Yeah, we've been stable. OTOH, most countries I know of that took us as a model haven't been. AFAIK, all those Latin American countries imitated the Constitution on independence, and almost all fell into strongman governments, with Costa Rica as the exception. Africa might provide more data but I don't know the history. One could ask whether the problem is presidential systems or Latin American culture, but still. By contrasts, parliamentary systems seem to have done well, modulo Weimar Germany and probably some African cases. of course, there we're talking Europe and India and British colonies, and younger than the American states. But still... there's a common idea that it's safer to separate the high-mana role of a monarch or elected head of state from the power of the head of government, such that even though a strong PM can be like an elected dictator, they lack the legitimacy to pull a real coup or permanent aggregation of power.
I wonder how many dynasties of power lasted longer, especially peacefully, than the US. Egypt had 30+ dynasties over 3000 years. Chinese dynasties sometimes last longer, though that can obscure succession fights. Some European families have been around for a while but I'm not sure about peaceful transfer of power. Japan has a looong record but then they haven't had real power for most of 1000 years. On the flip side, we had a Civil War, so our peaceful record is marred. Still managed to have elections in 1864, though! *That's* impressive.
Catholic Church probably rules, for being an institution with some power lasting a long time, and even that has Avignon and such.
Francis Fukuyama is the The End of History guy.
But I think there's a familiarity and filtering effect. UK isn't that hard to outline: there are districts that elect members to a Parliament and a majority vote in Parliament can do whatever it fucking wants. There's a queen and House of Lords but they just slow things down these days. The equivalent of our Speaker of the House -- leader of a somewhat stable majority -- is PM and forms the government and can do whatever she wants until mandatory elections after five years or the majority dissolves, forcing elections.
The scary thing for an American is that the "after five years" bit is just another Act of Parliament, so theoretically changeable.
On the flip side, our Constitution won't tell you how our Electoral College really works, or about Senate filibusters, so you're missing key practical details, and then there's tons of stuff done that is unconstitutional by a strict reading. Like the Air Force, let alone the war on drugs. (We passed an amendment to ban alcohol, but not the other stuff?) The fact that the Supreme Court can strike down unconstitutional laws isn't spelled out but was made up by John Marshall and accepted as making sense. The fact that almost anything goes (like drug bans) under the commerce clause is, well, bloody odd.
And even the stuff which works and is clear may not make *sense* absent knowledge of our history, or even with it. California and Wyoming having the same Senate vote despite 100x the population? Electoral college weighting? DC not getting in Congress, despite "no taxation without representation", but getting to vote for President? Pretty funny democracy we've got here. And then there's what happens if no one gets a majority in the EC: goes to the House... with voting by state delegation, not by Representative. This is like old D&D. "Roll d20! d00! d6!" "What about this case?" "d4!" "...why?" "I felt like it!"
So we've got a lot of weirdness and custom -- "case law" -- ourselves, while the British system could be simplified as "democratically elected Parliament is supreme", while it'd take longer to describe the normal function of our system.
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I wonder how many dynasties of power lasted longer, especially peacefully, than the US. Egypt had 30+ dynasties over 3000 years. Chinese dynasties sometimes last longer, though that can obscure succession fights. Some European families have been around for a while but I'm not sure about peaceful transfer of power. Japan has a looong record but then they haven't had real power for most of 1000 years. On the flip side, we had a Civil War, so our peaceful record is marred. Still managed to have elections in 1864, though! *That's* impressive.
Catholic Church probably rules, for being an institution with some power lasting a long time, and even that has Avignon and such.
Francis Fukuyama is the The End of History guy.
But I think there's a familiarity and filtering effect. UK isn't that hard to outline: there are districts that elect members to a Parliament and a majority vote in Parliament can do whatever it fucking wants. There's a queen and House of Lords but they just slow things down these days. The equivalent of our Speaker of the House -- leader of a somewhat stable majority -- is PM and forms the government and can do whatever she wants until mandatory elections after five years or the majority dissolves, forcing elections.
The scary thing for an American is that the "after five years" bit is just another Act of Parliament, so theoretically changeable.
On the flip side, our Constitution won't tell you how our Electoral College really works, or about Senate filibusters, so you're missing key practical details, and then there's tons of stuff done that is unconstitutional by a strict reading. Like the Air Force, let alone the war on drugs. (We passed an amendment to ban alcohol, but not the other stuff?) The fact that the Supreme Court can strike down unconstitutional laws isn't spelled out but was made up by John Marshall and accepted as making sense. The fact that almost anything goes (like drug bans) under the commerce clause is, well, bloody odd.
And even the stuff which works and is clear may not make *sense* absent knowledge of our history, or even with it. California and Wyoming having the same Senate vote despite 100x the population? Electoral college weighting? DC not getting in Congress, despite "no taxation without representation", but getting to vote for President? Pretty funny democracy we've got here. And then there's what happens if no one gets a majority in the EC: goes to the House... with voting by state delegation, not by Representative. This is like old D&D. "Roll d20! d00! d6!" "What about this case?" "d4!" "...why?" "I felt like it!"
So we've got a lot of weirdness and custom -- "case law" -- ourselves, while the British system could be simplified as "democratically elected Parliament is supreme", while it'd take longer to describe the normal function of our system.