Are The Politics of the Galactic Republic Well Crafted or Beautiful Mess?
Over nine saga movies, two anthology movies, and a seven-season long cartoon, we see Jedi heroics with their laser swords, fantastic battles in the vacuum of space, and giant walking tanks blasting through battles on incredible planets. But how much do we actually understand about the way things work in the background? Much of the Saga takes place during three eras: the fall of the Republic, the reign of the Galactic Empire, and the struggle between the First Order and the New Republic. For a system of government that’s existed for thousands of years, there’s not much explicit discussion as to the workings of the Republic that gave way to the Empire. So how exactly did the Republic work? Without any explicit explanation, we have to glean what we can from the movies, shows, and books to really garner how this system worked, and how that allowed a fascist government to replace it.
First, let’s figure out what kind of government the Republic is. We can’t rely solely on the name "Republic" to assume it is a republic in our current understanding of the system. Is it a unitary system? A federal system? Let’s examine what we do know. There is a central executive authority, the Supreme Chancellor, heretofore referred to as the SC. However, from all available evidence, the SC is not elected by Galactic Republic citizens, but rather by Senators. That would make it a parliamentary system similar to England, where the Prime Minister is elected from members of Parliament, or the German system where the Chancellor is chosen from the Bundestag. But more confusion can arise here because the English system is a unitary system like France, where there are no states or regional governments, but Germany is a federal system, where there’s a central government and there are different state governments, like the United States. So what about the Republic? I’d say the Republic most closely resembles the German federal system. The states here represent the different planets within the Republic, represented by senators, and there’s a central executive figure elected from those senators.
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We have to be careful though, because it would be easy to just accept that and move on. There’s more to this. There are signs that point to the Republic not being a federation, but rather a confederation. This is important to understanding how the Republic’s politics work and how it ultimately failed, as confederations are inherently weaker than federations. In a federation, the central government reigns supreme. Think the US, Canada, Mexico, Germany, etc. There are state or regional governments, but the central government has the greater power, especially when it comes to a military. Under a confederation, though, there’s a loose allegiance among the member states, but the sovereignty of the member states is paramount to the sovereignty of the central government. Therein lies the key to understanding how the Republic works and how it collapsed into the Empire.
We’re given clues to the individual member states’ sovereignty being more important in the first two movies. For one, the Trade Federation essentially tries to colonize Naboo under the guise of protecting it’s interests and sovereignty. The impetus for their move comes from the imposition of taxes on trade routes, as we're told in the opening scroller for Episode I. The second Queen Amidala beseeches the Senate to do something about the attack on their planet’s sovereignty, the Trade Federation representatives roadblock that with some bureaucratic processes, effectively derailing any effort to get justice for Naboo. And Nute Gunray points out that their blockade is perfectly legal. If that's the case, which as you'll see is likely true, it implies that member states can take certain punitive action against other member states. That doesn't happen in a federation. But it can happen in a confederation. History is ripe with it. One only has to look to the Holy Roman Empire for plenty of examples. Closer to home, it carries echoes of the early years of the American republic. After the revolution, the initial government of the nation established under the Articles of Confederation was challenged by Daniel Shays, who managed to rouse a pretty fearsome rebellion over...taxes. The Trade Federation taking the bold step to blockade and subsequently invade mimics similar oppositional undertones. And it's actions highlight another major flaw in the Republic.
That second flaw is the inability for the centralized authority of the Republic to do anything about it. The Supreme Chancellor is not exactly, in this iteration, a commander-in-chief, or an executive capable of directing Republic forces or agencies into action. The conflict between the Trade Federation and Naboo is essentially determined to be something they need to resolve on their own. Senator Palpatine makes it clear that the bureaucracy can’t settle anything quickly, and the courts take even longer. It’s also hinted at that the member states involved may not have to accept the decisions. This is made clear in the entire existence of the situation. The Trade Federation act without any concern that their actions will be punished. It implies a body politic that knows the central authority of the Republic can't do anything to enforce policing action. Furthermore, it takes an emergency proposal that is agreed upon by the Senate to grant the Supreme Chancellor a power he does not normally have, to raise and arm, essentially making him autocratic. They use the threat of an emergency, a dynamic situation that a deliberative body like a legislature cannot address quickly enough, to justify it. If such a power of the executive existed, that scene would have been pointless. If I changed the names of the parties involved, that could easily have been a summary of Shays' Rebellion. Which is why the Chancellor had to resort to using backward channels and task the Jedi to resolving the conflict between the Trade Federation and the Naboo. The Jedi are not state-sponsored, as they clearly and often state, they are not at the whim of the SC. They're seen as a third party that can be contracted out or called upon to resolve things, kind of like the Pinkerton Agency during the 19th century. This is also reinforced in novels as well, even as far back as the High Republic, during the Great Disaster. The Jedi work with the Republic, and defend it, but it's officers cannot command them.
Which brings me to the final point: there’s no military. In Attack of the Clones, it’s clear there’s no means for the Republic to enforce its decrees, and it hopes that the member states will do the Republic’s enforcing for it. There’s a couple things that point us toward this conclusion. For one, Naboo doesn’t even have its own military, just a security force, probably something even weaker than what Japan considers its military. They're defenseless when the Trade Federation invade and start putting their people into camps. They try to plead their case to the Senate, but there's no army. So what were they exactly hoping for the Senate to be able to do about it? It’s clear that the Republic cannot enforce its decrees without force, and authority erodes by the hour as member states threaten secession, leading to the Separatist threat in Attack of the Clones.
This is why the closest form of government that we can classify the Republic as is a confederation. It’s also what helps us best understand why the Republic ultimately failed when it faced not an external threat, but an internal one.
There’s no indication of what political parties or factions there are, at least none that I can figure out, but member states seem to fall into two camps: pro-autocratic centralized authority and loosely cooperative individual sovereignty states. Honestly, there’s no real effective way to govern such a vast territory with such wide ranging cultures, languages, and no enforcement method. Rome illustrated this. It’s easy to take advantage of the situation in the Republic Senate. With the more “selfish” member states having someone whisper in their ear to secede from the Republic and make their own way. They're already inclined to take advantage of the weaker central authority and prop up their own sovereignty, so seceding from the Republic is an enticing option for them. But from all indications, they are not in a majority. The actions of the Republic to bring them back into the fold through negotiations or force indicates that. It also highlights the internal cracks that underly the whole confederation system that likes to promote itself as something it’s not. When people talked of the Republic, they do so as if it were a federation instead of a confederation. It’s revered as this great democratic force. But the evidence we’ve looked at suggests everything otherwise to the fact. So this small dissension amongst member states scares the pro-autocratic group that believe and promote the Republic as a federation. They believe in it’s purported democratic workings, and its claimed ability to do good for all, even though we’re shown the Republic couldn’t really do anything as a central authority. But what matters to these states is the image and the image of an alliance fracturing is a death knell. The fear of “losing” the Republic is enough to nudge the scared states into giving more power to the central authority than they imagined was there and make it a reality, unaware that they forget that all those with power are afraid to give it up. As soon as Palpatine received that power, he was never going to give it up, especially when he was handed the reigns to the one thing the Republic had lacked all along to maintain it’s façade of a centralized authority: a military.
One last thing remains to address: What of the Jedi? I mentioned a reference to the Pinkertons, but that’s not a complete picture. The Pinkertons were essentially a mercenary police force, hired out to guard things and escort deliveries. That kind of sounds like the Jedi, but they also had military command during the Clone Wars, which throws a wrench into any comprehension of what role they serve in the Republic. They call themselves the keepers of the peace, so that brings with it intonations of similarities with the Pinkertons and other security-for-hire groups. But why are they given positions of command within the new Grand Army of the Republic? That suggests a more official role within the Republic. Perhaps something akin to the US Marshal service? Maybe the Secret Service. I’m hesitant to put all my chips behind that, as the Supreme Chancellor has a guard service. The Jedi kind of resemble the military orders in Europe, like the Templars, the Hospitallers, or the Teutonic Knights. Maybe even the Knights of Santiago? I also thought about the Varangian Guard of the old Byzantine Empire. Their loyalty was to the throne, not the Emperor, and they served in military campaigns as well. I only hesitate to go with them solely because they were the Emperor’s personal guards, which the Jedi were not. Therefore, I am left to conclude they perhaps draw influence from all those groups, but perhaps more so the military orders and the Varangian Guard. This is due to the fact that they were kind of outsiders, loyalty to something bigger than a person, and with secretive rules and rites that outsiders were not permitted to be aware of. Organizations like that encourage all kinds of speculation, and when a scapegoat is needed, they’re easy targets. King Louis of France did just that with the Templars, a vastly wealthy organization that many throughout Europe knew of, but knew nothing of their secretive rites. Hence all the boundless conspiracy theories about them. The King of France needed money, and the Templars had a ton of land they owned. So he went and took it, and started a propaganda campaign against them. It single handedly destroyed the Templar order and saw many Templars burned at the stake for witchcraft and dark magic accusations. Sound familiar?
The political mechanics of the Republic draw from many historical examples, but ultimately it culminated in a system rife with corruption and collapse. All these questions and conclusions are an attempt to make the Republic make sense, and maybe it wasn't made to make sense. On the other hand, maybe it was designed that way, and the Separatists were right. Though they were led astray through Palpatine's machinations, maybe they still had it right. The Republic had lost its way and, as Padme said, maybe our heroes were on the wrong side.
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