Chapter 6: Authoritarian Regimes

Authoritarian rule

in a sense, has existed since the beginning of human government.

Corruption

is a concept closely related to patron- clientelism and patron- client networks.

Civil society

describes all the various organized groups people choose to join for the sake of a common interest.

Democracy

(as defined in the previous chapter) is a political system that has existed only since the twentieth century.

Totalitarian regimes

attempt to control and dominate every aspect of their peoples lives, including their career choices, family life, and their political and religious beliefs.

tactics of coercion

can include surveillance of perceived dissidents, as China employs through government agents who follow the regimes critics, and Internet monitors who track peoples activities.

Authoritarian regimes

are distinguished by the way they invest political authority into a small group of individuals who exercise this authority without any constitutional responsibility to the public.

**Statism**

or the tendency to trust in the state for security and provision of basic needs, for example, emerged in Russia after centuries of foreign invasion and oppression.

**Coercion**

 which essentially means force, to compel people to submit to the regime.

independent civil society

that can organize freely is a critical component of liberal democracy, as it allows the people to express their interests, organize to call attention to issues of concern, and demand state action at times. 

Power

is the ability to compel or otherwise motivate people to take actions that they otherwise would not. 

Authority

involves an official position with a defined role and jurisdiction that the state has entrusted an individual with.

**Personality Cult**

More common to totalitarianism, some authoritarian regimes will attempt to portray the leader as some sort of near perfected version of the nation’s aspirations, embodying the wisdom, strength, and spirit of the people more generally.

**Personal Rule**

Systems based on personal rule do not possess any clear rules or regime boundaries to constrain the ruler.

**Military Rule**

Military rule usually comes as the result of a **coup d’état** (sometimes called a coup, for short), which occurs when the military of a particular state decides to remove the civil authorities from within and take control of the state itself.

**One-Party Rule**

 In a **one-party state**, also known as a **dominant-party system**, only one political party is either legally or practically able to compete for and exercise political power.

**theocracy**

is rule by God, but practically, the power is held by religious ­leaders, and so a theocratic regime entrusts rule of the state to clerical religious authorities simultaneously with their religious role.