Government Overview, Purpose & Types | What is a Government? The predominance of violent force in military training manifests in an acceptance of violence as a political tool and the ability to organize violence on a large scale. The crucial elements of both were the identification of the state with the single mass party and of the party with its charismatic leader, the use of an official ideology to legitimize and maintain the regime, the employment of a terroristic police force and a controlled press, and the application of all the means of modern science and technology to control the economy and individual behaviour. By definition, a dictatorship is an absolute authority in any sphere. Dictatorships in the Middle East and Northern Africa are either illiberal republics in which a president holds power through unfair elections, or they are absolute monarchies in which power is inherited. On paper, Russia is a federal democratic state. With the decline and disappearance in the 19th and 20th centuries of monarchies based on hereditary descent, dictatorship became one of the two chief forms of government in use by nations throughout the world, the other being constitutional democracy. Alfred says, Today, the term "dictator" is associated with cruel and oppressive rulers who violate human rights and maintain their power by jailing and executing their opponents. ", "The Cromwellian Protectorate: A Military Dictatorship? [115], The Middle East and Northern Africa did not undergo liberalization during the third wave of democratisation, and most countries in this region remain dictatorships in the 21st century. [60] During the L dynasty of Vietnam between the 16th and 18th centuries, the country was under de facto military rule by two rival military families: the Trnh lords in the north and the Nguyn lords in the south. These countries maintain parliaments and human rights organizations, but these remain under the control of the countries' respective dictators. In many of the states of Africa and Asia, for example, dictators quickly established themselves on the ruins of constitutional arrangements inherited from Western colonial powers. These dictators may view themselves as impartial in their oversight of a country due to their nonpartisan status, and they may view themselves as "guardians of the state". One moose, two moose. The rights of the people are typically suppressed in a dictatorship, sometimes to a great degree. [67] In Europe it was often thought of in terms of Bonapartism and Caesarism, with the former describing the military rule of Napoleon and the latter describing the imperial rule of Napoleon III in the vein of Julius Caesar. Dictators employ techniques of mass propaganda in order to sustain public support. Even in constitutional regimes, no fully satisfactory answer has been found to the question of how these bureaucratic decision makers can be held accountable and their powers effectively restrained without, at the same time, jeopardizing the efficiency and rationality of the policy-making process. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced searchad free! Create your account. [52], Dictatorship is historically associated with the Ancient Greek concept of tyranny, and several ancient Greek rulers have been described as "tyrants" that are comparable to modern dictators. The economic focus of a dictatorship often depends on the strength of the opposition, as a weaker opposition allows a dictator to extract additional wealth from the economy through corruption. Antonio Lpez de Santa Anna in Mexico and Juan Manuel de Rosas in Argentina are examples of such leaders. The role of dictator was created for instances when a single leader was needed to command and restore stability. Poverty has a destabilizing effect on government, causing democracy to fail and regimes to fall more often. Single-party dictatorships are one-party states in which only the party in power is legalized and all opposition parties are banned. [69], In the time between World War I and World War II, several dictatorships were established in Europe through coups which were carried out by far-left and far-right movements. Democracy, Monarchy and Dictatorship: Types of Government Systems In other new countries, the armies seized power, and military dictatorships were established. The use of the term dictatorship originated in the Roman Republic. [85] After being defeated in World War II, the far-right dictatorships of Europe collapsed, with the exceptions of Spain and Portugal. [135] Elections are also used to control elites within the dictatorship by requiring them to compete with one another and incentivizing them to build support with the populace, allowing the most popular and most competent elites to be promoted in the regime. The figure who embodies this dictatorship is obviously the dictator and this always represents the maximum hierarchy and authority for all things related to the development of a society. Soviet-type communist dictatorships arose in central and eastern Europe, China, and other countries in the wake of World War II, though most of them (as well as the Soviet Union itself) had collapsed by the last decade of the 20th century. Vladimir Putin's Russia is headed for a military dictatorship - and [97], The Middle East was decolonized during the Cold War, and many nationalist movements gained strength post-independence. Rule by dictators has taken several different forms. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. A dictatorship is a government in which a single person or small group holds all the power, and has absolute authority over politics and the population. As you start to memorize this lesson's details, you'll grow in your ability to: To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member. An error occurred trying to load this video. Caudillos were often nominally constrained by a constitution, but the caudillo had the power to draft a new constitution as he wished. It often refers to a form of government that has the authority of absolute rule within one person or a structured polity. [100] Josip Broz Tito declared a communist government in Yugoslavia during World War II, which was initially aligned with the Soviet Union. 150,000 protest Israeli judicial reform, Spanish PM voices support In oligarchies, the threat of a military coup comes from the strength of the military weighed against the concessions made to the military. To be considered a dictatorship means that a country is known to be run by one person without any checks and balances on his power. Hours after Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaid landed in Miami after being thrown out of Colombia, I talked with him extensively about Colombian President Gustavo Petro's initiative to . A self-proclaimed leader, usually an army officer, heading a private army typically formed from the peasantry with the support of provincial landowners, established his control over one or more provinces, and then marched upon the national capital. In the Roman Republic, the title "dictator" was temporarily given to an individual to deal with state crises and emergencies. Most caudillos came from a military background, and their rule was typically associated with pageantry and glamor. Dictatorships are authoritarian or totalitarian and they can be classified as military dictatorships, one-party dictatorships, personalist dictatorships, or absolute monarchies. Leadership Types and Styles: Help & Review, What is a Leader? Elections also support the legitimacy of a dictatorship by presenting the image of a democracy, establishing plausible deniability of its status as a dictatorship for both the populace and foreign governments. [122] The form of government does not correlate with the amount of economic growth, and dictatorships on average grow at the same rate as democracies, though dictatorships have been found to have larger fluctuations. [88] European fascism was imported to Latin America as well, and the Vargas Era of Brazil was heavily influenced by the corporatism practiced in fascist Italy. Democracy Types, Principles & Examples | What is Democracy? Dominant-party dictatorships or electoral authoritarian dictatorships are one-party dictatorships in which opposition parties are nominally legal but cannot meaningfully influence government. 279 lessons. I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. A dictatorship is a type of government in which a single personthe dictatoror party has absolute power. . Democracy Features & Examples | What is a Democratic Country? That's because there's no other branch of government that is not controlled by the dictator. The relations between the countries were strained by Soviet attempts to influence Yugoslavia, leading to the TitoStalin split in 1948.