warlord
Sign in to saveright|thumb|Marshal Zhang Zuolin, one of many warlords in early 20th-century China Warlords are individuals who exercise military, economic, and political control over a region, often one without a strong central or national government, typically through informal control over local armed forces. Warlords have existed throughout much of history, albeit in a variety of different capacities within the political, economic, and social structure of states or ungoverned territories. The term is often applied in the context of China around the end of the Qing dynasty, especially during the Warlord Era
Article
25 sectionsContents
- Historical origins and etymology
- Conceptions of warlordism
- Warlordism as the dominant political order of pre-state societies
- Economics of warlordism
- Understanding warlordism in the context of European feudalism
- Warlordism in the contemporary world
- Cooperative warlord politics
- Philippines
- Afghanistan
- Post-Soviet republics
- Ungoverned warlordism, or warlords as "stationary bandits"
- Contemporary examples of warlordism
- Afghanistan
- Russian Civil War and Chechen conflicts
- Liberia
- Historical examples of warlordism
- China
- Mongolia
- Vietnam
- Europe
- Other examples
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Further reading
right|thumb|Marshal Zhang Zuolin, one of many warlords in early 20th-century China Warlords are individuals who exercise military, economic, and political control over a region, often one without a strong central or national government, typically through informal control over local armed forces. Warlords have existed throughout much of history, albeit in a variety of different capacities within the political, economic, and social structure of states or ungoverned territories. The term is often applied in the context of China around the end of the Qing dynasty, especially during the Warlord Era. The term may also be used for a supreme military leader.
== Historical origins and etymology == 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."