Stratocracy

A stratocracy (from Ancient Greek στρατός (stratós) 'army' and κράτος (krátos) 'dominion, power'),[2] also called stratiocracy,[3][4][5] is a form of government headed by military chiefs.

[7] The word stratocracy first appeared in 1652 from the political theorist Robert 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.

[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".

[14][15] However, with the gradual expansion of the empire and conflicts with its rival Carthage, culminating in 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] Under the First Triumvirate[18] and during the subsequent civil wars, militarism influenced the formation of the Roman Empire, the head of which was acclaimed as "Imperator", previously an honorary title for distinguished military commanders.

[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.

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.

[34][35][36] 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.

[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.

[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.

[71] Since 1967, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem (both taken from Jordan), Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip (taken from Egypt) and the Golan Heights (taken from Syria) after the Six-Day War can be argued to have been under stratocratic rule.