Authoritarianism

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 and mass organizations to mobilize people around the goals of the regime. 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, 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. Authoritarianism is marked by "indefinite political tenure" of the ruler or ruling party (often in a one-party state) or other authority. 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 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 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). 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 from the beneficiaries of the land reform. Authoritarian regimes do so to gain coercive leverage over rural populations. Unemployment and inflation tend to be associated with increased authoritarian attitutes. 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. 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. Authoritarian regimes may allow multi-party elections; there has been a rise in multi-party elections in authoritarian regimes over time. However, democratic and authoritarian differ 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 and extreme constraints on the participation of opposing parties. The proportion of authoritarian regimes with elections and support parties has risen in recent years. 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. 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. Public opinion research indicates that many authoritarian regimes enjoy substantial public support. There may be varied explanations for this, including preference falsification, manipulation of information by authoritarian regimes, propaganda, and censorship and repression of dissenting perspectives. Authoritarian regimes may resort to redistribution to boost public support for the regime. 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 protest with sign reading "just say no to authoritarian rule" Andrew J. Nathan notes that "regime theory holds that authoritarian systems are inherently fragile because of weak legitimacy, overreliance on coercion, over-centralization 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." 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. 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. 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, totalitarian regimes and, sitting between these two, authoritarian regimes (with hybrid regimes). 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 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", and "seek to dominate every aspect of everyone's life as a prelude to world domination". • Authoritarian personality is the personality type 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. 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 under Haile Selassie I. Subtypes of authoritarian regimes identified by Linz are corporatist or organic-statistic, racial and ethnic "democracy" and post-totalitarian.) 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." however, in the 2010s, particularly after Xi Jinping succeeded as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and rose to power in 2012, Chinese state repression sharply increased, aided by digital control and mass surveillance. and Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro on 25 October 2019 Authoritarian regimes are also sometimes subcategorized by whether they are more personalistic or populist. A typology of authoritarian regimes by political scientists Brian Lai and Dan Slater includes four categories: • machine (oligarchic party dictatorships); • bossism (autocratic party dictatorships); • juntas (oligarchic military dictatorships); and • strongman (autocratic military dictatorships). Duckitt writes that both authoritarianism and collectivism submerge individual rights and goals to group goals, expectations and 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 by the Economist Intelligence Unit, 2024. Blue countries are democratic, yellow are hybrid regimes, and brown are authoritarian governments. for 2025 with blue more democratic and brown more authoritarian 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, protections for minority groups, an independent judiciary and the real separation of powers. 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 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. 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 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." 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 and 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". 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, Falange, monarchists, technocrats and others). Unlike totalitarian states, the regime relies on passive mass acceptance rather than popular support. According to Juan Linz the distinction between an authoritarian regime and a totalitarian one is that an authoritarian regime seeks to suffocate politics and political mobilization while totalitarianism seeks to control and use them. Sondrol argues that while both authoritarianism and totalitarianism are forms of autocracy, they differ in three key 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 life and asphyxiates it." 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." == 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 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 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. 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. 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. == 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 Allied powers. All the Axis powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan) had totalitarian or authoritarian governments, and two of the three were replaced by governments based on democratic constitutions. The 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" and placed "law enforcement firmly in the hands" of the sixteen 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 occupation and to fears arising from the development of superpowers. Anti-authoritarianism also became associated with countercultural and bohemian movements such as the Beat Generation in the 1950s, the hippies in the 1960s and 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 Soviet Union in 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" 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. A decade after the Arab Spring, Tunisia stood as the sole, albeit fragile, democratic success story, while Egypt reverted to authoritarian military rule, and Libya, Syria, and Yemen descended into catastrophic 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. 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 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 United States politics, white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi skinheads, and adherents of the Christian Identity, ideology have long operated as a loose network. In the internet age, far-right extremists throughout the U.S. and much of the West have consolidated further into a movement known as the Alt-Right, which has inspired numerous terrorist attacks while at the same time increasing the mainstream appeal of white supremacism. 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. == See also ==