Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Stratocracy
/strəˈtɒkrəsi/noun
Government by the military, in which the armed forces are the state rather than its instrument.
The Greek roots
στρατός
stratós
army
κράτος
krátos
power, rule
Literally: “rule by the army”
The story of the word
Distinct from a junta imposed on an existing civil state: a stratocracy has no separate civilian government to suspend. Stratos also gives strategy, from stratēgos, the elected general who ran Athenian campaigns and, in Pericles' case, the city. Sparta comes closest to the pure case, with a citizen body defined by military messes.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
strategystratagemdemocracystrategic
In a sentence
Historians argue over whether the Mamluk sultanate counts as a stratocracy.
The constitution reserved a quarter of the seats for serving officers, which critics called stratocracy by another name.