is physically present (as opposed to traveling or sick) examples of this: * at Apple Computer company, Steve Jobs tried to gather support to take power from CEO John Sculley during Sculley's trip abroad. When Sculley found out, he felt a need to break off his engagement with the President of China and fly back to fight [1] * USSR leader Brezhnev gathered support to take power from Khrushchev while the latter was out of town for a five-month trip [2] * mb some more examples in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boardroom_coup ? i havent read that page

Other political dynamics

This topic is outside the scope of this book, so we'll only tangentially touch on some of the most salient and oft-repeated patterns of political dynamic.

urban vs rural divide and conservative vs liberal

manufactored consent media control

those who are invested in the current system seniority property-holders vs those who are new non-senior students, young economically insecure

when a country appears to think this or that about some controversial issue, and especially when it's dominant thought seems to change from one thing to another, if you actually do a survey (and if ppl are not afraid to speak the truth openly on the survey), often you'll find that a substantial minority thinks the other thing. I think when the dominant opinion in a country changes, it's more that a small fraction of people change their mind and a larger fraction become more vocal because they feel that the time is right to expend effort shouting their position.

People care more about internal policy than external policy.

if capital punishment is at stake, many ordinarily just ppl will send others to the gallows to save their skins. eg French revolution.