Dictatorship
Dictatorship
TYPES OF CONTEMPORARY DICTATORSHIPS
The concept of dictatorship originated in Rome; it was defined as rule by a leader who was selected by the Consul to govern during periods of emergency brought on by external war or internal rebellion. While legally endowed with broad powers to resolve crises, the dictator was required to step down within six months or before the end of the term of the Consul that appointed him. In addition, such exceptional power was to be used to restore the previous political order. Although dictatorial power was faithfully applied in most cases, Mark Antony (82 or 81-30 BCE) abolished the institution after both Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138–78 BCE) and Julius Caesar (100–44 BCE) used force to rule beyond their mandated terms.
The temporary nature of dictatorship was central to its conception, leading writers such as Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau to defend its powers in responding to crises. Even rulers acknowledged the specific meaning of the term. After Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) seized power extralegally, for example, he was known as “emperor,” not as “dictator.” The one exception seems to have been José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia (1766–1840) in Paraguay, who labeled himself “the perpetual dictator”—an oxymoron by the standards of original meaning.
CONTEMPORARY UNDERSTANDING
The term dictatorship did not gain prominence again until the early twentieth century, when it reappeared in the guises of the self-proclaimed “dictatorship of the proletariat” in Russia and the fascist dictatorship in Italy. Both uses of the term were deviations from the original Roman conception. The fascists were never committed to any temporary notion of power. The dictatorship of the proletariat was to be temporary in nature; but as a fundamental step in the transformation from bourgeois to communist democracy, it would obviously not aim for restoration of the old order.
Attempting to retrieve the concept from communists, Carl Schmitt (1921) distinguished between commissarial and sovereign dictatorship. Commissarial dictatorship conforms to the Roman usage of the term, but is likely to give way to sovereign dictatorship that, in contrast, is unlimited and likely will establish a new order. In making such a distinction Schmitt sought to justify the extensive use of emergency powers to address social and economic crises in Weimar Germany. Still, his conception of sovereign dictatorship is important because it cements an important shift in the understanding of the term: Dictatorships need not be temporary nor restorative of the prior constitutional order.
As a consequence, the post–World War II conception of dictatorship is necessarily a broader one in which dictatorship encompasses all regimes that are not democratic. Dictatorships may be distinguished from democracies as regimes in which rulers are not governed by law (Kelsen 1945) or selected by elections (Schumpeter 1942). Still, such minimalist criteria mean that dictatorships demonstrate wide heterogeneity in their organization and bases for rule.
TYPES OF CONTEMPORARY DICTATORSHIPS
Dictatorships include both totalitarian and authoritarian regimes: The former deeply pervades society through ideological fervor, mobilization efforts, and intolerance of autonomous organization, while the latter is more pluralistic and predictable in nature (Friedrich and Brzezinski 1961, Linz 1970). Besides Nazi Germany and Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union, however, relatively few totalitarian regimes exist. As a result, most dictatorships are authoritarian regimes, and the two terms often are used synonymously.
The most prominent distinction among contemporary dictatorships is in the location of decision-making power, which determines their bases of institutional support and their constraints. While debates abound over the exact criteria for classification, the main categories consist of military, party, monarchical, and personalist regimes.
Military dictatorships emerge by coup d’état, an extralegal seizure of power. Paul Brooker (2000) notes that the military intervention in politics may stem from “national interest” in times of crises or corporate and self-interests in the quest for greater resources. Once in power, the military consolidates both executive and legislative powers within a junta, a small collective that typically is composed of high-ranking officers. The junta is responsible for major decisions, including those governing succession. In decision making the degree of power sharing among service branches varies and is a common source of friction among junta members. The tension between governing and maintaining military cohesion has often led to the demise of these regimes.
In party dictatorships, power is concentrated within a single regime party that dominates political life (Huntington and Moore 1970). Other political parties may exist, but they do not pose any serious competition. Major policy decisions and issues of succession are determined by an inner sanctum of the party. Still, the party’s organizational reach is broad, pervading the armed forces and local institutions, down to the level of villages, firms, and schools. Because the party is a vehicle through which individuals may advance their careers and earn patronage, it serves as an important tool for the dictatorship in mobilizing support, collecting information, and supervising the behaviors of others. The party’s infiltration of the military also ensures civilian control over the armed forces.
Monarchies are typically treated as distinct from other forms of tyrannical rule. However, the minimalist criteria distinguishing democratic and nondemocratic regimes clearly require classifying these regimes as dictatorships. In monarchies the institution at the center of power is the dynastic family that claims historical rights to rule and monopolizes succession. The king is the effective head of government, yet as Michael Herb (1999) observes, major policy decisions and the choice of successor from within the family is determined only with the consent of other family members. Kin networks are also used to maintain control over the military and to staff government positions, ensuring the dominance of the ruling family.
Personalist regimes are those in which dictators do not overtly rely on the armed forces, a regime party, or a dynastic family to maintain their rule. As a consequence, they seemingly monopolize decision-making and conform to stereotypical notions of dictatorships as “one-man rule.” Personalist dictators may come to power via a coup or legitimate elections and are able to consolidate power by the skillful use of patronage and “charismatic authority” (following Max Weber’s notion in The Theory of Social and Economic Organization [1947]) such that they are able to avoid dependence on a single institution and hence constraints on their decision-making power.
SEE ALSO Authoritarianism; Autocracy; Totalitarianism
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brooker, Paul. 2000. Non-democratic Regimes: Theory, Government, and Politics. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Friedrich, Carl J., and Zbigniew K. Brzezinski. 1961. Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy. New York: Praeger.
Herb, Michael. 1999. All in the Family: Absolutism, Revolution, and Democracy in the Middle Eastern Monarchies. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Huntington, Samuel P., and Clement H. Moore, eds. 1970. Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society: The Dynamics of Established One-Party Systems. New York: Basic Books.
Kelsen, Hans. 1945. General Theory of Law and State. Trans. Anders Wedberg. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Linz, Juan. 1970. An Authoritarian Regime: Spain. In Mass Politics: Studies in Political Sociology, eds. Erik Allardt and Stein Rokkan. New York: The Free Press.
Schmitt, Carl. 1921. Die Diktatur von den Anfängen des modernen Souveränitätsgedankens bis zum proletarischen Klassenkampf. Munich, Germany: Duncker and Humblot.
Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1942. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.
Weber, Max. 1947. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. Trans. Alexander M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jennifer Gandhi