On Politics in the Star Wars Prequels

 When the Star Wars prequels came out around the term of the millennium, they were criticized for being too political. I don’t think the issue was the politicization per say, but rather that the politicization was in conflict with the nature of the setting. 


At its core, Star Wars is basically a generic high fantasy setting in space. It is about space knights (or rather, space paladins) rescuing space princesses from the evil space emperor and his space evil knight (or rather, space anti-paladin). Arguably, the aesthetic of space chivalry is the core of the franchise, or if not a core, at least a core. Star Wars without the mix of magical medieval and soft science fiction is no longer Star Wars. 


The space-fantasy setting naturally creates a retro-monarchist political system. There can’t be space princesses without space monarchies, nor can there be a Jedi order without the concept of an autonomous quasi-religious order, akin to some sort of crusader order. This retro-monarchism is in obvious conflict with the principles of modern liberal democracy. Not only does Star Wars fail to reconcile the natural quasi-medieval political system of the setting with modern political theory, such reconciliation is impossible. 


On the purely political side of things, Star Wars did try to retcon the politics into democracy. The Queen of Naboo is elected, for instance. However, the Jedi Order, by its nature, is a medieval autonomous crusading order that is barely subject to the civilian authorities. 


This irreconcilability manifests itself in the fact that the good guys aren’t bound by the setting’s own rules. For example, the chancellor is bound by term limits, but Yoda is not. When the chancellor claims the title of “emperor” the republic is dead, but the planetary monarchies are perfectly acceptable. A standing army is borderline unconstitutional, but an autonomous Jedi order is not. 


But, the good guys are not simply not bound by the rules, they are incapable of keeping the rules. A chivalric order without a grandmaster is hardly a chivalric order anymore. The titles of “Princess Leia” and “Queen Amidala” imply monarchies somewhere. The Jedi Order’s nature implies an autonomous crusading order, and so on. In short, the Empire and Sith are judged by the rules of modernity, while the Republic and Jedi are judged by the rules of science-fantasy monarchism. 


Likewise, the Republic itself was barely functional. It had no standing army, beyond the Jedi Order. It was unable to stop its member states from waging war on one another. It couldn’t suppress slavery. In fact, I would hesitate to call it a Republic, or even a Confederation, but a sort of United Nations, but even more impotent. The United Nations requires effective unanimity of the major nations to act. The Galactic Republic seems to be unable to act even on issues supported by everyone outside the lunatic fringes. Rather, it is a United Nations of unarmed planets, having little ability to enforce the law internally. 


In that sense, the Galactic Republic is not a democracy, but rather, an anarcho-confederation, akin to the Holy Roman Empire, but even worse. It does not protect “freedom” in any active sense, but is merely too impotent to violate anyone’s rights, or protect anyone’s rights for that matter. There may be good arguments for maintaining the Galactic Republic: perhaps the false appearance of a central government does stop the planets and systems from waging war on each other. However, it is not an organ capable of converting the popular will into government policy. In other words, it is not a democracy. 


But, there is also a good counter-argument against the Galactic Republic. Maybe the central government should have a standing army. Maybe the central government should be strong enough to suppress the slave trade in the outer rim and impose law and justice on gangster-ran systems. 


In a sense, the tyrannical Empire is better than the impotent Republic by the setting’s own neo-medievalist standards. The evil knight is still a knight, unlike the impotent paper-pushing Senators. The evil emperor uses his position for evil, but wicked greatness is still more glorious than incompetence and inaction. The tyrannical conqueror has his vices, but he still must have the virtues of shrewdness, boldness, industry, and the like. 


In short, the Empire better encapsulates the values of the setting than the Republic, and there is no way to fix that in the Star Wars setting.



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