Lit Why did the Republic become so corrupt post-Ruusan?

The Republic wasn't corrupt for 24,000 years (as far as I know), so why did it become so corrupt all of a sudden?

 

Golden age fallacy.

 

Huh?

 

Because an inept-ad-absurdum galactic government drives a lot of zero-effort book plots? See also NJO, LotF, FotJ.

 

One gets the impression that Order 66 was the first time the Jedi were wiped out, but there were earlier purges. The Republic itself was nearly destroyed during the New Sith Wars. The Republic was "corrupt" during the Pius Dea era.

 

I think that is when the Jedi stepped down from politics (to avoid becoming corrupt I'm guessing) and allowed regular beings to govern themselves. Apparently everyone else other than the Jedi is corrupt.

 

I usually conceptualize the whole prequel-era decline as an aftereffect of the New Sith Wars- that a thousand years of nonstop war, plague, and terror broke the Republic and the Jedi on some sort of spiritual level. It helps to drive the doctrinaire nature of the Jedi, and their increased isolation from the galaxy.

Just my thoughts, anyway.

 

I've always thought it was kinda of a stagnancy and complacency on the part of the Jedi. They thought they destroyed the Sith and became content to essentially function as the Republic's enforcers and their mandate became what the Supreme Chancellor made it, rather than the Force. Consequently, when the Supreme Chancellor is a Sith Lord, things get hairy...

But even before then, politics became a limiting force on the Jedi so that when problems cropped up, they could only address the symptoms rather than the cause as to do so would exceed their mandate, which would get Jedi like Qui-Gon into trouble. We see that the Sith had their hand in a lot of the events leading up to the prequel trilogy and if the Jedi investigated them a bit more deeply they may have found the common connection -- the Order of the Sith Lords, and done something to deal with them before the Sith were ready.

 

Because of a 1,000 years of Sith Lord manipulation.

 

I'd say the Republic is corrupt because it is simply too large. Era's that aren't corrupt probably have insufficient stories to demonstrate corruption.

 

The official explanation is based on a combination of factors. First, the decision to disband the Republic's military following the Ruusan Reformation. This became a problem as the Republic grew and the Mid and Outer Rims grew considerably in population and more importantly economic importance - notably 1,000 years of warfare and Sith occupation had pretty much crushed the non-Core regions in terms of economic capability.

As the Outer Rim descended into lawlessness the Republic was forced to assert itself in these territories. One solution would have been to reestablish an army, but they chose, being happy with peace and presumably with low taxes, not to do this. Instead they declared a massive free trade zone and tweeked the rules on 'Functional Constituencies' in an effort to allow the Outer Rim a great voice and give it better ability to protect itself. This occurred in 124 BBY.

The problem was, this allowed a series of mega-corporate associations including the Trade Federation to essentially buy up the OUter Rim's votes, paralyzing the government and to exercise a great degree of control over that territory. This flooded the halls of power with gigantic bags of cash - leading to a seismic increase in corruption.

In effect, by refusing to assert a strong central government the Republic allowed the peripheral regions to form mini-governments of their own under corporate control, and this power was leveraged en masse back on the Republic itself.

The situation has a parallel in American political structures: imagine if the Senate was the only governing body (no House and no President), and a set of megacorporations did everything they could to buy up the influence of the low-population rural states, they could easily bring efficient government to a complete halt.

 

Even though the Mid and Outer Rims were low in population, they were vast in territory and shear number of sectors. The abjection corruption of even a relatively small fraction say 10% of the Senate via the Trade Federation and its allies would have been enough to seriously gum up the works. Also, I think that even a small portion of the Senate as a whole being more or less openly for sale would seriously undermine the ethics of everyone who remained.

We know that sort of thing was possible, Darth Plageuis was able to pull enough strings via his Banking Clan and other industrial contacts to tip the balance of power and get Palpatine elected Chancellor after all.

 

I wonder if the pre-Ruusan Republic will ever return or if it's as dead as the Je'daii Order.