Military format constrains which class can dominate a regime

Evidence

As there are four chief divisions of the common people, farmers, artisans, traders, labourers; so also there are four kinds of military forces—the cavalry, the heavy infantry, the light-armed troops, the navy. When the country is adapted for cavalry, then a strong oligarchy is likely to be established. For the security of the inhabitants depends upon a force of this sort, and only rich men can afford to keep horses. The second form of oligarchy prevails when a country is adapted to heavy infantry; for this service is better suited to the rich than to the poor. But the light-armed and the naval element are wholly democratic; and nowadays, where they are numerous, if the two parties quarrel, the oligarchy are often worsted by them in the struggle. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 81

Categorization

• XREF: The military-technology-dictates-regime-type claim evokes the reader’s known debates on conscription and democratization (e.g. work of the sort covered in Tilly’s own later chapters) - worth cross-checking against claims that war-making capacity drove constitutional development. — connects to: War-of-attrition strategic logics only operate within regime-set limits and repertoires — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 822; Ruling classes can maintain permanent armed forces that work-bound classes cannot match; Ruling classes build parallel private military forces positioned on class frontiers (+8 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: A pre-modern statement of material determinism of regime type that is dense enough to re-read - cavalry economics favoring oligarchy versus naval masses favoring democracy is a full causal mechanism in compact form.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 81

Broader Connections

• Regime structure determines revolutionary situation frequency and character #corroborates (0.84) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1045
• Ruling classes can maintain permanent armed forces that work-bound classes cannot match #expands (0.82)
• A military class can permeate and partly occupy the state apparatus #qualifies (0.79) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 847
• Ruling classes build parallel private military forces positioned on class frontiers #expands (0.78)
• Contention forms are regime-bound but also historically embedded #expands (0.78) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 231
• Highly despotic regimes cannot dominate too deeply and rely on indirect rule #qualifies (0.77) — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 163
• Low-capacity, nondemocratic regimes rely on military force against armed challengers #exemplifies (0.76) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 388
• Comparing rival weapons head-to-head obscured whether each force could actually do its job #complicates (0.76) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2602
• Military influence masks the class origin of its officer stratum #complicates (0.74)
• A regime’s prior trajectory shapes its present repertoires #qualifies (0.73) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 683