by Nancy Reagin
25. Joseph F. Patrouch, Queen’s Apprentice: Archduchess Elizabeth, Empress Maria, the Habsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire, 1554–1569 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 29.
26. Barbara Watson Andaya, “Women and the Performance of Power in Early Modern Southeast Asia,” in Servants of the Dynasty: Palace Women in World History, edited by Anne Walthall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 40.
27. Neil Thomas Proto, The Rights of My People: Liliuokalani’s Enduring Battle with the United States, 1893–1917 (New York: Algora, 2009), 93–107.
Chapter 7
“There’s Always a Bigger Fish”
Power, Politics, and the Rule of the Ruthless
Kevin S. Decker
“You have restored peace and justice to the galaxy.”
—Emperor Palpatine to Darth Vader, Revenge of the Sith
Just when science fiction movies were “deader than dead,” Star Wars succeeded in reinvigorating space opera by using cultural themes from the past, but within a fantastic setting.1 When it comes to politics, history, and Star Wars, a number of puzzles present themselves: Why did the venerable Republic crumble? What roles did behind-the-scenes manipulations, war, corruption, and a lack of public feeling play in its demise? Does political success require wise and virtuous leaders?
Our own history’s tyrannical regimes have been elevated not only through consolidation of power, but also by playing on the fears of the public and the desire of elites for glory and honor. Yet tyrants and dictators are elevated to authority because of special virtues the populace believes they possess. Imbalanced political authorities such as these often emerge from two political forms that contrast strongly with absolute rule, democracy, and republicanism. Although absolute power is by no means a Western invention, all four of these types of governance—tyranny, dictatorship, democracy, and republicanism—are legacies of the Greek and Roman heritage of Western civilization.
Palpatine’s inspiration? A portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli.
Similarly, Palpatine’s christening of a new Galactic Empire set up a political system that was not entirely unique in the history of the Star Wars universe. Power in Lucas’s cosmos typically fluctuates between participatory republics and iron-fisted empires, where shifts in influence are often determined by court intrigues or military superiority. These large power shifts were also characteristic of Renaissance and Reformation Europe. A new way of thinking about politics emerged from the factionalism and incessant warring of the small northern Italian republics in the Renaissance and from the ideas of a man who puts a name to this pain, Niccolò Machiavelli of Florence (1469–1527). Is Palpatine genuinely “Machiavellian”? Is it possible for a supreme political authority to escape the power of the dark side? The answers are complex and require our careful attention.
Longer Ago, Farther Away
The meaning of “republic,” one form of governance, originates from the Latin phrase res publica, or “public thing.” So, whatever is public—the resources of a state, its judicial and legislative institutions, its system of education, among others—is not only the property or jurisdiction of a single monarch. The “public” can also be contrasted with the private good of citizens. A republican form of government is supposed to balance public and private goods, erring on the side of protecting the masses for the happiness of all—overseeing security, education, and labor practices, for example. When a republic falls, it is as much due to the inability of its supposed defenders to distinguish between the public and the private good as it is to the desires of a tyrant to wield singular power.
History’s actual republican governments have been built on the idea that liberty can’t be secured without each citizen taking a vital part in government. The active political life, as a civic or moral duty for every citizen, is taken very seriously. Self-government requires not only time and commitment, but also the civic virtue of its citizens.2 One interpretation of Socrates’s downfall in ancient Athens is that he lacked civic virtue. By contrast, the Renaissance political genius Leonardo Bruni believed that “the citizen is he who can develop as many forms of human excellence as possible and develop them all in the service of the city.” Versatility and patriotism were, for Bruni, virtue’s chief constituents.3 The ideal of the virtuous citizen is wound throughout the strands of political thought in Western history.4
Tyranny and dictatorship, on the other hand, have always been seen as aberrations from “normal” government. In its oldest Greek use, tyrannos simply indicates the sovereign power of a wealthy monarch. Aristotle (384–322 bc) was a stolid critic of tyranny. Prizing as he did common good of the political community, he called tyranny the “arbitrary power of an individual which is responsible to no one,” associating it with the abuse of legitimate power.5 Ancient political practices allowed concentration of ultimate power in the hands of one citizen, but only temporarily, perhaps in the case of a military emergency.
Aristotle once said, “Man is a political animal.”
The Roman position of dictator, voted to Julius Caesar by the Senate five times within four years, was also a legitimate political tool, “limited in its exercise during emergency circumstances by allotted time, specified task, and the fact that the dictator had to restore the previously standing political-legal order that had authorized the dictatorship.”6 Yet what might be called “sovereign” dictatorship seeks to perpetuate itself and construct an entirely new political order. It results from abuse of the powers of legitimate dictatorship, and it’s precisely the slide from the first type to the next that we see occur in the events of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. In the former, Palpatine seems to grudgingly accept radical “emergency powers” to combat Count Dooku’s Separatist movement. To do so, he embraces the Military Creation Act, calling into action the Grand Army of the Republic. About three years after the battle on Geonosis that begins the Clone Wars, the situation has intensified enough for Force-lightning-scarred Palpatine (now ugly enough that even other Sith Lords might avoid him!) to declare himself supreme leader with precious little opposition.
Tyrants: Light or Dark?
It seems that Sith who openly practice the rites of the dark side make bad tyrants. Here’s why. The “first historian,” Herodotus, spoke of one of the earliest tyrants, Kypselus of Corinth (who ruled from 655 to 625 BC).7 His rise to tyranny set the precedent for gaining power by appealing to the politically marginalized, the same folk who ended up suffering banishment and seizure of their property by Kypselus. Aristotle warned, “History shows that almost all tyrants have been demagogues who gained the favor of the people by their accusation of the notables.”8
Later Athenian tyrants had to reckon with the legacy of Solon (ca. 630–ca. 560 BC), who assumed the responsibilities of “virtual dictator” in order to respond to widespread crises in Athens and the surrounding regions. Called “the savior of his country and the ideal lawgiver” by Aristotle, Solon freed poor farmers and landless men who had been turned into debt-slaves, as well as turning food production and trade to favor local need, rather than profit.9 Most important, Solon was responsible for breaking down ancient tribal affiliations, a crucial element in the movement toward democracy.
Solon brought law to a polis long ago and far away.
The role of Solon is comparable to the Republic’s Chancellor Tarsus Valorum, who around 1000 bby completely renovated the shattered confederation’s government, dismantling its standing army, giving greater control to planetary systems and sectors over even his own authority, and even bringing the Jedi into the judicial wing of the government. Yet Valorum’s “Ruusan Reformations” saved the Republic at the cost of paving the way for the slow creep of corruption and bureaucracy that was to lead to the Republic’s end.
Rivalry in the Galactic Senate would presage this end, just as aristocratic rivalries led to a breakdown of Solon’s Athenian constitution. The most dramatic story of one-man rule in Athens centers on Pisistratus, who first seized control in 561 BC. He took po
wer by cunningly exiling some aristocrats and taking the sons of others hostage. Pisistratus may also be history’s first master of propaganda: he convinced the people to give him a bodyguard after stabbing himself and casting blame elsewhere. He also pulled a fast one with the help of the goddess Athena:
[Pisistratus’s ally Megacles] first spread abroad a rumor that Athena was bringing back Pisistratus, and then, having found a woman of great stature and beauty, named Phyë . . . he dressed her in a garb resembling that of the goddess and brought her into the city with Pisistratus. The latter drove in on a chariot with the woman beside him, and the inhabitants of the city, struck with awe, received him with adoration.10
Monument to Pisistratus.
In the rise of Pisistratus and his sons, those who really benefited were the demôs (“people,” or, literally, the inhabitants of tribal units called demes). As the machinery of the state stepped into the power vacuum left by exiled aristocrats, “bread and circuses” ensued: religion and culture were encouraged as arenas for patriotic unity; elaborate public festivals and readings of Homer’s poetry were staged; peace was pursued with nearby city-states.11
Yet the demôs is fickle. Young and rash sons of aristocrats, having assassinated the fun-loving son of Pisistratus, Hipparchus, pushed his formerly sober and statesmanlike brother Hippias toward the dark side. Now the Pisistratids’ power transformed into something like what we call “tyranny” today: Aristotle told us that after Hipparchus’s death, Hippias took vengeance on his brother’s killers and ordered “the execution and banishment of a large number of persons.”12 Popular support faded away. It took the troops of King Kleomenes of Sparta to clear Hippias and his supporters out of Athens for good and a further fifty years to cement the demes as a genuine demôs-kratia, or democracy.
Count Dooku, aka Darth Tyranus: The name isn’t accidental. (Attack of the Clones)
The need for popular support, both to gain and to keep office, is the reason why Sith Lords, in general, would make poor tyrants. Count Dooku is the exception, though. While Palpatine certainly is a master of duplicity, the appropriately named Darth Tyranus stands as a better candidate for the job of tyrant. Heir to the ruling family of Serenno, Tyranus/Count Dooku is an aristocrat, similar to Kypselus and Pisistratus. Dooku gains his fame by leading a Jedi peacekeeping force to the planet Galidraan to crush the Mandalorians; it is also these events that cause him to lose his faith in both the Jedi and the Republic.13 As the leader of the Separatists, the count seems to gain his power not only through his apprenticeship to Sidious, but also through his charisma and powers of persuasion. In Attack of the Clones, Dooku uses these powers to forge an alliance of powerful and rapacious corporate powers, taking advantage of their indignation at the facts that “star systems are starving under heavy taxation[,] pirates plague the spacelanes, corporations consume worlds, bureaucracy stifles justice—and yet the Senate can do little.”14 Even insightful Jedi such as Mace Windu and Ki-Adi-Mundi are fooled into believing he is a “political idealist, not a murderer.” In the long run, a force far darker than mere tyranny betrays Dooku.
“For a Safe and Secure Society . . .”
Some have claimed that “the idea of Rome and the idea of power are inextricably linked.”15 To back up this claim, historians point to the Roman creation of a military machine that was unparalleled in the ancient world.16 While the Greeks were ready to elevate to the status of “political hero” leaders who would reorganize society in their own image, Romans were proud of the political institutions of both the Roman Republic and their military and wanted leadership to conform to their “established conventions and settled expectations.”17 Their experience offers us two different senses of what political power consists of.
The monopoly over power in Roman society was typically divided between two distinctive kinds of institutions. Potestas was the power of executives, such as consuls, magistrates, and military leaders. It represents the coercive power not only to wage wars but also to impose sanctions against lawbreakers. The other type of power was auctoritas, vested in Roman jurists and in the Senate. It was a subtle thing, “more than advice and less than command, an advice which one may not safely ignore.”18 These two types of power correspond to two types of coercion, or political violence. The coercion of potestas is used in the foundation of a legitimate order and, in Rome’s case, the expansion of its empire; the “conservation” of that order is auctoritas.19
The Roman Senate clearly invites comparisons with the Senate of the Republic, which meets in its vast, lavender, bowl-shaped Senate chamber at the center of Coruscant. The ruling body of the galaxy is, in many ways, less powerful: it can only issue “constitutional conventions,” which some systems treated as nonbinding. This Senate was also less exclusive in its membership than its Roman counterpart. Leaders of member worlds had the right to vote and introduce legislation, as Queen Amidala does in The Phantom Menace when she calls for a vote of no confidence in Chancellor Finis Valorum. The “Rights of Sentience,” perhaps the most radical clause in the original Galactic Constitution, protect the society and customs of nonhumans from encroaching humanocentrism. This is an important contrast with the later Empire, which is unabashedly speciesist in excluding all but human species from service, whether stormtroopers or officers.20
Queen Amidala calls for a vote of no confidence. (The Phantom Menace)
Chancellor Palpatine addressing the Galactic Senate. (The Phantom Menace)
Patriotism was a key virtue gaining popularity and swaying public opinion among the Romans. Stemming from the Latin root patria, or “fatherland,” patriotism for the Romans channeled the original power of loyalty to close kin for political survival. Patriotism is hard to find in a galaxy far, far away, where “the galactic representatives have become distanced from their people and now the entire system is degenerating.” Not only is there no common agreement on the good that the res publica represents, but Republican politics have devolved into a tool for personal or planetary gain. There is no better example of this than the Neimoidians, who ignore both law and ethics in an effort to turn politics to their own profit.
Yet patriotism still retains the ability to persuade in the Republic. With the perfect vision of hindsight, we can appreciate the irony of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine’s words to the Senate in Attack of the Clones: “It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy. I love the Republic. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated. And as my first act with this new authority, I will create a Grand Army of the Republic to counter the increasing threats of the Separatists.”
Yet why do the Republic’s Senators applaud this turn of events, when so many of them were previously opposed to the Military Creation Act? Perhaps they agree with Anakin in his exchange with Padmé from the same film:
Anakin: I don’t think the system works. We need a system where the politicians sit down and discuss the problem, agree to what’s in the best interest of all the people, and then do it.
Padmé: That’s exactly what we do. The problem is that people don’t always agree.
Anakin: Then they should be made to.
Padmé: By whom? Who’s going to make them?
Anakin: Someone . . .
Padmé: You?
Anakin: No, not me.
Padmé: But someone . . . ?
Anakin: (nods) Someone wise.
Padmé: I don’t know. Sounds an awful lot like dictatorship to me.
Anakin: (after a long pause) Well, if it works . . . ?
In turn, perhaps the script is alluding to someone such as Julius Caesar, elected to Roman dictatorship after dictatorship and showered with honors far beyond any sense of proportion. Caesar had been voted forty days of thanksgiving after stunning military victories in Gaul, Egypt, Asia, and Africa. Traditionally, a consul such as Caesar would be elected dictator for only six months, but for him, the Senate had ratified a ten-year position; the next year, he would be voted dictator perpetu
o. Caesar won these votes because he had packed the Senate with supporters and co-opted many potential opponents, but the reasons for his rise extended beyond his enormous political gifts:
The conventional view is that a large empire from time to time necessitated huge military commands, which had the effect of putting strong, personally loyal armies into the hands of men such as Sulla and Caesar who could not resist the temptation to use them. Empire undoubtedly had two effects of huge political significance: it necessitated the recruitment of impoverished soldiers who had little reason to support the political status quo; and it created an enormous (by ancient standards) capital city—incomparably wealthy and grand, and also well endowed with slums—that by the 60s [BC] . . . was no longer willing to acquiesce in conservative aristocratic control. One-man rule was the logical outcome.21
In a familiar refrain, the Roman Republic’s model allows a model citizen to be named a temporary dictator, acting out of virtue to restore equilibrium. Yet when Caesar gained the post of censor for life—with direct control over the naming of senators, he was literally flirting with godhood. The people “addressed him outright as Julian Jupiter and ordered a temple to be consecrated to him and to his Clemency,” claimed Cassius Dio.22
While Caesar dreamed of divinity, Senator Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) argued against this concentration of power. His reasoning would not be easily reconciled with our own democratic aversion to tyranny today, for Roman senators stood for the essentially aristocratic values of their own personal freedom from “the dominance of others” and their own liberty to “exercise authority and dignity, while retaining ‘equality’ among their own peer group.”23 It’s the loss of this type of freedom, and not the peril posed to the liberties of ordinary Romans, that was Cicero’s greatest worry in 49 BC as Caesar crossed the Rubicon. As the Empire replaces the Republic in Revenge of the Sith, Padmé Amidala’s own woes would not have seemed out of place in Rome. “So this is how liberty dies, to thunderous applause,” she grimly declares.