Rachel Strohm

2434 days ago

"In “Parkinson Law,” Northcote Parkinson’s witty essay on the rules of bureaucracy, there is an interesting section on how to sway parliamentary votes. Just surround the hesitant politician with your own partisans, Parkinson suggests, and convince him the die is already cast; that everyone is going to vote your way. Regardless of his views, he’ll be quick to jump on the winning wagon.

This is, at a glance, the most important insight of Naunihal Singh’s fascinating work on coups d’état."

The Not-So-Secret Ingredients of Military Coups

warontherocks.com

Naunihal Singh, Seizing Power: The Strategic Logic of Military Coups (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014). In “Parkinson Law,” Northcote Parkinson’s witty essay on the rules of bureaucracy, there is an interesting section on how to sway parliamentary votes.