Global Peace, Security, and Human Rights Lecture Series presents

Peter H. Merkl
“A Coup Attempt In Washington? A European Mirror on the 1998-1999 Constitutional Crisis”



Wednesday, February 14 / 4 P.M. / FREE
McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB

The Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara will be hosting a lecture by Peter Merkl at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, January 16 or 23 to mark the publication of his new book “A Coup Attempt In Washington? A European Mirror on the 1998-1999 Constitutional Crisis”(Palgrave, December 2000).

This book examines the 1998-1999 impeachment effort against President Clinton in terms of the American constitution and the rule of law. It also reveals how press correspondents from other democratic nations saw our attempt to impeach and remove our twice-elected president: as a coup against the constitution. They critically and knowledgeably commented on our obvious abuses of American legal procedures and concepts (e.g. perjury) and relevant constitutional clauses. They saw this as a five-year vendetta culminating in a quasi-constitutional coup attempt, not just the pursuit of a 1998 sex scandal, and believed an important part of our media was involved in the "vast rightwing conspiracy" to overthrow Clinton. Finally, and again unlike our media, they thought that this action damaged our constitutional system, nearly changed it into a parliamentary system, and would have destroyed it, had the coup succeeded.

Peter H. Merkl is Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He has published numerous books and articles on politics. His most recent book is "The Federal Republic of Germany at Fifty" (1999).

This event is part of the "Global Peace, Security, and Human Rights" lecture series being sponsored by the UC Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation, UCSB Arts & Lectures, Department of Political Science, Global and International Studies Program, Global Peace and Security Program and Interdisciplinary Humanities Center. It is being put on in partnership with the Santa Barbara Committee on Foreign Relations, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, PAX 2100, International Studies Association at Santa Barbara City College, and the International Studies Program at Ventura College.