Synarchism generally means "joint rule" or "harmonious rule". Beyond this general definition, bothsynarchism andsynarchy have been used to denote rule by a secretelite inVichy France,Italy,China, andHong Kong, while being used to describe a pro-Catholic theocracy movement inMexico.^[1]

The earliest recorded use of the termsynarchy is attributed toThomas Stackhouse (1677–1752), an English clergyman who used the word in hisNew History of the Holy Bible from the Beginning of the World to the Establishment of Christianity (published in two folio volumes in 1737). The attribution can be found in theWebster's Dictionary (the American Dictionary of the English Language, published byNoah Webster in 1828). Webster's definition forsynarchy is limited entirely to "joint rule orsovereignty". The word is derived from the Greek stemssyn meaning "with" or "together" andarchy meaning "rule".

The most substantial early use of the wordsynarchy comes from the writings ofAlexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre (1842–1909), who used the term in his bookLa France vraie to describe what he believed was the idealform of government.^[2] In reaction to the emergence ofanarchist ideologies and movements, Saint-Yves elaborated a political formula which he believed would lead to a harmonious society. He defended social differentiation and hierarchy with collaboration between social classes, transcending conflict between social and economic groups: synarchy, as opposed toanarchy. Specifically, Saint-Yves envisioned aFederal Europe (as well as all the states it has integrated) with acorporatist government composed of threecouncils, one foracademia, one for thejudiciary, and one forcommerce.^[3]

The wordsynarchy is used, especially among French and Spanish speakers, to describe ashadow government ordeep state, a form of government where political power effectively rests with a secretelite, in contrast to anoligarchy where the elite is or could be known by the public.^[4]

ThePacte Synarchique is a historical theory that the surrender ofVichy France was as a result of a conspiracy by French industrial and banking interests to surrender France to Hitler in order to fightCommunism. The original Pacte was supposedly discovered after the death in 1941 ofJean Coutrot, former member ofGroupe X-Crise. According to this document, aMouvement Synarchique d'Empire had been founded in 1922 with the aim of abolishingparliamentarianism and replacing it with synarchy. A Vichy investigation^[5] found no evidence for theMouvement Synarchiste d'Empire existence. Most of the presumed synarchists were either associated with theBanque Worms or with Groupe X-Crise and were close to AdmiralFrançois Darlan the Vichy prime minister (1941–1942). Most historians agree that thePacte was ahoax created by some French collaborators with Nazi Germany to weaken Darlan and his Vichy technocrats.^[6]

Lyndon LaRouche, leader of theLaRouche movement, described a wide-ranging historical phenomenon, starting withAlexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre and theMartinist Order followed by important individuals, organizations, movements and regimes that are alleged to have been synarchist, including thegovernment of Nazi Germany.^[7] He claimed that during theGreat Depression an international coalition of financial institutions, raw materials cartels, andintelligence operatives installedfascist regimes throughoutEurope (and tried to do so inMexico) to maintain world order and prevent the repudiation ofinternational debts.^[8] LaRouche identified the formerU.S. vice president and formerPNAC memberDick Cheney as a modern "synarchist", and claimed that "synarchists" have "a scheme for replacing regular military forces of nations, byprivate armies in the footsteps of a privately financed internationalWaffen-SS like scheme, a force deployed by leading financier institutions, such as the multi-billions funding by theU.S. Treasury, of Cheney'sHalliburton gang."^[9]

Harvard historian andsinologistJohn K. Fairbank used the wordsynarchy in his 1953 bookTrade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842–1854, and in later writings, to describe the mechanisms of government under theQing dynasty inChina. Fairbank's synarchy is a form of joint rule by co-opting existing Manchu and Han Chinese elites and bringing the foreign powers into the system and legitimizing them through a schedule of rituals and tributes that gave them a stake in the Qing dynasty rule. He believed that the Qing, who were considered outside rulers because of their Manchu origins, developed this strategy out of necessity because they did not have a strong political base in China.^[10][11][12]

The term is also used by some political scientists to describe theBritish colonial government in Hong Kong (1842–1997).Ambrose King, in his 1975 paperAdministrative Absorption of Politics in Hong Kong, described colonial Hong Kong's administration as "elite consensual government". In it, he claimed, any coalition of elites or forces capable of challenging the legitimacy of Hong Kong's administrative structure would be co-opted by the existing apparatus through the appointment of leading political activists, business figures and other elites to oversight committees, by granting themBritish honours, and by bringing them into elite institutions like Hong Kong's horse racing clubs. He called thissynarchy, by extension of Fairbank's use of the word.

Synarchy is also the name of the ideology of a political movement inMexico dating from the 1930s. In Mexico, it was historically a movement of theRoman Catholicextreme right, in some ways akin tofascism, violently opposed to thepopulist andsecularist policies of therevolutionary (PNR, PRM, and PRI) governments that ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000.^[13]

TheNational Synarchist Union(Unión Nacional Sinarquista, UNS) was founded in May 1937 by a group of Catholic political activists led by José Antonio Urquiza, who was murdered in April 1938, andSalvador Abascal as a revival of the Cristero movement.^[14] In 1946, a faction of the movement loyal to deposed leaderManuel Torres Bueno regrouped as thePopular Force Party (Partido Fuerza Popular). Synarchism revived as a political movement in the 1970s through theMexican Democratic Party (PDM),^[15] whose candidate, Ignacio González Gollaz, polled 1.8 percent of the vote at the 1982 presidential election. In 1988Gumersindo Magaña polled a similar proportion, but the party then suffered a split, and, in 1992, lost its registration as apolitical party. It was dissolved in 1996.

There are now two organisations, both calling themselves the Unión Nacional Sinarquista, one aligning toFrancoist policies,^[16] the other following theNational Syndicalism ofPrimo De Rivera.^{[according to whom?]}Carlos Abascal, son ofSalvador Abascal, was Mexico's Secretary of the Interior duringVicente Fox's presidency. Manysinarquistas are now militant in theNational Action Party, PAN, of former presidents Vicente Fox (2000–2006) andFelipe Calderón (2006–2012).

• Richard F. Kuisel (Spring 1970)."The Legend of the Vichy Synarchy."French Historical Studies, vol. 6, no. 3. pp. 365–398.doi:10.2307/286065.
• (in French) Olivier Dard (2012).La synarchie ou le mythe du complot permanent. Paris: Perrin.ISBN 978-2262010997.

• Oligarchy
• Political ideologies

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