A stratocracy (from
Ancient Greekστρατός (stratós) '
army', and κράτος (krátos) 'dominion, power'),[2] also called stratiocracy,[3][4][5] is a
form of government headed by military chiefs.[6] The
branches of government are administered by military forces, the government is legal under the laws of the jurisdiction at issue, and is usually carried out by military workers.[7]
Description of stratocracy
The word stratocracy first appeared in 1652 from the
political theoristRobert Filmer, being preceded in 1649 by stratokratia used by
Claudius Salmasius in reference to the newly declared
Commonwealth of England.[1][8]John Bouvier and Daniel Gleason describe a stratocracy as one where citizens with mandatory or voluntary military service, or veterans who have been
honorably discharged, have the right to elect or govern. The military's
administrative,
judicial, and/or
legislative powers are supported by law, the constitution, and the society.[6] It does not necessarily need to be
autocratic or
oligarchic by nature in order to preserve its right to rule. The political scientist
Samuel Finer distinguished between stratocracy which was rule by the army and military regimes where the army did not rule but enforced the rule of the civil leaders.[9] Peter Lyon wrote that through history stratocracies have been relatively rare, and that in the latter half of the twentieth century there has been a noticeable increase in the number of stratocratic states due to the "rapid collapse of the West European
thalassocracies".[8]
Notable examples of stratocracies
Historical stratocracies
Sparta
The
Diarchy of
Sparta was a stratocratic kingdom.[10] From a young age, male
Spartans were put through the
agoge, necessary for full-citizenship, which was a rigorous education and training program to prepare them to be warriors.[11]Aristotle describes the kingship at Sparta as "a kind of unlimited and perpetual generalship" (Pol. iii. 1285a), while
Isocrates refers to the Spartans as "subject to an
oligarchy at home, to a kingship on campaign" (iii. 24).[12]
Rome
One of the most distinguished and, perhaps, long-lived examples of a stratocratic state, is
Ancient Rome, though the stratocratic system developed over time.[13] Following the disposition of the last
Roman kingLucius Tarquinius Superbus, Rome became an
oligarchic Republic.[14][15] However, with the gradual expansion of the empire and conflicts with its rival
Carthage which eventually led to the
Punic Wars, the Roman political and military system experienced drastic changes.[16] Following the so-called "
Marian reforms", de facto political power became concentrated under military leadership, as the loyalty of the legionaries shifted from the Senate to its generals.[17]
Through the
First Triumvirate[18] this led to, following a
series of civil wars, the formation of the
Roman Empire, the
head of which was acclaimed as "
Imperator", previously an honorary title for distinguished military commanders.[19] Following the formation of the Empire, the
Roman Army either approved of or acquiesced in the accession of an emperor, with the
Praetorian Guard having a decisive role in the succession until Emperor
Constantine abolished it.[20] Militarization of the Empire increased over time and emperors were increasingly beholden to their armies and fleets, yet how active emperors were in actually commanding in the field in military campaigns varied from emperor to emperor, even from dynasty to dynasty. The vital political importance of the army persisted up until the destruction of the
Eastern (Byzantine) Empire with the
fall of Constantinople in 1453.[21]
Goryeo
From 1170 to 1270, the kingdom of
Goryeo was under
effective military rule, with puppet kings on the throne serving mainly as figureheads.[22] The majority of this period was spent under the rule of the
Choe family, who set up a parallel system of private administrative systems from their military forces.[23]
Cossacks
Cossacks were predominantly
East Slavic people who became known as members of democratic, semi-military and semi-naval communities, predominantly located in
Ukraine and in
Southern Russia.[24] They inhabited sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower
Dnieper,[25]Don,
Terek, and
Ural river basins, and played an important role in the historical and cultural development of both
Russia and Ukraine.[26] The
Zaporozhian Sich[27] was a Cossack semi-autonomous polity and
proto-state[28] that existed between the 16th and 18th centuries, and existed as an independent stratocratic state as the
Cossack Hetmanate for over a hundred years.[29][30][31]
Military frontier of the Habsburg monarchy
The
Military Frontier was a
borderland of the
Habsburg monarchy (which became the
Austrian Empire and later the
Austro-Hungarian Empire).[32][33] The military frontier acted as the cordon sanitaire against incursions from the
Ottoman Empire. Located in the southern part of Hungarian crown land, the frontier was separated from local jurisdiction and was under direct
Viennese central military administration from the 1500s to 1872. Unlike the rest of the Catholic dominated territory of the empire, the frontier area had relatively freer religious laws in order to attract settlements into the area.[34][35][36]
Modern stratocracies
The closest modern equivalent to a stratocracy, the
State Peace and Development Council of
Myanmar (Burma), which ruled from 1997 to 2011,[37] arguably differed from most other military dictatorships in that it completely abolished the civilian constitution and legislature.[38][39] A
new constitution that came into effect in 2010 cemented the
Tatmadaw's hold on power through mechanisms such as reserving 25% of the seats in the
legislature for military personnel.[40] The civilian constitutional government was dissolved again in the
2021 Myanmar coup d'état, with power being transferred back to the Tatmadaw through the
State Administration Council.[41]
The political scientist
Harold Lasswell wrote in 1941 of his concerns that the world was moving towards "a world of 'garrison states'" with the
United States of America being one of the countries moving in that direction.[10] This was supported by the historian Richard Kohn in 1975 commenting on the US's creation of a military state during its early independence, and the political scientist Samuel Fitch in 1985.[10] The historian
Eric Hobsbawm has used the existence and power of the
military-industrial complex in the US as evidence of it being a stratocratic state.[10] The expansion and prioritisation of the military during the administrations of
Reagan and
H. W. Bush have also been described as signs of stratocracy in the US.[44] The
futuristPaul Saffo[45] and the researcher Robert Marzec[46] have argued that the
post 9/11 projection of the United States was trending towards stratocracy.
USSR
The philosopher and economist
Cornelius Castoriadis wrote in his 1980 text, Facing the War, that Russia had become the primary world military power. To sustain this, in the context of the visible economic inferiority of the
Soviet Union in the civilian sector, he proposed that the society may no longer be dominated by the
one-party state bureaucracy of the
Communist Party but by a "stratocracy"[47][48][49] describing it as a separate and dominant military sector with expansionist designs on the world.[50][51] He further argued that this meant there was no internal class dynamic that could lead to social revolution within Russian society and that change could only occur through foreign intervention.
Timothy Luke agreed that under the secretaryship of
Mikhail Gorbachev this was the USSR moving towards a stratocratic state.[52]
African states
Various countries in post-colonial
Africa have been described as stratocracies.[53] The
Republic of Egypt under the leadership of
Nasser was described by the political theorist
P. J. Vatikiotis as a stratocratic state.[54] The recent Egyptian governments since the
Arab Spring,[55][56] including that of
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, have also been called stratocratic.[57] George commented in a 1988 paper that the military dictatorship of
Idi Amin in
Uganda and the
apartheid regime in
South Africa should be considered stratocracies.[58] Various previous Nigerian governments have been described as stratocratic in research, including the government under
Olusegun Obasanjo, and the
Armed Forces Ruling Council led by
Ibrahim Babangida.[59] Under the 1978 constitution of
eSwatiniSobhuza II appointed the Swazi army commander as the country's prime minister, and the second-in-command of the army as the head of the civil service board. This fusing of military and civil power continued in subsequent appointments, with many of the appointees viewing their civil roles as secondary to their military positions.[60]Ghana under
Jerry Rawlings has also been described as being stratocratic in nature.[44]Karl Marx's term of
barracks socialism was retermed by the political scientist Michel Martin in their description of socialist stratocracies in the
Middle East,
Latin America, and
Africa, including specifically the
People's Republic of Benin.[61][62] Martin also believes the
praetorianism of francophone African republics can be called stratocratic, including the
Côte d'Ivoire and the
Central African Republic.[63]
The
Warlord Era of China is viewed as period of stratocratic struggles[68] with the researcher Peng Xiuliang pointing to the actions and policies of
Wang Shizhen, a general and politician of the
Republic of China, as an example of the stratocratic forces within the Chinese government of the time.[69]
Occupied Poland in World War I was put under the General-Militärgouvernementen (general military governments) of Germany and
Austria-Hungary. This government was a stratocratic system where the military was responsible for the political administration of Poland.[70]
Stratocratic forms of government have been popular in fictional stories.[76]
The country of Amestris in the Fullmetal Alchemist manga and
anime series is a nominal parliamentary republic without elections,[77] where parliament has been used as a façade to distract from the authoritarian regime,[77] as the government is almost completely centralized by the military, and the majority of government positions are occupied by military personnel.[76]
Bowser from the Super Mario video game franchise is the supreme leader of a stratocratic empire in which he has many other generals working under his militaristic rules such as Kamek, Private Goomp, Sergeant Guy, Corporal Paraplonk and many others.
The
Cardassian Union of the Star Trek universe can be described as a stratocracy, with a constitutionally and socially sanctioned, as well as a politically dominant military that nonetheless has immense
totalitarian characteristics.[76]
Both Eldia and Marley from the Japanese manga and anime series Attack on Titan are stratocratic nations ruled by military governments. After a
coup d'état, the government of Eldia was displaced in favor of a military-led system with a puppet monarchy as its public front.[78]
The
Galactic Empire from the original Star Wars trilogy can be described as a stratocracy. Although ruled by
Emperor Palpatine, the functioning of the entire government was controlled by the military and explicitly sanctioned by its leaders. All sectors were controlled by a Moff or Grand Moff who were also high-ranking military officers.[76]
The Global Defense Initiative from the Command & Conquer franchise is another example: initially being a
United Nations task force to combat the Brotherhood of Nod and research the alien substance Tiberium, later expanding to a worldwide government led by military leaders[79] after the collapse of society due to Tiberium's devastating effects on Earth.[80]
In
Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers, the
Terran Federation was set up by a group of military veterans in
Aberdeen, Scotland when governments collapsed following a
world war.[81] While
national service is voluntary, earning
citizenship in the Federation requires civilians to "enroll in the Federal Service of the Terran Federation for a term of not less than two years and as much longer as may be required by the needs of the Service."[82][83] While Federal Service is not exclusively military service, that appears to be the dominant form. It is believed that only those willing to sacrifice their lives on the state's behalf are fit to govern. While the government is a representative democracy, the franchise is only granted to people who have completed service, mostly in the military, due to this law (active military can neither vote nor serve in political/non-military offices).[76]
The
Turian Hierarchy of Mass Effect is another example of a fictional stratocracy, where the civilian and military populations cannot be distinguished, and the government and the military are the same, and strongly meritocratic, with designated responsibilities for everyone.[84][85]
^
abBlackford, Paul W. (March 1956). "Stratocracy, a Seventeenth Century Greek Coinage". The Classical Journal. 51 (6). The Classical Association of the Middle West and South: 279–280.
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abcdGouliamos, Kostas; Kassimeris, Christos (2012). "Stratocracy: The Growing Hypertrophy of the LifeWorld Militarization". In Gouliamos, Kostas; Kassimeris, Christos (eds.). The Marketing of War in the Age of Neo-Militarism.
Routledge.
^Harley, T. Rutherford (May 1934). The Public School of Sparta, Greece & Rome. Vol. 3. pp. 129–139.
^One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain: Tod, Marcus Niebuhr (1911). "
Sparta". In
Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 609–14.
^Launspach, Charles W. L. (1908).
State and Family in Early Rome. London: George Bell And Sons. pp. xi. The
Gabinian and
Manilian Laws had rehearsed the stratocracy of the first Triumvirate; and after the renewed convulsions which followed Caesar's murder the world gladly found refuge in Octavians ordered despotism.
^Mytsyk, Yu (2003). "Volʹnosti Viysʹka Zaporozʹkoho Nyzovoho" Вольностi Вiйська Запорозького Низового [Freedoms of the Zaporozhian Lowland Army].
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^Essen, Michael Fredholm von (2018). Muscovy's Soldiers. The Emergence of the Russian Army 1462–1689. Warwick: Helion & Company.
ISBN978-1912390106.
^Végh, Ferenc (2017).
"Doprinos mađarske historiografije istraživanju "Vojne krajine" u ranom novom vijeku (16.-17. stoljeće)" [The Contribution of the Hungarian Historiography to the Research on the "Military Frontier" in the Early Modern Period (16th-17th Centuries)]. Academia (in Hungarian). University of Pécs Institute of History. p. 169. The Habsburg government in this way came to relatively cheap military force using the South Slavic (Croatian, Vlach, Serbian) grencers
^Frank, Richard I. (1982). "Review of Der magister officiorum in der Spätantike (4.-6. Jahrhundert). Das Amt und sein Einfluß auf die kaiserliche Politik by Manfred Clauss". Gnomon. 54 (8). Verlag C.H.Beck: 755–763.
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^Markakis, John; Waller, Michael, eds. (1986). Military Marxist Regimes in Africa.
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^Martin, Michel Louis (2006). "Soldiers and Governments in Postpraetorian Africa: Cases in the Francophone Area". In Caforio, Giuseppe (ed.). Handbook of the Sociology of the Military.
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^Zarchin, Tomer (9 July 2012).
"Legal Expert: If Israel Isn't Occupying West Bank, It Must Give Up Land Held by IDF". Haaretz.
Archived from the original on 8 November 2021. Retrieved 12 March 2017. 'If the Levy Committee is pushing the government to determine that Israel's presence in the West Bank does not violate international law, Israel is in a dangerous position facing the rest of the world,' said Sasson this morning to Haaretz. ... 'For 45 years, different compositions of the High Court of Justice stated again and again that international law applies to the West Bank, which is clearly opposed to Levy's findings. This is a colossal turnaround, which I do not think is within his authority. He can tell the government that he recommends changing legal status, and that's all,' said Sasson.
Jaywant, Sameer (4 April 2014). Military Rule & Economic Growth in Post-Independence Uganda: A Synthetic Counterfactual Approach (PhD).
New York University.