ABSTRACT
The influence of the Roman Praetorian Guard was based on three factors: the Guard’s monopoly on local military power, the absence of definitive rules of succession, and the prestige of the Roman Senate. Praetorian conditions are connected with professional military establishments and structures, some of which are institutionalized ahead of concomitant political and socioeconomic structures—political parties, parliaments, a centralized administrative bureaucracy, national authority, middle classes, and a national ideology. The absence of a strong, cohesive, and articulate middle class is another condition for the establishment of a praetorian government. Although a state may exhibit most social characteristics of praetorianism, its political institutions and procedures may have a relatively high degree of stability. Since 1958, the Iraqi army has propelled Iraq into a praetorian syndrome from which there seems to be little chance for return to civilian rule or stability.
