It is the seventh largest country in Africa, and is bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean and Luanda is its capital city. [1]:68. Typically, dictators rise to power when a nation faces significant social issues, such as strong economic crises or unrest among the nation's people. A personalist dictator will manage these appointees by segmenting the government so that they cannot collaborate. Zimbabwe - 1980 to present - Robert Mugabe. [24], Military dictatorships often have traits in common due to the shared background of military dictators. [19], Military dictatorships are regimes in which military officers hold power, determine who will lead the country, and exercise influence over policy. Military dictators may also be less trusting or diplomatic and underestimate the use of bargaining and compromise in politics. (2010), Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland developed a six-fold regime classification scheme, resulting what the authors called as the DD datasets. [135] Negotiated removals are more likely to end in democracy, while removals by force are more likely to result in a new dictatorial regime. [126] In particular, censorship by dictatorships helps solidify claims of legitimacy and marginalize the voices of opposition critics. After authoritarian monarchies, these tend to be the longest-lasting dictatorships, as they can more easily install a new dictator if the existing one leaves office (rare) or dies. [10] Political scientist Juan Jos Linz identifies a spectrum of political systems with democracies and totalitarian regimes separated by authoritarian regimes with varied classifications of hybrid systems. [134] Revolution takes place when the opposition group grows large enough that elites in the regime cannot suppress it or choose not to. [85] After being defeated in World War II, the far-right dictatorships of Europe collapsed, with the exceptions of Spain and Portugal. Modern Dictatorships Between 1919 and 1939 there was a great reaction against democracy and dictatorship was established in many countries of the world. [28] Due to the structure of their leadership, one-party dictatorships are significantly less likely to face civil conflict, insurgency, or terrorism than other forms of dictatorship. Binary measure of democracy and dictatorship, Six-fold regime classification scheme and its rules, Comparison with other democracy-measuring data sets, Studies in Comparative International Development, "Minimalist Conception of Democracy: A Defense", Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub, and Limongi: Democracy and development, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Democracy-Dictatorship_Index&oldid=1141715357, All articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases, Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from February 2023, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from January 2023, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. [126] For dictatorships, societal compliance is necessary for the ruling entity to maintain its desired order, laws, revenue, and policies. Many countries today are still under a dictatorship, including: Cambodia China North Korea Russia And many more! The terms "autocrat" and "autocracy" are often used interchangeably with "dictator" and "dictatorship". If the head of state serves for life or is not popularly elected or a fixed term, then the democracy is parliamentary.[1]. [37], Personalist dictators typically favor loyalty over competence in their governments and have a general distrust of intelligentsia. Stability can be weakened when opposition groups grow and unify or when elites are not loyal to the regime. [59] Shoguns were de facto military dictators in Japan beginning in 1185 and continuing for over six hundred years. [54], Asia saw several military dictatorships during the post-classical era. Equatorial Guinea. [26] Ruling parties in one-party dictatorships are distinct from political parties that were created to serve a dictator in that the ruling party in a one-party dictatorship permeates every level of society. In fact, you may devise any chart you like concerning politics or anything else and label left and right however you choose. A semi-presidential (mixed) democracy has a government that needs the majority of support from a legislature to exist and whose head of state is popularly elected for a fixed term. Ruling parties allow a dictatorship to more broadly influence the populace and facilitate political agreement between party elites. Epidemic of First World War After the first world war, countries got disturbed to conduct democratic governments and managements. [78], At the same time, nationalist movements grew throughout Europe. [126]This tactic involves policies on land reform, poverty alleviation, public health, housing, education, and employment programs that force citizens to be dependent on the state for relatively adequate living standards. Donal Blaine Aidan Cinhil Haldane, 24th king of Gwynedd, reigned 1074 to 1095. [49] In an absolute monarchy, power is limited to the royal family, and legitimacy is established by historical factors. [1]:68 The figures at the left show the results in 1988 and 2008. The classification depends on the rules outlining the relationship between a country's government, legislative assembly (often called the legislature), and head of state. Its goal is to force compliance by demobilizing or annihilating actors of opposition. Africa has several long-standing dictators despite the fact that the continent as a whole is quite volatile politically. [95] A similar phenomenon took place in Korea, where Kim Il-sung created a Soviet-backed communist dictatorship in North Korea[96] and Syngman Rhee created a US-backed nationalist dictatorship in South Korea. [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. There are currently 22 dictators in Africa, some worse than others. Elites are also the primary political threats of a dictator, as they can leverage their power to influence or overthrow the dictatorship. Italy's Mussolini. Although it is true that some dictators are far more strict and overbearing than others, as a rule, dictatorships tend to result in a loss of personal autonomy, quality of life, and political choice for everyday citizens. Like right-wing, it is not a copyrighted term. Here are fifteen of the worst dictators from the 20 th century and what makes them stand out for censure. [107] Dictatorships are often recipients of foreign aid on the condition that they make advances toward democratization. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) Pol Pot (1925-1998) Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945) Saddam Hussein (1937-2006) Idi Amin (1952-2003) Is Venezuela a dictatorship? Sudan - 1989 to 2019 - Omar al-Bashir. Accused of crimes against humanity, Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death in 2006. But to understand the dictatorship in Cuba . In the past, they wore olive-green uniforms and used military might to gain power. This instability in turn required rulers to become increasingly authoritarian to stay in power, further propagating dictatorship in Africa. Miguel Daz-Canel, the son of Ral Castro who replaced him as president of Cuba, has kept the dictatorship structure in place that was established by Fidel Castro during the Cuban revolution. A dictatorship is a form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, which holds governmental powers with few to no limitations on them. With a total area of 2,381,741 square kilometres, 90% of which is desert, Algeria is the tenth-largest country in the world, and the largest in Arab world and Africa and on the Mediterranean. President Vladimir Putin is currently serving his fourth term as President of Russia. [80] Italian dictator Benito Mussolini seized power in 1922, and began implementing reforms in 1925 to create the first fascist dictatorship. They are ruled by one-party or military dictatorships, religious hierarchies, or autocrats. Rwanda - 1994 to present - Paul Kagame. Secret police are used to gather information about specific political opponents and carry out targeted acts of violence against them, paramilitary forces defend the regime from coups, and formal militaries defend the dictatorship during foreign invasions and major civil conflicts. Today, there are only five communist states, some of which are struggling to hold on to communism. This is understandable, as the terms are very similar. [47] Personalist dictatorships also experience growth differently, as they often lack the institutions or qualified leadership to sustain an economy. Nazi and fascist regimes in Europe, Communist single-party states, military juntas in Latin America and . [25], One-party dictatorships are governments in which a single political party dominates politics. The leader of a dictatorship is called a dictator.Politics in a dictatorship are controlled by the dictator and facilitated through an inner circle of elites that include advisers, generals, and other high-ranking officials. The government was described as a dictatorship of the proletariat in which power was exercised by soviets. Dictators are usually backed (especially financially) by groups of powerful people. Dictatorships can be formed by a military coup that overthrows the previous government through force or by a self-coup in which elected leaders make their rule permanent. More complex economies require additional cooperation between the dictator and other groups. Personalist dictatorships are more common in Sub-Saharan Africa due to less established institutions in the region. the dictatorship of the proletariat had to be preserved in the socialist countries to assure that the reeducated minds of the workers already lucky enough to live under socialism were not re-infected by capitalist ideas coming in from outside the people's collectivist . Abstract. Latin America experienced a dramatic political change in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The relations between the countries were strained by Soviet attempts to influence Yugoslavia, leading to the TitoStalin split in 1948. The Democracy-Dictatorship Index has the main regime types of "democracy" and "dictatorship" and three sub-types for each as well. The first distinction made is whether a democracy's government is responsible to the legislature. [101] Albania was established as a communist dictatorship under Enver Hoxha in 1944. Repression is the accumulation of state behaviors that target actors who challenge beliefs, institutions, and actions of the dictatorship. People who are for dictatorship say it provides for a more stable government, helps abolish corruption, and is more efficient in emergencies. [79] Fascism developed in Europe as a rejection of liberalism, socialism, and modernism, and the first fascist political parties formed in the 1920s. [31], Personalist dictatorships are regimes in which all power lies in the hands of a single individual. This list answers the questions, "What countries are dictatorships?" On a similar note, a dictatorship's regular citizens have no voice in most matters. This page was last edited on 4 March 2023, at 02:19. Benito Mussolini was the first generally recognised fascist leader. [4] A unified inner circle has the capacity to overthrow a dictator, and the dictator must make greater concessions to the inner circle to stay in power. This means that the ruler or party has complete control. [15] If the dictator has not seized power through a political party, then a party may be formed as a mechanism to reward supporters and to concentrate power in the hands of political allies instead of militant allies. Exceptions to the pattern of poverty in dictatorships include oil-rich Middle Eastern dictatorships and the East Asian Tigers during their periods of dictatorship. When necessary, a dictator may also make an effort to replace or amend the nation's constitution to empower, enrich, or otherwise benefit the dictator and his/her allies to a greater degree. Secondly, while the term "dictatorship" is widely understood to include inherent abuse of powerthere is arguably no such thing as a benevolent dictatorhistory offers several examples of autocrats who tried to do what was best for their people. Many are noted for their cruelty, while others are honored as national heroes. Allowing the opposition to have representation in the regime, such as through a legislature, further reduces the likelihood of terrorist attacks in a dictatorship. These movements supported pan-Arab Nasserism during most of the Cold War, but they were largely replaced by Islamic nationalism by the 1980s. [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. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east; Iran in the west; Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north; and China in the far northeast. 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. [142] Dictatorships may influence the results of an election through electoral fraud, intimidation or bribing of candidates and voters, use of state resources such as media control, manipulation of electoral laws, restricting who may run as a candidate, or disenfranchising demographics that may oppose the dictatorship. The expected result is to coerce citizens into complying with the dictatorships demands in order to benefit from the state-controlled resources. Monarchies may be dynastic, in which the royal family serves as a ruling institution similar to a political party in a one-party state, or they may be non-dynastic, in which the monarch rules independently of the royal family as a personalist dictator. 10. Brion Donal Cinhil Urien Haldane, 25th king of Gwynedd, reigned 1095 to 1120. Russia is a federal semi-presidential republic and an oligarchy. Far-left and far-right dictatorships used similar methods to maintain power, including cult of personality, concentration camps, forced labour, mass murder, and genocide. [34] When a one-party dictatorship develops gradually through legal means, in can result in conflict between the party organization and the state apparatus and civil service, as the party rules in parallel and increasingly appoints its own members to positions of power. [20][21] They are most common in developing nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The dictatorship of Francisco Franco in Spain , from 1939 to 1975. These movements were a response to what they perceived as decadence and societal decay due to the changing social norms and race relations brought about by liberalism. [68] The Spanish American wars of independence took place in the early-19th century, creating many new Latin American governments. He arose to power in Italy in 1922, following the so-called 'March on Rome', in which his . [29][30] The use of ruling parties also provides more legitimacy to its leadership and elites than other forms of dictatorship[31] and facilitates a peaceful transfer of power at the end of a dictator's rule. Too Much Power. Venezuela has a presidential government. Just like a dictatorship, an autocracy is a government headed by a single ruler (the autocrat) whose decisions are not subject to legal restraints and who exercises unlimited and undisputed power. [56] Caesar subverted the tradition of temporary dictatorships when he was made dictator perpetuo, or a dictator for life, which led to the creation of the Roman Empire. [51] In the modern era, absolute monarchies are most common in the Middle East. This does not indicate cases of semi-democracy or semi-dictatorship. [136], Dictatorships are typically more aggressive than democracy when in conflict with other nations, as dictators do not have to fear electoral costs of war. [146], In a dictatorship, violence is used to coerce or repress all opposition to the dictator's rule, and the strength of a dictatorship depends on its use of violence. 5. Based on a "minimalist" theory of democracy, the index relies on rules regarding the existence of competitive elections. [123] 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. [43] This idea references the heavy reliance on repression of the public in order to stay in power, which creates incentives for all constituents to falsify their preferences, which does not allow for the dictator to know the genuine popular beliefs or his realistic measure of societal support. Elites in personalist dictatorships often do not have a professional political career and are unqualified for positions they are given. They are often unstable, and the average duration of a military dictatorship is only five years, but they are often followed by additional military coups and military dictatorships. On average, they last twice as long as military dictatorships, but not as long as one-party dictatorships. [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. Giving ultimate power and control to just one person is not ideal, as it can lead to future unrest and problems. [23] Military coups do not necessarily result in military dictatorships, as power may then be passed to an individual or the military may allow democratic elections to take place.