Dictatorship

Dictatorship form of government in which one person or a small group

possesses absolute power without effective constitutional limitations. The term
dictatorship comes from the Latin title dictator, which in the Roman Republic
designated a temporary magistrate who was granted extraordinary powers in
order to deal with state crises. Modern dictators, however, resemble ancient
tyrants rather than ancient dictators. Ancient philosophers’ descriptions of the
tyrannies of Greece and Sicily go far toward characterizing modern
dictatorships. Dictators usually resort to force or fraud to gain despotic political
power, which they maintain through the use of intimidation, terror, and the
suppression of basic civil liberties. They may also employ techniques of mass
propaganda in order to sustain their public support 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. Rule
by dictators has taken several different forms. In Latin America in the 19th
century, various dictators arose after effective central authority had collapsed
in the new nations recently freed from Spanish colonial rule. These caudillos,
or self-proclaimed leaders, usually led a private army and tried to establish
control over a territory before marching upon a weak national government.
Antonio López de Santa Anna in Mexico and Juan Manuel de Rosas in
Argentina are examples of such leaders. (See personalism.) Later 20th-century
dictators in Latin America were different. They were national rather than
provincial leaders and often were put in their position of power by nationalistic
military officers. They usually allied themselves with a particular social class,
and attempted either to maintain the interests of wealthy and privileged elites
or to institute far-reaching left-wing social reforms.
 Type of dictatorship

-Military dictatorships.
-Single-party dictatorships.
-Single-party dictatorships.
-Monarchic dictatorships.
-Hybrid dictatorships.
-Dictators in the Roman Empire.
-Dictators in the Roman Empire Shoguns in Japan.

19th-century Latin American caudillos here are the 6 most brutal

leaders in modern history

1-Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)

2-Joseph Stalin (1878-1953)
3-Pol Pot (1925-1998)
4-Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945)
5-Saddam Hussein (1937-2006)
6-Idi amin (1952-
 Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism, form of government that theoretically permits no individual

freedom and that seeks to subordinate all aspects of individual life to
the authority of the state. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini coined the
term totalitarian in the early 1920s to characterize the new fascist state of Italy,
which he further described as “all within the state, none outside the state, none
against the state.” By the beginning of World War II, totalitarian had become
synonymous with absolute and oppressive single-party government. Other
modern examples of totalitarian states include the Soviet Union under Joseph
Stalin, Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, the People’s Republic of
China under Mao Zedong, and North Korea under the Kim dynasty. In the
broadest sense, totalitarianism is characterized by strong central rule that
attempts to control and direct all aspects of individual life through coercion and
repression. Historical examples of such centralized totalitarian rule include
the Mauryan dynasty of India the Qin dynasty of China, and the reign
of Zulu chief Shaka. Nazi Germany (1933–45) and the Soviet Union during the
Stalin era (1924–53) were the first examples of decentralized or popular
totalitarianism, in which the state achieved overwhelming popular support for
its leadership. That support was not spontaneous: its genesis depended on
a charismatic leader, and it was made possible only by modern developments
in communication and transportation.
 Authoritarianism

Authoritarianism, principle of blind submission to authority, as opposed to

individual freedom of thought and action. In government, authoritarianism
denotes any political system that concentrates power in the hands of a leader or
a small elite that is not constitutionally responsible to the body of the people.
Authoritarian leaders often exercise power arbitrarily and without regard to
existing bodies of law, and they usually cannot be replaced by citizens choosing
freely among various competitors in elections. The freedom to create opposition
political parties or other alternative political groupings with which to compete
for power with the ruling group is either limited or nonexistent in authoritarian
regimes. Authoritarianism thus stands in fundamental contrast to democracy.
It also differs from totalitarianism, however, since authoritarian governments
usually have no highly developed guiding ideology, tolerate some pluralism in
social organization, lack the power to mobilize the entire population in pursuit
of national goals, and exercise power within relatively predictable limits.
Examples of authoritarian regimes, according to some scholars, include the
pro-Western military dictatorships that existed in Latin America and
elsewhere in the second half of the 20th century.
 Relationship

Totalitarianism-Dictatorship-Authoritarianism form of government the state

exits it power on all aspects the lives of citizens control of the state over
citizens and discourage individual freedom of thought and action attempts to
do this by arresting total control over the lives single leader have power
personal dictators remain key feature-of cotemporary regimes termed
authoritarianism or totalitarianism particularly in their early consolidating
phases but there is still disagreement over the seemingly ideological.