Duarte Amaro

@duarteamaro.bsky.social

DPhil candidate in Politics, University of Oxford. Interested in party competition, European integration, and historical political economy.

duarteamaro.github.io

@duarteamaro.bsky.social

Delighted to be back in Paris and at @sciencespo.bsky.social! I'll be spending this autumn semester as a visiting researcher at the @sciencespo-cee.bsky.social - the perfect environment in which to continue my work on party competition and European integration.

@robertsaunders.bsky.socialReposted by @duarteamaro.bsky.social

90 years ago, Parliament responded to the rise of Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts by passing the Public Order Act, which banned political uniforms, private militias and the threat of force for political objects. The debates make very resonant reading today. Here's the Liberal Robert Bernays. (Short 🧵)

You cannot conduct a fair match when one side is playing with a ball and the other with bombs and, if democracy is to survive, it must be conducted according to definite and recognised rule. One of them is that no political party should resort to any weapon other than reason and argument. The introduction of private armies, as I see it, strikes at the root of democracy. I know it is contended that the Blackshirts are not armed and, therefore, are not an army, but I do not think that argument can be upheld. … Uniformed men in military formation suggest, and are meant to suggest, the idea of force. It is no argument to reply that at this or that demonstration no force is intended. It is an inescapable fact that a uniform in politics symbolises force, to be used either now or in the future.