This can be viewed as 'cooperative warlord politics'. The first is one in which the warlord functions within the political framework through a degree of bargaining with the state regime so that the warlord, sometimes individually and sometimes in a coalition with other warlords, is acting with the explicit consent of or at least in accord with the regime. There are two major functional distinctions when considering warlords and their relationship with a state. There is also a divergence of opinion within the field of political science as to what specifically constitutes warlordism, particularly in the context of the historical setting.Ĭooperative warlord politics vs. There is a tremendous degree of variance in the political, economic, and societal organization, structure, and institutions of states where warlordism exists.

Warlords were present historically in either pre-modern states or 'weak state' societies, and in countries designated ' fragile states' or ' failed states' in modern times. In China, Junfa is applied retroactively to describe the leaders of regional armies who threatened or used violence to expand their rule, including those who rose to lead and unify kingdoms.

It was not widely used until the 1920s, when it was used to describe the chaos after 1918, when provincial military leaders took local control and launched the period that would come to be known in China as the Warlord Era. The first appearance of the word 'warlord' dates to 1856, when used by American philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson in a highly critical essay on the aristocracy in England, 'Piracy and war gave place to trade, politics and letters the war-lord to the law-lord the privilege was kept, whilst the means of obtaining it were changed.' ĭuring the First World War, the term appeared in China as Junfa ( 軍閥), taken from the Japanese gunbatsu, which was taken in turn from the German. 4.2 Russian Civil War and Chechen conflicts.3.2 Ungoverned warlordism, or warlords as 'stationary bandits'.

2.4 Understanding warlordism in the context of European feudalism.

2.2 Warlordism as the dominant political order of pre-state societies.

Star wars warlords mod