Authoritarianism is a
political system
In political science, a political system means the form of Political organisation, political organization that can be observed, recognised or otherwise declared by a society or state (polity), state.
It defines the process for making official gov ...
characterized by the rejection of
political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''
status quo
is a Latin phrase meaning the existing state of affairs, particularly with regard to social, economic, legal, environmental, political, religious, scientific or military issues. In the sociological sense, the ''status quo'' refers to the curren ...
'', and reductions in
democracy
Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...
,
separation of powers
The separation of powers principle functionally differentiates several types of state (polity), state power (usually Legislature#Legislation, law-making, adjudication, and Executive (government)#Function, execution) and requires these operat ...
,
civil liberties, and the
rule of law
The essence of the rule of law is that all people and institutions within a Body politic, political body are subject to the same laws. This concept is sometimes stated simply as "no one is above the law" or "all are equal before the law". Acco ...
.
Authoritarian
regime
In politics, a regime (also spelled régime) is a system of government that determines access to public office, and the extent of power held by officials. The two broad categories of regimes are democratic and autocratic. A key similarity acros ...
s may be either
autocratic or
oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a
party
A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a Hospitality, host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will oft ...
or the
military
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...
.
States that have a blurred boundary between democracy and authoritarianism have sometimes been characterized as "hybrid democracies", "
hybrid regimes" or "competitive authoritarian" states.
The political scientist
Juan Linz, in an influential 1964 work, ''An Authoritarian Regime: Spain'', defined authoritarianism as possessing four qualities:
# Limited
political pluralism, which is achieved with constraints on the
legislature
A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial power ...
,
political parties
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...
and
interest groups.
#
Political legitimacy based on appeals to emotion and identification of the regime as a necessary evil to combat "easily recognizable societal problems, such as
underdevelopment
Underdevelopment, in the context of international development, reflects a broad condition or phenomena defined and critiqued by theorists in fields such as economics, development studies, and postcolonial studies. Used primarily to distinguish s ...
or
insurgency
An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare against a larger authority. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric warfare, asymmetric nature: small irregular forces ...
."
# Minimal
political mobilization, and suppression of anti-regime activities.
# Ill-defined executive powers, often vague and shifting, used to extend the power of the executive.
Minimally defined, an authoritarian government lacks free and competitive
direct election
Direct election is a system of choosing political officeholders in which the voters directly cast ballots for the persons or political party that they want to see elected. The method by which the winner or winners of a direct election are chosen ...
s to
legislature
A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial power ...
s, free and competitive direct or
indirect elections for
executives, or both.
Broadly defined, authoritarian states include countries that lack
human rights
Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...
such as
freedom of religion, or countries in which the government and the
opposition do not alternate in power at least once following free elections.
Authoritarian states might contain nominally democratic institutions such as political parties, legislatures and elections which are managed to entrench authoritarian rule and can feature fraudulent, non-competitive elections.
Since 1946, the share of authoritarian states in the international political system increased until the mid-1970s but declined from then until the year 2000.
Prior to 2000, dictatorships typically began with a
coup and replaced a pre-existing authoritarian regime.
Since 2000, dictatorships are most likely to begin through democratic backsliding whereby a democratically elected leader established an authoritarian regime.
Authoritarian states usually result in worse health outcomes, a weaker economy and more corruption than in more democratic nations.
Characteristics
Authoritarianism is characterized by highly concentrated and
centralized government power maintained by
political repression and the exclusion of potential or supposed challengers by armed force. It uses
political parties
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...
and mass organizations to mobilize people around the goals of the regime.
[Theodore M. Vesta, '' Ethiopia: A Post-Cold War African State'. Greenwood, 1999, p. 17.] Adam Przeworski has theorized that "authoritarian equilibrium rests mainly on lies, fear and economic prosperity."
Authoritarianism also tends to embrace the informal and unregulated exercise of
political power
In political science, power is the ability to influence or direct the actions, beliefs, or conduct of actors. Power does not exclusively refer to the threat or use of force (coercion) by one actor against another, but may also be exerted thro ...
, a leadership that is "self-appointed and even if elected cannot be displaced by citizens' free choice among competitors", the arbitrary deprivation of
civil liberties and little tolerance for meaningful
opposition.
A range of
social control
Social control is the regulations, sanctions, mechanisms, and systems that restrict the behaviour of individuals in accordance with social norms and orders. Through both informal and formal means, individuals and groups exercise social con ...
s also attempt to stifle
civil society
Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.[armed forces
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a ...]
, a bureaucracy staffed by the regime and creation of
allegiance through various means of
socialization
In sociology, socialization (also socialisation – see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is the process of Internalisation (sociology), internalizing the Norm (social), norm ...
and indoctrination.
Pippa Norris and
Ronald Inglehart identify authoritarianism in politicians and political parties by looking for values of security, conformity, and obedience.
Authoritarianism is marked by "indefinite political tenure" of the ruler or
ruling party (often in a
one-party state
A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a governance structure in which only a single political party controls the ruling system. In a one-party state, all opposition parties are either outlawed or en ...
) or other authority.
The transition from an authoritarian system to a more
democratic form of government is referred to as
democratization.
Constitutions in authoritarian regimes
Authoritarian regimes often adopt "the institutional trappings" of democracies such as
constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed.
When these pri ...
s. Constitutions in authoritarian states may serve a variety of roles, including "operating manual" (describing how the government is to function); "billboard" (signal of regime's intent), "blueprint" (outline of future regime plans), and "window dressing" (material designed to obfuscate, such as provisions setting forth freedoms that are not honored in practice). Authoritarian constitutions may help legitimize, strengthen, and consolidate regimes. An authoritarian constitution "that successfully coordinates government action and defines popular expectations can also help consolidate the regime's grip on power by inhibiting re coordination on a different set of arrangements." Unlike democratic constitutions, authoritarian constitutions do not set direct limits on executive authority; however, in some cases such documents may function as ways for elites to protect their own property rights or constrain autocrats' behavior.
The
Soviet Russia Constitution of 1918, the first charter of the new
Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic (RSFSR), was described by
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...
as a "revolutionary" document. It was, he said, unlike any constitution drafted by a nation-state. The concept of "authoritarian constitutionalism" has been developed by legal scholar
Mark Tushnet.
[Tushnet, Mark (January 2015)]
"Authoritarian Constitutionalism"
. ''Cornell Law Review''. Cambridge University Press. 100 (2): 36–50. . Tushnet distinguishes authoritarian constitutionalist regimes from "liberal constitutionalist" regimes ("the sort familiar in the modern West, with core commitments to human rights and self-governance implemented by means of varying institutional devices") and from purely authoritarian regimes (which reject the idea of human rights or constraints on leaders' power).
[ He describes authoritarian constitutionalist regimes as (1) authoritarian dominant-party states that (2) impose sanctions (such as libel judgments) against, but do not arbitrarily arrest, political dissidents; (3) permit "reasonably open discussion and criticism of its policies"; (4) hold "reasonably free and fair elections", without systemic intimidation, but "with close attention to such matters as the drawing of election districts and the creation of party lists to ensure as best it can that it will prevailand by a substantial margin"; (5) reflect at least occasional responsiveness to public opinion; and (6) create "mechanisms to ensure that the amount of dissent does not exceed the level it regards as desirable." Tushnet cites ]Singapore
Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...
as an example of an authoritarian constitutionalist state, and connects the concept to that of hybrid regimes.[
]
Economy
Scholars such as Seymour Lipset, Carles Boix, Susan Stokes, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Stephens and John Stephens argue that economic development increases the likelihood of democratization. Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi argue that while economic development makes democracies less likely to turn authoritarian, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that development causes democratization (turning an authoritarian state into a democracy).
Eva Bellin argues that under certain circumstances the bourgeoise and labor are more likely to favor democratization, but less so under other circumstances. Economic development can boost public support for authoritarian regimes in the short-to-medium term.
According to Michael Albertus, most land reform programs tend to be implemented by authoritarian regimes that subsequently withhold property rights
The right to property, or the right to own property (cf. ownership), is often classified as a human right for natural persons regarding their Possession (law), possessions. A general recognition of a right to private property is found more rarely ...
from the beneficiaries of the land reform. Authoritarian regimes do so to gain coercive leverage over rural populations.
Institutions
Authoritarian regimes typically incorporate similar political institutions to that of democratic regimes, such as legislatures and judiciaries, although they may serve different purposes. Democratic regimes are marked by institutions that are essential to economic development and individual freedom, including representative legislatures and competitive political parties. Most authoritarian regimes embrace these political structures, but use it in a way that reinforces their power. Authoritarian legislatures, for example, are forums through which leaders may enhance their bases of support, share power, and monitor elites. Additionally, authoritarian party systems are extremely unstable and unconducive to party development, largely due to monopolistic patterns of authority. Judiciaries may be present in authoritarian states where they serve to repress political challengers, institutionalize punishment, and undermine the rule of law.
Democratic and authoritarian arguably differ most prominently in their elections. Democratic elections are generally inclusive, competitive, and fair. In most instances, the elected leader is appointed to act on behalf of the general will. Authoritarian elections, on the other hand, are frequently subject to fraud
In law, fraud is intent (law), intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate Civil law (common law), civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrato ...
and extreme constraints on the participation of opposing parties. Autocratic leaders employ tactics like murdering political opposition and paying election monitors to ensure victory. The proportion of authoritarian regimes with elections and support parties has risen in recent years. This is largely due to the increasing popularity of democracies and electoral autocracies, leading authoritarian regimes to imitate democratic regimes in hopes of receiving foreign aid
In international relations, aid (also known as international aid, overseas aid, foreign aid, economic aid or foreign assistance) is – from the perspective of governments – a voluntary transfer of resources from one country to another. The ...
and dodging criticism. Flawed elections also give authoritarians a controlled way to monitor public sentiment.
According to a 2018 study, most party-led dictatorships regularly hold popular elections. Prior to the 1990s, most of these elections had no alternative parties or candidates for voters to choose. Since the end of the Cold War, about two-thirds of elections in authoritarian systems allow for some opposition, but the elections are structured in a way to heavily favor the incumbent authoritarian regime. In 2020, almost half of all authoritarian systems had multi-party governments. Cabinet appointments by an authoritarian regime to outsiders can consolidate their rule by dividing the opposition and co-opting outsiders.
Hindrances to free and fair elections in authoritarian systems may include:
* Control of the media by the authoritarian incumbents.
* Interference with opposition campaigning.
* Electoral fraud.
* Violence against opposition.
* Large-scale spending by the state in favor of the incumbents.
* Permitting of some parties, but not others.
* Prohibitions on opposition parties, but not independent candidates.
* Allowing competition between candidates within the incumbent party, but not those who are not in the incumbent party.
Interactions with other elites and the masses
The foundations of stable authoritarian rule are that the authoritarian prevents contestation from the masses and other elites. The authoritarian regime may use co-optation or repression (or carrots and sticks) to prevent revolts. Authoritarian rule entails a balancing act whereby the ruler has to maintain the support of other elites (frequently through the distribution of state and societal resources) and the support of the public (through distribution of the same resources): the authoritarian rule is at risk if the balancing act is lopsided, as it risks a coup by the elites or an uprising by the mass public.
Manipulation of information
According to a 2019 study by Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman, authoritarian regimes have over time become less reliant on violence and mass repression to maintain control. The study shows instead that authoritarians have increasingly resorted to manipulation of information as a means of control. Authoritarians increasingly seek to create an appearance of good performance, conceal state repression, and imitate democracy.
While authoritarian regimes invest considerably in propaganda out of a belief that it enhances regime survival, scholars have offered mixed views as to whether propaganda is effective.
Systemic weakness and resilience
Andrew J. Nathan notes that "regime theory holds that authoritarian systems are inherently fragile because of weak legitimacy, overreliance on coercion, over-centralization
Centralisation or centralization (American English) is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning, decision-making, and framing strategies and policies, become concentrated within a particular ...
of decision making, and the predominance of personal power over institutional norms. ... Few authoritarian regimesbe they communist, fascist, corporatist, or personalisthave managed to conduct orderly, peaceful, timely, and stable successions."[Andrew J. Nathan]
"Authoritarian Resilience"
, ''Journal of Democracy'', 14.1 (2003), pp. 6–17.
Political scientist Theodore M. Vestal writes that authoritarian political systems may be weakened through inadequate responsiveness to either popular or elite demands and that the authoritarian tendency to respond to challenges by exerting tighter control, instead of by adapting, may compromise the legitimacy of an authoritarian state and lead to its collapse.
One exception to this general trend is the endurance of the authoritarian rule of the Chinese Communist Party
The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...
which has been unusually resilient among authoritarian regimes. Nathan posits that this can be attributed to four factors such as (1) "the increasingly norm-bound nature of its succession politics"; (2) "the increase in meritocratic as opposed to factional considerations in the promotion of political elites"; (3) "the differentiation and functional specialization of institutions within the regime"; and (4) "the establishment of institutions for political participation and appeal that strengthen the CCP's legitimacy among the public at large."
Some scholars have challenged notions that authoritarian states are inherently brittle systems that require repression and propaganda to make people comply with the authoritarian regime. Adam Przeworski has challenged this, noting that while authoritarian regimes do take actions that serve to enhance regime survival, they also engage in mundane everyday governance and their subjects do not hold a posture towards the regime at all moments of their life. He writes, "People in autocracies do not incessantly live under the shadow of dramatic historical events; they lead everyday routine lives." Similarly, Thomas Pepinsky has challenged the common mental image of an authoritarian state as one of grim totalitarianism, desperate hardship, strict censorship, and dictatorial orders of murder, torture and disappearances. He writes, "life in authoritarian states is mostly boring and tolerable."
Violence
Yale University political scientist Milan Svolik argues that violence is a common characteristic of authoritarian systems. Violence tends to be common in authoritarian states because of a lack of independent third parties empowered to settle disputes between the dictator, regime allies, regime soldiers and the masses.
Authoritarians may resort to measures referred to as '' coup-proofing'' (structures that make it hard for any small group to seize power). Coup-proofing strategies include strategically placing family, ethnic, and religious groups in the military; creating of an armed force parallel to the regular military; and developing multiple internal security agencies with overlapping jurisdiction that constantly monitor one another. Research shows that some coup-proofing strategies reduce the risk of coups occurring and reduce the likelihood of mass protests. However, coup-proofing reduces military effectiveness, and limits the rents that an incumbent can extract. A 2016 study shows that the implementation of succession rules reduce the occurrence of coup attempts. Succession rules are believed to hamper coordination efforts among coup plotters by assuaging elites who have more to gain by patience than by plotting. According to political scientists Curtis Bell and Jonathan Powell, coup attempts in neighboring countries lead to greater coup-proofing and coup-related repression in a region. A 2017 study finds that countries' coup-proofing strategies are heavily influenced by other countries with similar histories. A 2018 study in the '' Journal of Peace Research'' found that leaders who survive coup attempts and respond by purging known and potential rivals are likely to have longer tenures as leaders. A 2019 study in ''Conflict Management and Peace Science'' found that personalist dictatorships are more likely to take coup-proofing measures than other authoritarian regimes; the authors argue that this is because "personalists are characterized by weak institutions and narrow support bases, a lack of unifying ideologies and informal links to the ruler."
According to a 2019 study, personalist dictatorships are more repressive than other forms of dictatorship.
Typologies
According to Yale professor Juan José Linz there a three main types of political regimes today: democracies
Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...
,
totalitarian regimes and, sitting between these two, authoritarian regimes (with hybrid regime
A hybrid regime is a type of political system often created as a result of an incomplete democratic transition from an authoritarian regime to a Democracy, democratic one (or vice versa). Hybrid regimes are categorized as having a combination of ...
s).
According to University of Michigan professor Dan Slater, modern forms of authoritarianism are fundamentally dissimilar from historical forms of nondemocratic rule. He links modern authoritarianism to the era of mass politics, which began with the French Revolution.
Similar terms
* An authoritarian regime has "a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people". Unlike totalitarian states, they will allow social and economic institutions not under governmental control, and tend to rely on passive mass acceptance rather than active popular support.[
* An ]Autocracy
Autocracy is a form of government in which absolute power is held by the head of state and Head of government, government, known as an autocrat. It includes some forms of monarchy and all forms of dictatorship, while it is contrasted with demo ...
is a state/government in which one person possesses "unlimited power".
* A Totalitarian state is "based on subordination of the individual to the state and strict control of all aspects of the life and productive capacity of the nation especially by coercive measures (such as censorship and terrorism)". and are ruled by a single ruling party made up of loyal supporters. Unlike autocracies, which "seek only to gain absolute political power and to outlaw opposition",[Hannah Arendt"/> totalitarian states are characterized by an official ideology, which "seek only to gain absolute political power and to outlaw opposition",][Hannah Arendt">(according to Hannah Arendt)] and "seek to dominate every aspect of everyone's life as a prelude to world domination".[Hannah Arendt"/>
* A ]Fascist
Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural soci ...
state is autocratic and based on a political philosophy/movement, (such as that of the Fascisti of pre-WWII Italy) "that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition".
* Authoritarian personality is the personality type
In psychology, personality type refers to the psychological classification of individuals. In contrast to personality traits, the existence of personality types remains extremely controversial. Types are sometimes said to involve ''qualitative'' ...
treating authority figures with obedience. A study found evidence for both left-wing and right-wing authoritarianism.
Subtypes
Several subtypes of authoritarian regimes have been identified by Linz and others.[Mark J. Gasiorowski, The Political Regimes Project in ''On Measuring Democracy: Its Consequences and Concomitants'' (ed. Alex Inketes), 2006, pp. 110–111.] Linz identified the two most basic subtypes as traditional authoritarian regimes and bureaucratic-military authoritarian regimes:
* Traditional authoritarian regimes are those "in which the ruling authority (generally a single person)" is maintained in power "through a combination of appeals to traditional legitimacy, patron-client ties and repression, which is carried out by an apparatus bound to the ruling authority through personal loyalties." An example is Ethiopia
Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
under Haile Selassie I.
* Bureaucratic-military authoritarian regimes are those "governed by a coalition of military officers and technocrats who act pragmatically (rather than ideologically) within the limits of their bureaucratic mentality." Mark J. Gasiorowski suggests that it is best to distinguish "simple military authoritarian regimes" from "bureaucratic authoritarian regimes" in which "a powerful group of technocrats uses the state apparatus to try to rationalize and develop the economy" such South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
under Park Chung-hee
Park Chung Hee (; ; November14, 1917October26, 1979) was a South Korean politician and army officer who served as the third president of South Korea from 1962 after he seized power in the May 16 coup of 1961 until Assassination of Park Chung ...
.
According to Barbara Geddes, there are seven typologies of authoritarian regimes: dominant party regimes, military regime, personalist regimes, monarchies, oligarchic regimes, indirect military regimes, or hybrids of the first three.
Subtypes of authoritarian regimes identified by Linz are Corporatism, corporatist or organic-statistic, racial and ethnic "democracy" and post-totalitarian.
* Corporatist authoritarian regimes "are those in which corporatism institutions are used extensively by the state to coopt and demobilize powerful interest groups." This type has been studied most extensively in Latin America.
* Racial and ethnic "democracies" are those in which "certain racial or ethnic groups enjoy full democratic rights while others are largely or entirely denied those rights", such as in South Africa under apartheid.
* Post-totalitarian authoritarian regimes are those in which totalitarian institutions (such as the party, secret police and state-controlled mass media) remain, but where "ideological orthodoxy has declined in favor of routinization, repression has declined, the state's top leadership is less personalized and more secure, and the level of mass mobilization has declined substantially." Examples include the Russian Federation and Soviet Union, Soviet Eastern Bloc states in the mid-1980s. The post-Mao Zedong China, People's Republic of China was viewed as post-totalitarian in the 1990s and early 2000s, with a limited degree of increase in pluralism and civil society. however, in the 2010s, particularly after Xi Jinping succeeded as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and Succession of power in China, rose to power in 2012, Chinese state repression sharply increased, aided by digital authoritarianism, digital control and mass surveillance.
Authoritarian regimes are also sometimes subcategorized by whether they are more personalistic or Populism, populist. Personalistic authoritarian regimes are characterized by arbitrary rule and authority exercised "mainly through patronage networks and coercion rather than through institutions and formal rules." Personalistic authoritarian regimes have been seen in post-colonial Africa. By contrast, populist authoritarian regimes "are mobilizational regimes in which a strong, charismatic, manipulative leader rules through a coalition involving key lower-class groups." Examples include Argentina under Juan Perón, Russia under Vladimir Putin, Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser and Venezuela under Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro.
A typology of authoritarian regimes by political scientists Brian Lai and Dan Slater includes four categories:
* machine (oligarchic party dictatorships);
* bossism (autocratic party dictatorships);
* military junta, juntas (oligarchic military dictatorships); and
* Strongman (politics), strongman (autocratic military dictatorships).[
Lai and Slater argue that single-party regimes are better than military regimes at developing institutions (e.g. mass mobilization, patronage networks and coordination of elites) that are effective at continuing the regime's incumbency and diminishing domestic challengers; Lai and Slater also argue that military regimes more often initiate military conflicts or undertake other "desperate measures" to maintain control as compared to single-party regimes.][
John Duckitt suggests a link between authoritarianism and Collectivism and individualism, collectivism, asserting that both stand in opposition to individualism. Duckitt writes that both authoritarianism and collectivism submerge individual rights and goals to group goals, expectations and Conformity, conformities.
According to Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, authoritarian regimes that are created in social revolutions are far more durable than other kinds of authoritarian regimes.
]
Authoritarianism and democracy
Authoritarianism and democracy are not necessarily fundamental opposites and may be thought of as poles at opposite ends of a scale, so that it is possible for some democracies to possess authoritarian elements, and for an authoritarian system to have democratic elements. Authoritarian regimes may also be partly responsive to citizen grievances, although this is generally only regarding grievances that do not undermine the stability of the regime. An illiberal democracy, or procedural democracy, is distinguished from liberal democracy, or substantive democracy, in that illiberal democracies lack features such as the rule of law
The essence of the rule of law is that all people and institutions within a Body politic, political body are subject to the same laws. This concept is sometimes stated simply as "no one is above the law" or "all are equal before the law". Acco ...
, protections for minority groups, an Judicial independence, independent judiciary and the real separation of powers
The separation of powers principle functionally differentiates several types of state (polity), state power (usually Legislature#Legislation, law-making, adjudication, and Executive (government)#Function, execution) and requires these operat ...
.
A further distinction that liberal democracies have rarely made war with one another; research has extended the theory and finds that more democratic countries tend to have few wars (sometimes called militarized interstate disputes) causing fewer battle deaths with one another and that democracies have far fewer civil wars.
Research shows that the democratic nations have much less democide or murder by government. Those were also moderately developed nations before applying liberal democratic policies. Research by the World Bank suggests that political institutions are extremely important in determining the prevalence of Political corruption, corruption and that parliamentary systems, political stability and freedom of the press are all associated with lower corruption.
A 2006 study by economist Alberto Abadie has concluded that terrorism is most common in nations with intermediate political freedom. The nations with the least terrorism are the most and least democratic nations, and that "transitions from an authoritarian regime to a democracy may be accompanied by temporary increases in terrorism." Studies in 2013 and 2017 similarly found a nonlinear relationship between political freedom and terrorism, with the most terrorist attacks occurring in partial democracies and the fewest in "strict autocracies and full-fledged democracies." A 2018 study by Amichai Magen demonstrated that liberal democracies and polyarchies not only suffer fewer terrorist attacks as compared to other regime types, but also suffer fewer casualties in terrorist attacks as compared to other regime types, which may be attributed to higher-quality democracies' responsiveness to their citizens' demands, including "the desire for physical safety", resulting in "investment in intelligence, infrastructure protection, first responders, social resilience, and specialized medical care" which averts casualties.[ Magen also stated that terrorism in closed autocracies sharply increased starting in 2013.][
Within national democratic governments, there may be subnational authoritarian enclaves. A prominent examples of this includes the Southern United States after Reconstruction era, Reconstruction, as well as areas of contemporary Argentina and Mexico.
]
Competitive authoritarian regimes
Another type of authoritarian regime is the competitive authoritarian regime, a type of civilian regime that arose in the post-Cold War era. In a competitive authoritarian regime, "formal democratic institutions exist and are widely viewed as the primary means of gaining power, but ... incumbents' abuse of the state places them at a significant advantage vis-à-vis their opponents." The term was coined by Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way in their 2010 book of the same name to discuss a type of hybrid regime
A hybrid regime is a type of political system often created as a result of an incomplete democratic transition from an authoritarian regime to a Democracy, democratic one (or vice versa). Hybrid regimes are categorized as having a combination of ...
that emerged during and after the Cold War.
Competitive authoritarian regimes differ from fully authoritarian regimes in that elections are regularly held, the opposition can openly operate without a high risk of exile or imprisonment and "democratic procedures are sufficiently meaningful for opposition groups to take them seriously as arenas through which to contest for power." Competitive authoritarian regimes lack one or more of the three characteristics of democracies such as free elections (i.e. elections untainted by substantial fraud or voter intimidation); protection of civil liberties (i.e. the freedom of speech, press and association) and an even playing field (in terms of access to resources, the media and legal recourse).
Authoritarianism and fascism
Authoritarianism is considered a core concept of fascism and scholars agree that a fascist regime is foremost an authoritarian form of government, although not all authoritarian regimes are fascist. While authoritarianism is a defining characteristic of fascism, scholars argue that more distinguishing traits are needed to make an authoritarian regime fascist.
Authoritarian socialism
Libertarian authoritarianism
Multiple scholars have identified a form of libertarian authoritarianism emerging in the early 21st century. Wendy Brown describes it as emerging from neoliberalism, opposing both democracy and public institutions while defining freedom in terms of speech and actions that promote homophobia, white supremacy and male privilege. Other scholars have connected it to QAnon and to the Argentinian Presidency of Javier Milei.
Carolin Amlinger and Oliver Nachtwey, in ''Offended Freedom: The Rise of Libertarian Authoritarianism'', describe libertarian authoritarianism as arising from a backlash to government efforts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic and, more broadly, against the increasing complexity of the world, ultimately leading to hostility towards democracy. Writing in Jacobin (magazine), ''Jacobin'' and New Statesman, ''New Statesman'', Amlinger and Nachtwey define libertarian authoritarians as those who believe in the abolition of the democratic state on the basis of its restrictions on individual freedoms, and "consider the democratic state itself, the authorities and their regulations, to be invasive and harmful"; they described the fundamental basis of libertarian authoritarianism to be based in "post-truth politics", and that in the late-modern era, believers validate their opinions "with proto-scientific evidence, rumours, conspiracy theories and fake news". They describe neoliberalism as an additional factor contributing towards the recent rise of the ideology. Individuals they identify as modern adherents to the ideology include Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Javier Milei, having merged their libertarianism with their "authoritarian tendencies".
Authoritarianism and totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a label used by various political scientists to characterize the most tyrannical strain of authoritarian systems; in which the ruling elite, often subservient to a dictator, exert near-total control of the social, political, economic, cultural and religious aspects of society in the territories under its governance.
Linz distinguished new forms of authoritarianism from personalistic dictatorships and totalitarian states, taking Francoist Spain as an example. Unlike personalistic dictatorships, new forms of authoritarianism have institutionalized representation of a variety of actors (in Spain's case, including the military, the Catholic Church in Spain, Catholic Church, Falange Española y de las JONS, Falange, Monarchism, monarchists, technocrats and others). Unlike totalitarian states, the regime relies on passive mass acceptance rather than popular support.[Todd Landman, ''Studying Human Rights'' (Routledge, 2003), p. 71 (citing Linz 1964 and others).] According to Juan Linz the distinction between an authoritarian regime and a Totalitarianism, totalitarian one is that an authoritarian regime seeks to suffocate politics and political mobilization while totalitarianism seeks to control and use them. Authoritarianism primarily differs from totalitarianism in that social and economic institutions exist that are not under governmental control. Building on the work of Yale political scientist Juan Linz, Paul C. Sondrol of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs has examined the characteristics of authoritarian and totalitarian dictators and organized them in a chart:
Sondrol argues that while both authoritarianism and totalitarianism are forms of autocracy, they differ in three key Dichotomy, dichotomies:
Compared to totalitarianism, "the authoritarian state still maintains a certain distinction between state and society. It is only concerned with political power and as long as that is not contested it gives society a certain degree of liberty. Totalitarianism, on the other hand, invades private sphere, private life and asphyxiates it."[Radu Cinpoes, ''Nationalism and Identity in Romania: A History of Extreme Politics from the Birth of the State to EU Accession'', p. 70.] Another distinction is that "authoritarianism is not animated by utopian ideals in the way totalitarianism is. It does not attempt to change the world and human nature." Carl Joachim Friedrich writes that "a totalist ideology, a party reinforced by a secret police, and monopoly control of ... industrial mass society" are the three features of totalitarian regimes that distinguish them from other autocracies.
Greg Yudin, a professor of political philosophy at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, argues "political passivity and civic disengagement" are "key features" of authoritarianism, while totalitarianism relies on "mass mobilization, terror and homogeneity of beliefs".
Economic effects
In 2010, Dani Rodrik wrote that democracies outperform autocracies in terms of long-term economic growth, economic stability, adjustments to external economic shocks, human capital investment, and economic equality. A 2019 study by Daron Acemoglu, Suresh Naidu, Pascual Restrepo, and James A. Robinson (economist), James A. Robinson found that democracy increases GDP per capita by about 20 percent over the long-term. According to Amartya Sen, no functioning liberal democracy has ever suffered a large-scale famine. Studies suggest that several health indicators (life expectancy and infant and maternal mortality) have a stronger and more significant association with democracy than they have with Gross domestic product, GDP per capita, size of the public sector or income inequality. States that undergo democratic backsliding are more likely to face downgrades in their sovereign bond ratings.
One of the few areas that some scholars have theorized that autocracies may have an advantage, is in industrialization. In the 20th century, Seymour Martin Lipset argued that low-income authoritarian regimes have certain technocratic "efficiency-enhancing advantages" over low-income democracies that gives authoritarian regimes an advantage in economic development.[Morton H. Halperin, Joseph T. Siegle, & Michael M. Weinstein, ]
The Democracy Advantage: How Democracies Promote Prosperity and Peace
'' (Council on Foreign Relations/Psychology Press, 2005). By contrast, Morton H. Halperin, Joseph T. Siegle and Michael M. Weinstein (2005) argue that democracies "realize superior development performance" over authoritarianism, pointing out that poor democracies are more likely to have steadier economic growth and less likely to experience economic and humanitarian catastrophes (such as refugee crises) than authoritarian regimes; that civil liberties in democracies act as a curb on corruption and misuse of resources; and that democracies are more adaptable than authoritarian regimes.
Military effects
According to Allan C. Stam and Dan Reiter, liberal democracies have an advantage in battlefield performance over non-democracies and illiberal democracies. They argue that this democratic advantage is derived from the fact that democratic soldiers fight harder, democratic states tend to ally together in war, and democracies can employ more economic resources towards combat. Due to elevated fears against military coups against authoritarian regimes, authoritarian regimes may also put loyalists in the military. This may reduce military effectiveness as loyalty is prioritized over experience when filling key positions within the military. However, critics argue that democracy itself makes little difference in war and that some other factors, such as overall power, determine whether a country would achieve victory or face defeat. In some cases, such as the Vietnam War, democracy may even have contributed to defeat. Jasen Castillo argues that autocratic states may in certain circumstances have an advantage over democracies; for example, authoritarian regimes may have ideologies that require unconditional loyalty, which may contribute to military cohesion.
According to Democratic peace theory, fully functioning democracies are less likely to go to war with each other. No similar advantage has been found with authoritarian regimes.
Historical trends
Pre-World War II
Authoritarian rule before World War II includes short-lived dictatorships and has been claimed to be understudied.
Post-World War II anti-authoritarianism
Both World War II (ending in 1945) and the Cold War (ending in 1991) resulted in the replacement of authoritarian regimes by either democratic regimes or regimes that were less authoritarian.
World War II saw the defeat of the Axis powers by the Allies of World War II, Allied powers. All the Axis powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Fascist Italy and Empire of Japan, Imperial Japan) had totalitarian or authoritarian governments, and two of the three were replaced by governments based on democratic constitutions. The Allies of World War II, Allied powers were an alliance of Democratic states and (later) the Communist Soviet Union. At least in Western Europe the initial post-war era embraced pluralism and freedom of expression in areas that had been under control of authoritarian regimes. The memory of fascism and Nazism was denigrated. The new Federal Republic of Germany banned its expression. In reaction to the centralism of the Nazi state, the new constitution of West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany) exercised "separation of powers
The separation of powers principle functionally differentiates several types of state (polity), state power (usually Legislature#Legislation, law-making, adjudication, and Executive (government)#Function, execution) and requires these operat ...
" and placed "Law enforcement in Germany, law enforcement firmly in the hands" of the sixteen ''States of Germany, Länder'' or states of the republic, not with the federal German government, at least not at first.
Culturally there was also a strong sense of anti-authoritarianism based on anti-fascism in Western Europe. This was attributed to the active resistance from German-occupied Europe, occupation and to fears arising from the development of superpowers. Anti-authoritarianism also became associated with countercultural and Bohemianism, bohemian movements such as the Beat Generation in the 1950s, the hippies in the 1960s["The way of the hippie is antithetical to all repressive hierarchical power structures since they are adverse to the hippie goals of peace, love and freedom ... Hippies don't impose their beliefs on others. Instead, hippies seek to change the world through reason and by living what they believe."] and Punk subculture, punks in the 1970s.
In South America, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile and Uruguay moved away from dictatorships to democracy between 1982 and 1990.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Soviet Union in 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, 1991, the other authoritarian/totalitarian "half" of the Allied Powers of World War II collapsed. This led not so much to revolt against authority in general, but to the belief that authoritarian states (and state control of economies) were outdated. The idea that "liberal democracy was the final form toward which all political striving was directed" became very popular in Western countries and was celebrated in Francis Fukuyama's book ''The End of History and the Last Man''. According to Charles H. Fairbanks Jr., "all the new states that stumbled out of the ruins of the Soviet bloc, except Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, seemed indeed to be moving towards democracy in the early 1990s" as were the countries of East Central Europe and the Balkans.
In December 2010, the Arab Spring arose in response to unrest over economic stagnation but also in opposition to oppressive authoritarian regimes, first in Tunisia, and spreading to Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain and elsewhere. Regimes were toppled in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and partially in Yemen while other countries saw riots, civil wars or insurgencies. Most Arab Spring revolutions failed to lead to enduring democratization. In the decade following the Arab Spring, of the countries in which an autocracy was toppled in the Arab spring, only Tunisia had become a genuine democracy; Egypt backslid to return to a military-run authoritarian state, while Libya, Syria and Yemen experienced devastating civil wars.
21st-century
Since 2005, observers noted what some have called a "democratic recession", although some such as Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way have disputed that there was a significant democratic decline before 2013. In 2018, the Freedom House declared that from 2006 to 2018 "113 countries" around the world showed "a net decline" in "political rights and civil liberties" while "only 62" experienced "a net improvement." Its 2020 report marked the fourteenth consecutive year of declining scores. By 2020, all countries marked as "not free" by Freedom House had also developed practices of transnational repression, aiming to police and control dissent beyond state borders.
Writing in 2018, American political journalist David Frum stated: "The hopeful world of the very late 20th centurythe world of NAFTA and an expanding NATO; of the World Wide Web 1.0 and liberal interventionism; of the global spread of democracy under leaders such as Václav Havel and Nelson Mandelanow looks battered and delusive."
Michael Ignatieff wrote that Fukuyama's idea of liberalism vanquishing authoritarianism "now looks like a quaint artifact of a vanished unipolar moment" and Fukuyama himself expressed concern. By 2018, only one Arab Spring uprising (that in Tunisia) resulted in a transition to constitutional democratic governance and a "resurgence of authoritarianism and Islamic extremism" in the region was dubbed the Arab Winter.
Various explanations have been offered for the new spread of authoritarianism. They include the downside of globalization, and the subsequent rise of populism and neo-nationalism, and the success of the Beijing Consensus, i.e. the authoritarian model of the People's Republic of China. In countries such as the United States, factors blamed for the growth of authoritarianism include the 2008 financial crisis and slower real wage growth as well as social media's elimination of so-called "gatekeepers" of knowledge – the equivalent of disintermediation in economics – so that a large fraction of the population considers to be opinion what were once "viewed as verifiable facts" – including everything from the danger of global warming to the preventing the spread of disease through vaccination – and considers to be fact what are actually only unproven fringe opinions.
In Politics of the United States, United States politics, White supremacy, white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, White power skinhead, neo-Nazi skinheads, and adherents of the Christian Identity, ideology have long operated as a loose network. In the Information Age, internet age, far-right extremists throughout the U.S. and much of the West have consolidated further into a movement known as the Alt-Alt-Right, which has inspired numerous Right-wing terrorism, terrorist attacks while at the same time increasing the mainstream appeal of white supremacism. According to Azani et al.:The current resurgence of far-right ideology may be explained by a variety of factors, primarily, the strategic adjustment of white supremacists to soften overtly racist rhetoric in order to appeal to a wider audience. This new discourse attempts to normalize white supremacy, developing intellectual and theoretical foundations for racism based on the notion that the white race is at risk of eradication, threatened by the growing population of immigrants and people of colour. The pre-existing, offensive white supremacist, fascist and neo-Nazi ideas that drove the white power movement of the twentieth century were thus rebranded through a new innocuous defensive frame of white victimhood. As such, the new strategy of racist rhetoric has allowed the movement to co-opt mainstream political debates surrounding immigration and globalization, drawing large audiences through a deliberate obfuscation of the underlying ideology.
Far-right extremism has played a key role in promoting the Great Replacement and White genocide conspiracy theory, White genocide conspiracy theories, and an "Accelerationism#Far-right accelerationist terrorism, acceleration" of racial conflict through violent means such as assassinations, murders, Right-wing terrorism, terrorist attacks, and societal collapse in order to achieve the building of a white ethnostate. While many contemporary extreme far-right groups eschew the hierarchical structure of other authoritarian political organizations, they often explicitly promote cultural authoritarianism alongside xenophobia, racism, antisemitism, homophobia and misogyny, as well as authoritarian government interventions against perceived societal problems.
Contemporary
There is no one consensus definition of authoritarianism, but several annual measurements are attempted, including Freedom House's annual ''Freedom in the World'' report. Some countries such as Venezuela, among others, that are currently or historically recognized as authoritarian did not become authoritarian upon taking power or fluctuated between an authoritarian, flawed democracy, and hybrid regime
A hybrid regime is a type of political system often created as a result of an incomplete democratic transition from an authoritarian regime to a Democracy, democratic one (or vice versa). Hybrid regimes are categorized as having a combination of ...
due to periods of democratic backsliding or democratization. Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia are often regarded as the most infamous examples of "totalitarian" systems. Some countries such as China and various fascist regimes have also been characterized as totalitarian, with some periods being depicted as more authoritarian, or totalitarian, than others.
States characterized as authoritarian are typically not rated as democracies by The Economist Democracy Index or as 'free' by Freedom House, Freedom House's ''Freedom in the World'' index, and do not reach a high score on V-Dem Democracy Indices. Contemporary examples of totalitarian states include Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea (officially, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea).
According to an April 2025 survey, known as Bright Line Watch, of more than 500 U.S.-based political scientists shows that the vast majority think the United States is moving from liberal democracy to a form of authoritarianism.
See also
* Absolute monarchy
* Authoritarian capitalism
* Authoritarian conservatism
* Authoritarian socialism
* Criticism of democracy
* Dictator
* Historic recurrence
* Left-wing dictatorship
* List of banned political parties
* Managed democracy
* Religion and authoritarianism
* Right-wing dictatorship
* Totalitarianism
* U.S. policy toward authoritarian governments
References
Citations
Bibliography
*
*
* Linz, Juan J. (1964). "An Authoritarian Regime: The Case of Spain". In Allard, Eric; Littunen, Yrjo. ''Cleavages, Ideologies and Party Systems''. Helsinki: Academic Bookstore.
*
Further reading
* Frantz; Erica; Geddes, Barbara; Wrights, Joseph (2018). ''How Dictatorships Work''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
External links
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Authoritarianism,
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Political culture
Political theories
Social theories