I think Catholic Church works like this. The middle level is bishop -- positions higher than this are (at least were at some point of history) more or less democratically voted, functions lower than this are like in the military, they have to obey completely.
That's a good point, I knew they elected the pope but I wasn't sure about the middle positions, I was thinking more about the size of the groups being an important factor when I compared the other system to the military.. And the Catholic Church is another example of an effective real world analog to a system I was thinking about hypothetically.
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