This is slightly old, but worth resurrecting for the impending release of Episode III. The Weekly Standard examines how the Empire’s method of orderly governance was far superior to the Republic that preceded it, and why the Rebel Alliances was ultimately “an unimpressive crew of anarchic royals who wreck the galaxy so that Princess Leia can have her tiara back.”

So under Imperial rule, a large group of regional potentates, each with access to a sizable army and star destroyers, runs local affairs. These governors owe their fealty to the Emperor. And once the Emperor is dead, the galaxy will be plunged into chaos.

In all of the time we spend observing the Rebel Alliance, we never hear of their governing strategy or their plans for a post-Imperial universe. All we see are plots and fighting. Their victory over the Empire doesn’t liberate the galaxy–it turns the galaxy into Somalia writ large: dominated by local warlords who are answerable to no one.

Really, Vader was a ‘compassionate conservative’.