power vacuum

power vacuum (plural power vacuums or power vacua)

1. A lack of centralised political authority, especially following a conflict, revolution, change of power, etc.
   • 1971, Lyndon Johnson, “Challenge and Response: Vietnam 1964—1965”, in The Vantage Point‎, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 152:

     Fourth, knowing what I did of the policies and actions of Moscow and Peking, I was as sure as a man could be that if we did not live up to our commitment in Southeast Asia and elsewhere, they would move to exploit the disarray in the United States and in the alliances of the Free World. They might move independently or they might move together. But move they would — whether through nuclear blackmail, through subversion, with regular armed forces, or in some other manner. As nearly as one can be certain of anything, I knew they could not resist the opportunity to expand their control into the vacuum of power we would leave behind us.

   • 2008 July 22, Rory McCarthy, “Middle East: Driver shot dead after injuring 16 in second Jerusalem bulldozer attack”, in The Guardian‎:

     A few hours before the attack, Yuval Diskin, the head of the Israeli security agency the Shin Bet, had told a parliamentary committee that there was a "power vacuum" in East Jerusalem and he also called for the demolition of the homes of people involved in terrorist attacks.

   • 2010, Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22, Atlantic, published 2011, page 184:

     the old order had irretrievably vanished like breath off a razor blade, and there was a good old-fashioned power vacuum or, as we used to say in factional meetings, a “situation of dual power.”

   • 2022 September 16, Milo Milfort, Anatoly Kurmanaev, Andre Paultre, “Fuel Hike Plunges Haiti Into Near Anarchy”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     As Mr. Henry’s government’s already tenuous hold on the country has largely evaporated during the unrest, other factions have attempted to fill the power vacuum.