Regimes and constitutions

1 hour writing, 3.5 hours reading/researching, 0.5 hours emailing

Genius: Upload a photo of yourself and get "Simpsonized." Mine (see right) is eerily accurate.

Took a good suggestion from Cathy and started the day writing, rather than writing at the end of the day. It was a good way to start. Yesterday I made a big leap forward on the police chapter, and today was about filling in some of the details and rearranging the ideas into a better flow. The whole issue of irregular armed forces is a really rich vein, so I'm going through a collection of articles on just that topic from a few years ago. It's interesting that the articles take police as one of several non-army forces that the authors say need more attention. My take is slighty different, putting the army and police together under the category of "security forces," sanctioned by the state, and considering militas, bandits, guerrillas, mercenaries, etc., as originating in society. Anyway, should be some good ideas in there.

I was re-reading an article about graded vs. dichotomous conceptions of democracy, and came across one of the authors' current projects, a vast initiative to develop a comparative database of constitutions worldwide. Impressive. We could use one of those for police forces. There are a couple of global police encyclopedias, but it's the historical information that's lacking.

An issue I continue to struggle with is exactly how to define the specific regime dynamics that interest me. Is it regime stability, democratic stability, stability of constitutional governance? The terms matter, because they imply measuring different things. The point I'm trying to get at is that democracy vs. authoritarianism, the usual dichotomy, is not really what's going on at the period I'm looking at (first half of the 20th century), because suffrage is pretty limited for much of the time. I'm looking for a term that is more general than democracy, that can include both democracies with universal suffrage and regimes that enshrine, in a constitution, elections as the sole means of accessing power. Maybe "republic?" "Constitutional governance?" Worked on that today, without reaching any conclusions. To be continued....

Went to Nobu for lunch for Restaurant Week, where shmancy restaurants have relatively affordable prix-fixe menus. I had sashimi salad (two pieces of tuna! albeit scrumptious) and their famous black cod with miso, which came with a vinegary pickled green onion that contrasted with the unctuousness of the cod perfectly. Dessert was basically a parfait, but with fresh berries and a sake-spiked mousse...an interesting addition. I sat at the sushi bar, and tried to discern the hierarchy/division of labor among the sushi chefs, but it remained opaque. The monolingual sushi chefs gave a funny look when acknowledging my order, as announced by the waiter, of sashimi salad...well, excuuuuse me. :)