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Thursday, June 11, 2009

Suggested wikipedia entry for parliamentary coup --in context of NYS senate coup

My suggestion for a wikipedia entry on Parliamentary coup.

So far wikipedia has no such article. --surprising, given that there had been a number of them from the late 19th century to June 2009.

A '''parliamentary coup''' is a type of political maneuver executed by members of [[legislature]]s. It involves the usurping of political power by one person or group of persons against another group of persons in the legislature. Or it may involve the usurping of power against an executive. It contrasts with [[coup d'etat]]s in which individuals usually outside of the legislature usurp complete state power for themselves. Overall, it involves a manner of behavior that is outside of constitutional protocols. And the extra-constitutional manner of this grabbing of power raises questions as to the legitimacy of the new arrangement of power.

There are various examples of parliamentary coups. They are more commonly associated with Asian or Latin American governments. They are rarely associated with legislatures in the United States.


And of course in the United States we have the ignominious example of the Republicans' coup in the New York State Senate, June 8, this week.
At the center of this coup are two self-interested senators (Pedro Espada, the Bronx; Hiram Monserrate, Queens), willing to betray their Democratic Party, and side with the Republcians, all for the sake of getting campaign funds.

A bit of work needs to be done on the wikipedia articles related to the 2009 New York State Senate parliamentary coup: the article on Republican Dean Skelos, the major beneficiary of this coup, as he has replaced former Senate Majority Leader, Malcolm Smith has no mention of the 2009 coup.

1 comment:

  1. Those two are going to need a lot more than extra policital campaign funds to be reelected now...

    ReplyDelete