Basra transition

[Ken White]

Democracy's western approximations range from the streets of Sao Paolo and Cali to Germany, Greece and Italy in the 1970s and 80s to the quiet hills of Vermont. At some point, the literature really needs to stop abusing the word "stability."

but it sure is a lot more elusive than most would like -- and even the quiet hills of Ben and Jerry can be disrupted on occasion. Instability is, I think, a pretty normal human condition and we're just sort of spoiled in the greater west, have been for a while -- but there's no guarantee at all that will continue indefinitely...

[Presley Cannady]

but it sure is a lot more elusive than most would like -- and even the quiet hills of Ben and Jerry can be disrupted on occasion. Instability is, I think, a pretty normal human condition and we're just sort of spoiled in the greater west, have been for a while -- but there's no guarantee at all that will continue indefinitely...

Depends on where in the West you live. The US has the highest homicide rate amongst OECD nations, and half of that occurs in cities like my Big Apple. My point is that "stability" is as much a nonsense word as "normalcy" as used in political discourse. In fact, I'd go as far to say it's a word scholars can use without being reflexively attacked for lazily "normalcy" around. It permits well paid, supposedly bright folks at CSIS to make criticisms about policy by appealing to ridiculously idealized caricatures of Western democracy that better resemble "Leave It To Beaver" or "Richie Rich" than anything in the real world.