Puppet States
A puppet state (also known as puppet government or marionette government) is a nominally sovereign state effectively controlled by a foreign power. A puppet state preserves the external paraphernalia of independence like a name, flag, anthem, constitution, law codes and motto but in reality is an organ of another state who has propelled its trusted ally from within the target nation into power.
The term is a metaphor which compares a government to a puppet controlled by strings by an outside puppeteer. It is often used as a term of political criticism to denigrate a government which is perceived as being unduly dependent upon an outside power.
Read more about Puppet States: The First Puppet States, Puppet States in World War I, Puppet States of Imperial Japan, Puppet States of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, Decolonization and Cold War, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words puppet and/or states:
“The pretty fellows you speak of, I own entertain me sometimes, but is it impossible to be diverted with what one despises? I can laugh at a puppet show, at the same time I know there is nothing in it worth my attention or regard.”
—Mary Wortley, Lady Montagu (1689–1762)
“Maybe we were the blind mechanics of disaster, but you don’t pin the guilt on the scientists that easily. You might as well pin it on M motherhood.... Every man who ever worked on this thing told you what would happen. The scientists signed petition after petition, but nobody listened. There was a choice. It was build the bombs and use them, or risk that the United States and the Soviet Union and the rest of us would find some way to go on living.”
—John Paxton (1911–1985)