ABSTRACT
Praetorianism is a type of civil-military relations with high incidence in regimes and states lacking political legitimacy and supportive political structures, groupings, and organized interests. This chapter distinguishes three forms of the modern military praetorianism: autocratic, oligarchic, and corporate. Autocratic government contains no provisions for legal limitation of powers, accountability or orderly succession. The oligarchic-praetorian type is structured along the lines of the tyrannical type with the exception that the military in the oligarchic system is autonomous and, in the case of Egypt, Syria and Iraq, is always in a position to overthrow the military oligarchy. In corporate praetorianism additional support can come from such groups as the bureaucracy, the church, labor unions, and the technocracy, but it remains secondary. The distinction between oligarchic and corporate praetorianism reflects different socio-economic and political conditions. Modern authoritarianism is differentiated from classical authoritarianism by the scope, level, and type of political support, control, mobilization, and ideology.
