#98 Parliamentary Overslide 🎧

<em>This newsletter is really a public policy thought-letter. While excellent newsletters on specific themes within public policy already exist, this thought-letter is about frameworks, mental models, and key ideas that will hopefully help you think about any public policy problem in imaginative ways. It seeks to answer just one question: </em><strong><em>how do I think about a particular public policy problem/solution?</em></strong><br/><br/><em>PS: If you enjoy listening instead of reading, we have this edition available as an audio narration on all podcasting platforms courtesy the good folks at </em><a target="_blank" href="https://www.ad-auris.com/"><em>Ad-Auris</em></a><em>. </em><br/><br/>Global Policy Watch — Storming Se Storming Tak: From 1642 To 2021<br/><br/><em>- RSJ</em><br/><br/>Here’s a short quiz to begin things. <br/><br/><strong>What’s common to these dates (not an exhaustive list)?</strong><br/><br/><strong>4 January 1642: England</strong><br/><br/><strong>Feb 27, 1933: Germany </strong><br/><br/><strong>Feb 23, 1981: Spain</strong><br/><br/><strong>April 27, 2017: Macedonia</strong><br/><br/>Difficult? <br/><br/>Here’s a clue. The latest entrant to this list<br/><br/><strong>Jan 6, 2021: USA</strong><br/><br/>‘Workout-able’ now? <br/><br/>These are select instances of attacks on parliament buildings in democracies over the years. Of course, this is different from attacks that happen within the parliament building where lawmakers have a go at each other using microphone stands, paper-weights and files as projectiles. That’s a rich and glorious tradition where Taiwan, South Korea and India are global leaders.<br/><br/>The attacks on parliament from the outside is a different phenomenon. It points to a fracture in the common belief among citizens about the power or legitimacy of the sovereign. This is not mere symbolism. Often the attacks are real attempts to disrupt or change the outcomes of a parliamentary process to elect the head of the government. <br/><br/>That’s what happened, say, in Spai