Garrison State

Garrison State is a state which is directly or indirectly ruled by the military. The military has almost total or partial control over state institutions. It usually owns major corporations in the country for sustaining itself as a separate class besides spending huge budget on military expenditures.

This is a totally new form of status quo, requires more study to be understood. What actually can break this status quo is either an external war or an internal revolution within the organization.

Such state owes its existence due to a strong enemy usually in its neighborhood. It also engages itself in continued fights against internal insurgencies.

The state is much consolidated in areas where majority of the population is concentrated. However, the population is mostly marginalized due to lack of political and democratic culture. In the peripheries, marginalization is greater and people are more undeserved.

The population is depoliticized. They are mostly dogmatic, frustrated and vulnerable to all kinds of hate-mongering  That is why popular slogans, anarchic models and even patriotism of the olden days find a good market.

Usually state control is sustained through fear and through intermittent hopes. Pockets of population are also ignored to experiment and to allow some emotional release to their frustrations. In rare cases state control is also ensured through non-state actors who have symbiotic relation with the state and who are mostly ambivalent towards the power elites.

The top-down power structure is properly networked. A second tier of Elite minority who has often some nuisance value is allowed to rule turn by turn.