Work Text:
Professor Golon Wag
Galactic University of Coruscant
Coruscant
New Republic
Comparative Politics of Modern Galactic History: Chapter IV
297 ABY
In 19 BBY, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine of the Galactic Republic seized power in a military coup. For the next two decades, he would preside over one of the most ambitious and comprehensive programs of statebuilding and political reorganization in recorded history, attempting to turn the loose federal structure of the Old Republic into a tightly-centralized, standardized regime run directly from Imperial Center. The results of this endeavor were, for the most part, catastrophic failure, but the impact can not be understated. The New Order fundamentally transformed the relationship between Galactic government and its constituent components in ways that could not simply be repealed by the victorious restorationist forces of the New Republic, and the story of the last three centuries, in many ways, has been one of syncretic dialogue between the decentralizing impulses that motivated the Confederacy of Independent Systems' bid for independence, and the push for unity and standardization that found such enthusiastic expression in the government of the Galactic Empire. Palpatine could not have accomplished all that he did without signifigent support, and the structure of the Galactic Empire reflects that. The New Order was, in large part, the genesis of reformist politics that had been circulating in the halls of Coruscant for centuries by the time the Clone Wars erupted and gave them space to grow into dominance.
In 14 BBY, Vice Chairman of the Emperor's Council Sate Pestage engaged in a rare public defense of the New Order, during a period of elite backlash towards the casualties and atrocities of the Mimban Campaign. Writing in The Corellian Review, Lord Pestage's article was officially about a series of bills before the Imperial Senate regarding investments in the Outer Rim, but was generally taken as a rebuttal--and a warning--to those who had grown leery of the cost of Empire.
"Galactic Civilization represents the highest of sentient impulses, the desire, or perhaps the need, to transcend our myriad planets of origin, and unite to collectively pool our accomplishments and dreams into something greater than the sum of their parts. That has always been the objective, but far too long, too many have neglected this grand vision in the interests of maintaining their own personal fiefdoms. Why should Corellia or Alderaan flourish, while the worlds of the Outer Rim starve? Without firm leadership, the Senate was unable to address this obvious injustice, and the gulf from between Core and Outer Rim, between elite and pauper, widened ever-further. It was the wisdom of Palpatine to see that this could no longer continue, and the wisdom of the Senate to place the power to correct this in his hands. We must put aside our obsessions with local privileges, with historical grievances, with ancient and parochial concerns, and work together to bring the vision of the New Order to completion, a Galaxy in which all stand equally as productive and satisfied citizens of our civilization. This will require great sacrifices, and unimaginable costs, but our children and grandchildren will thank us for having the courage to complete this crusade."
The Old Republic had been a federal system, a "Republic of Princes", to use an obsolete term. Governments came together in the Senate to collaborate on matters of defense, financial, and foreign policy, but the prerogatives of the planetary founders were sovereign, and their legal codes and customs unquestioned. For many, this meant freedom. But for others, this had become just an excuse for anarchy. Kinman Doriana, one of Palpatine's senior aides, had achieved a level of notoriety as early as 42 BBY as part of the "Manarai Circle", writing about the need for centralization and reform of Galactic government. For many, the Clone Wars were a vindication of their project.
"The Stark Hyperspace War should have been the last straw. Pirates and fringe corporations, challenging the might of the Republic directly for their petty profits, and Coruscant must scrabble and claw for the resources to fight back. This is intolerable, and it cannot be what the Founders envisioned when they gathered here, 25,000 years ago to establish our Commonwealth. For Galactic Civilization to survive, we need order, and we unity. To achieve those, we need strength, and we need fairness, and a common code of conduct and rules and precepts, universalized from one end of the Galactic Spiral to the next. It has long since been made clear that the Senate no longer has the fortitude to undertake such a comprehensive overhaul, and so we must begin to assemble a body of men and women capable of this task, and equip them with the power to go out and do it!"
The following is a chart of the governmental structure of the Galactic Empire, prepared by the Imperial Bureau of Information in 5 BBY for the use of mid-ranking Imperial officials, showing the most important branches of service and chains of command. It represents a contemporary view of how the Empire functioned, from within, at the height of its power, as established by the Declaration of a New Order in 19 BBY and the Imperial Charter of 17 BBY. Study it carefully before proceeding to the next section. Think about what it shows, and what it doesn't.
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Commentary:
- One Galaxy, One System: The symbol of Imperial power might have been the white helmets of the Stormtrooper Corps, or the jagged profile of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer, but it was the creation of the Imperial Civil Service Board in 18 BBY that proved most transformative to Galactic civilization. Under the Republic, the professional civil service had been small, mostly recruited ad hoc from Coruscant and other Core Worlds, and subordinated directly to the Federal Cabinet, which answered to the Supreme Chancellor and the Senate. This survived into the Imperial Era as the Council of Ministers, but Palpatine and his advisors moved quickly to isolate and reduce these officials, who still reported to the Imperial Senate. The bureaus of the Imperial Civil Service were created to be professional, independent, and meritocratic. They were open to anyone who could pass the examinations, reported to career officials with no elective responsibility, and had a level of authority and oversight over Galactic society that no government of the Old Republic had ever dreamed of. Strange as it might seem, the Civil Service was initially one of the most popular initiatives launched by the New Order. For those living in the slums or backwaters of the Outer Rim, the appearance of hundreds of millions of professional, well-paid jobs that were (theoretically) selected totally by merit represented the promise of a better life, and those who found success in that path were often the most militant partisans of the Empire. In its centralizing attempt to exert total control over all aspects of Galactic Civilization, the Imperial Civil Service supplanted the traditional rules of local elites and ancient customs. On some worlds, this was welcomed as a form of liberation. But on many others, it prompted fierce backlash, as Coruscant discovered, to its dismay, that not everybody welcomed this intrusion into "the way things had always been done."
- The Return of the Moffs: The title of 'Moff' originated in the Old Republic as one granted to allied warlords who placed their domains under the suzerainty of the Core, and can be translated loosely as 'march' or 'marchwarden'. Over time, as the Colonies and Expansion Regions became integrated into the Republican system, these titles becomes more and more ceremonial, until they were at last abolished as part of the Ruusan Reformation. Palpatine brought them back into existence, and extended them throughout the Empire, with each sector being placed under the authority of a Moff who was granted total civil and military power. This can be seen as yet another manifestation of the Emperor's mania for centralization, and indeed, direct and personal authority over the hinterlands was necessary to implement his political and economic program. However, in the sort of ironic contradiction that marked so much of Imperial governance, the Moffs--as one font of absolute and unquestioned authority--soon found themselves in conflict with the many other sources of absolute and unquestioned authority chartered by Palpatine. At no point was it clear how much power the Ministries or Bureaus on Coruscant had over regional sector governors, and the Moffs' ability to give commands to military units in their provinces ensured constant clashes with High Command. Even the level of authority a Moff had over the planetary systems in their sectors often varied immensely in practice, depending on their governments' levels of influence or wealth. It seems likely that the ever-suspicious Palpatine designed the system this way intentionally, to prevent the emergence of rivals, but it meant that the "standardized, centralized" Imperial government often differed vastly in how it operated between sectors. This intensified dramatically following the dissolution of the Imperial Senate in 0 BBY, and it seems likely that fragmentation of the Empire was already occurring in many respects even before Endor.
- The Fist of Palpatine: The Galactic Empire had its origins as a military coup against the Senate, and for all its complexity, the Imperial State never ceased to depend on military power for its ultimate legitimacy. Note that the armed forces compose nearly half of the agencies under the authority of the Imperial government; even with the massive buildup up the civil service, the Empire remained a military dictatorship in most respects. The Republic had not maintained a military force of any size since the New Sith Wars (c. 2000-1000 BBY), and so when the Senate authorized the creation of the Republic Navy and the Grand Army of the Republic in 22 BBY, there was no civilian defense ministry to take charge. Instead, the new entity was placed directly under the control of the Office of the Supreme Chancellor, an innovation which greatly aided Palpatine in his rise to power. This system was continued into the Imperial Era; with the Imperial Army and Navy answering directly to the Emperor without the intermediary of any civilian oversight of bureaucracy. The price for this direct line of control, however, was the incoherence it gave rise to in military policy. With no formal chain of command above that of the Military Joint Staff, admirals and generals were forced to fight for influence and funding, and strategic policy and coordination was often lost by the wayside.
- Imperialization: At the conclusion of the Clone Wars, the new Galactic Empire seized most of the assets of the megacorporations that had materially supported the Separatist cause, in a process known as 'Imperialization'. This was soon extended to other economic assets and businesses owned by suspected traitors or those of insufficient loyalty to the New Order, and the Empire soon came to control a remarkable percent of the Galaxy's economic productivity. This soon proved vital, as the Empire's new programs of military and state expansion strained the traditional finances of the Republic far beyond what they could manage. The vast web of state-owned firms provided a key source of funding, one that lay totally outside the purview of the Senate, as well as a supply of valuable rewards for supporters, and a threat to be wielded against elites who tried to maintain independence. In time, this economic empire was formalized into a series of quasi-government commissions, which oversaw most interstellar trade and commerce in the Galaxy, and provided innumerable levers for exerting Imperial control over wayward planets or species.
- Safety in Numbers: As part of the process of state consolidation, the Galactic Empire created a vast array of new security apparatuses, each with sweeping, arbitrary, and often overlapping power. In theory, each played a purpose in maintaining the New Order: The Imperial Security Bureau monitored civilian society and government for disloyalty, Imperial Intelligence looked abroad for new threats, Military Intelligence focused on conventional tactical and operational intelligence, the Office of Political Integration provided oversight and accountability to those being "integrated" into the Imperial system, and COMPNOR served as a mass-based, popular membership program that could educate citizens in the virtues of the New Order and help them maintain it. In practice, the infighting was vicious and constant, and each entity tended to spy on each other as much as they did any enemies. For much of the decade prior to the Battle of Yavin, ISB maintained a role as unofficial "first among equals", but the scandals surrounding the theft of the Death Star plans reduced their influence markedly, and saw Imperial Intelligence take over many of their roles.
- Reading Between the Lines: What isn't on this chart is just as notable as what is here. Despite the clean lines and demarcations of authority and responsibility that Imperial bureaucrats envisioned, sweeping powers always lay in the hands of those who Palpatine trusted, whether or not they held any formal office. Darth Vader does not appear anywhere above, and yet he regularly gave orders to admirals and moffs, as did Mara Jade, "the Emperor's Hand", and those others whom he dispatched as his agents and factors. Likewise, it is notable that the question of Imperial succession appears nowhere in the Imperial Charter, or any other foundational documents of the Galactic Empire. Palpatine himself was known for his occult obsessions, and may well have convinced himself that he could live (and rule) forever. But this also likely played a tactical role. It seems that many in the Senate originally saw Palpatine's assumption of power as a temporary abnegation of their traditional role, one that would end when the situation had been stabilized. The lack of any declared heirs or provisions for extending it may have helped lull them into a false sense of security for a time, though it also contributed to the rapid fragmentation of Imperial authority following the Emperor's death at Endor.
EXERCISE: Choose one organ or arm of the Imperial government, and discuss its function, how well it succeeded at that, what antecedents it evolved from in the Ruusan Constitution, and what (if anything) replaced it in the Constitution of the New Republic. Use at least three sources. Must be at least five pages, double-spaced.