Military Tech Killed Popular Revolt

As weapons evolved toward expensive, specialist systems, coercive power centralized in state militaries. With mass revolt no longer a credible threat, elected legislatures lost leverage and unelected administrators and judges accumulated de facto governing authority. This helps explain Congress’s legislative retreat and the European Union’s technocratic rise. — If administrative ascendancy reflects a durable coercive asymmetry, electoral wins and protest politics won’t by themselves restore legislative primacy, pushing reform toward institutional design rather than revolt fantasies.