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Concept
Puppet state
Summary
A puppet state, puppet régime, puppet government or dummy government is a state that is de jure independent but de facto completely dependent upon an outside power and subject to its orders. Puppet states have nominal sovereignty, except that a foreign power effectively exercises control through economic or military support. By leaving a local government in existence the outside power evades all responsibility, while at the same time successfully paralyzing the local government they tolerate.
Puppet states differ from allies, who choose their actions of their own initiative or in accordance with treaties they have voluntarily entered. Puppet states are forced into legally endorsing actions already taken by a foreign power.
Puppet states are "endowed with the outward symbols of authority", such as a name, flag, anthem, constitution, law codes, motto and government, but in reality is are appendages of another state which creates,
sponsors or otherwise controls the puppet government. International law does not recognize occupied puppet states as legitimate.
Puppet states can cease to be puppets through:
military defeat of the "master" state (as in Europe and Asia in 1945),
absorption into the master state (as in the early Soviet Union),
revolution, notably occurring after withdrawal of foreign occupying forces (like Afghanistan in 1992), or
achievement of independence through state-building methods (especially through de-colonisation).cn]}
The term is a metaphor which compares a state or government to a puppet controlled by a puppeteer with strings. The first recorded use of the term "puppet government" was in 1884, in reference to the Khedivate of Egypt.
In the Middle Ages vassal states existed based on delegation of the rule of a country by a king to noble men of lower rank. Since the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, the concept of a nation came into existence where sovereignty was connected more to the people who inhabited the land than to the nobility who owned the land.
Official source
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