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The crisis of the 2021 Samoan election
Last month’s election in the small Pacific Island nation and the constitutional crisis that continues into this week has me asking: Was Samoa ever a democracy? By any intuitive account, yes. It has free elections for a parliament from which ministers are appointed and a head of state is elected, and the Samoan constitution grants…
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A note on self-defence
The phrase “Israel has the right to defend itself” is said almost-reflexively in response to every single Israeli airstrike on Gaza. Of course, few here in the West would challenge this notion (and I certainly don’t seek to). Instead, I argue that the term self-defence has been erroneously deployed in this instance. The airstrikes, largely…