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  1. The Prague Spring endures?

    My concern is that it is not clear that you could easily halt the forces of the Prague Spring, that there might not be a sweet spot where you could have a stable and relatively liberal Communism on the model of Yugoslavia, that once you start questioning the Communist orthodoxy you are bound to...

  2. Would 19th century China have fared differently under an ethnically Han dynasty?

    I suppose that, if China was under a dynasty that had unquestioned legitimacy in the 19th century, it might well have had more options, more chances to avoid collapse and to successfully reform. The details matter.

  3. Total assimilation of Liberia's Indigenous population by Americo-Liberians

    Such a mass flight would imply some catastrophe in Louisiana. What possessed the Creoles to flee from America to Africa? Such a catastrophe could produce migrants, I suppose, but it would also deprive them of their financial capital if not their cultural capital.

  4. Total assimilation of Liberia's Indigenous population by Americo-Liberians

    Americo-Liberians were never interested in that sort of incorporation; they were too invested in trying to reign supreme from their coastal settlements over the peoples of the interior. It is almost like asking why Afrikaners never tried to assimilate the Xhosa. Beyond that, well, the Liberian...

  5. WI: France Assimilates North Africa

    Something like that may just barely have been possible. For that to happen, though, at the very least you would need to weaken the Algerian colons' lobby; they were deeply opposed to any radical improvement in the status of the Algerian Muslims. Agreed. In a way, this might echo the history...

  6. WI: France Assimilates North Africa

    That assertion is unsourced and implausible besides. Why wouldn't there be top-down cultural diffusion in France? A France that has been one of the richest countries of Europe since the 17th century is not a candidate for that sort of slow growth through immiseration. Some of the latest work...

  7. WI: France Assimilates North Africa

    This is it, too. Beyond that, suggesting that a larger population necessarily means more emigrants (and more emigrants to a specific area) or has other implications kind of begs the question. Where, exactly, does it hold that a larger population must produce more emigrants? For all we know, a...

  8. WI: France Assimilates North Africa

    Hi! I saw this just now. That was not what I said. I had said that there were limited opportunities for migration. On the one hand, one million people is a lot of people. On the other hand, the population of French Algerians at their numerical apogee was less than half the population of New...

  9. WI: France Assimilates North Africa

    That is not really what happened. The Quiet Revolution in Quebec came about arguably as a consequence of economic forces, the old Church-driven model of social and economic development not working. The big gap between Montreal and Toronto did not come about after the 1960s, as Jane Jacobs...

  10. AHC: The Confederacy allied with the USA by 1939

    That seems relatively unlikely. Britain has too much to loose while France has not enough interest. I think that you could well have an independent Confederacy that becomes an ally of the North, a sort of client of the larger wealthier neighbour.

  11. What's the REAL reason Polynesians didn't colonise Australia?

    If there was an Incan maritime tradition, then yes, this might easily have led to more exchanges between South America and Polynesia. Much depends on when this was activated, and how.

  12. AHC: Make Russian an accepted part of the west.

    I think that would be enough. If Russians looked at Ukraine and understood that country would resist any Russian imperial move, then that would discourage Russia's leaders from making great imperial gambles. This, in turn, would have the effect of keeping Russian revisionism from being likely to...

  13. AHC: Make Russian an accepted part of the west.

    I think that it might have been possible for Russia to be, with a post-1991 POD, at least as Westernized as Turkey. For that to happen, I think you would need to somehow contrive a Ukrainian consensus in favour of independence from Russia, with at least a strong leaning towards the West, and for...

  14. WI: Belgium didn't exist

    I do think that it might be possible that Dutch policymaking would be changed if the Dutch state was intrinsically different from OTL, as a territorially larger state with a much larger population and much more industry. This would be a quantitative change of such a nature that it would be...

  15. WI: Belgium didn't exist

    The United Netherlands could also have significant issues with political instability. If the revolt get s suppressed, you still have a majority of the kingdom's population being discontented and potentially separatist.

  16. Interesting WI for post-1945 Scandinavia

    The Scandinavian defense union project failed because Scandinavians, especially the Danes and Norwegians, did not think even a united region could stand up to great powers. In the case of a Communist Finland, I think it much likelier than Sweden will follow its Scandinavian neighbours into NATO.

  17. Interesting WI for post-1945 Scandinavia

    I think it entirely possible, then, that you could not only get more of South Schleswig's population identifying as Danish in that scenario, but that you might not get a much larger German minority. Danes speaking German as a home language is an imaginable category.

  18. Interesting WI for post-1945 Scandinavia

    Was there still some potential ambiguity about ethnic identity in South Schleswig, perhaps, people of mixed ancestry considering re identifying ethnically at a time when a German identification seemed unwise?

  19. What if Russia didn't take Outer Manchuria and Haishenwai/Vladivostock?

    I do think that if you keep greater Manchuria under the Qing, that could plausibly lessen the geopolitical pressure on Korea. A country not under imminent threat of Russian occupation might well be less of a Japanese target.

  20. Can a South Nigerian state survive after Arewa (North Nigeria) breaks off?

    The north would have a majority of the Nigerian population, but it would be quite poor.
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