Comment by Ekenda on 21/01/2025 at 15:09 UTC

673 upvotes, 3 direct replies (showing 3)

View submission: Are there examples of oligarchic governments being removed peacefully?

The reality is that none of these were peaceful, they all involved the populace coming out and overtly demonstrating their frustrations with the regime. The Military was often split enough to not aggressively suppress the population, or if it did it severely worsened the situation prompting more civil violence. Additionally, these governments listed all still have a long way to go. Arguably South Korea is still oligarchic with very powerful companies like Samsung amongst others. Indonesia has flip flopped between democracy autocracy and seems to have largely returned to favouring Suharto's line. The Philippines just elected "Bongbong" Marcos who is genuinely quite the character. Of the lot Taiwan has probably done the best but yeah for the others listed here it isn't looking quite so rosy yet. The reality was that most of the "oligarchs" that were overthrown weren't totally ousted and retained significant influence following their removal, whilst the polities that replaced them failed to make significant improvements.

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Comment by postal-history at 21/01/2025 at 15:18 UTC

502 upvotes, 1 direct replies

I believe the questioner was basically asking whether it's possible to depose an unelected, oligarchic government without a civil war. My answer is in the affirmative, although it's true as you say that none of these cases led to a powerful oligarchy simply agreeing to completely leave local politics; the outcomes have depended on the particular institutions and civil society that surrounds the transition.