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Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting. Political scientists have created many typologies describing variations of authoritarian forms of government. Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military. States that have a blurred boundary between democracy and authoritarianism have some times been characterized as "hybrid democracies", "hybrid regimes" or "competitive authoritarian" states.
A coup d'état, also known as a coup or an overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, military, or a dictator. Many scholars consider a coup successful when the usurpers seize and hold power for at least seven days.
Anocracy or semi-democracy is a form of government that is loosely defined as part democracy and part dictatorship, or as a "regime that mixes democratic with autocratic features." Another definition classifies anocracy as "a regime that permits some means of participation through opposition group behavior but that has incomplete development of mechanisms to redress grievances." The term "semi-democratic" is reserved for stable regimes that combine democratic and authoritarian elements. Scholars have also distinguished anocracies from autocracies and democracies in their capability to maintain authority, political dynamics, and policy agendas. Similarly, the regimes have democratic institutions that allow for nominal amounts of competition.
A hybrid regime is a mixed type of political system often created as a result of an incomplete transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one. Hybrid regimes are categorized as a combination of autocratic features with democratic ones and can simultaneously hold political repressions and regular elections. Hybrid regimes are commonly found in developing countries with abundant natural resources such as petro-states. Although these regimes experience civil unrest, they may be relatively stable and tenacious for decades at a time. There has been a rise in hybrid regimes since the end of the Cold War.
Democratic backsliding, also called autocratization, is the decline in the democratic characteristics of a political system, and is the opposite of democratization. Democracy is the most popular form of government, with more than half of the nations in the world being democracies according to a 2020 study. This study examined 165 countries and determined that 98 of them were democracies. Since the 2010s, the world has grown more authoritarian, with one quarter of the world's population under democratically backsliding hybrid regimes into the 2020s.
Karen L. Remmer is an American political scientist, academic, author and researcher. She is a professor emerita of political science at Duke University.
References
- ↑ Mickey, Robert (2015). Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-14963-9.
- ↑ Benton, Allyson Lucinda (2012). "Bottom-Up Challenges to National Democracy: Mexico's (Legal) Subnational Authoritarian Enclaves". Comparative Politics. 44 (3): 253–271. doi:10.5129/001041512800078931. ISSN 0010-4159. JSTOR 23212796.
- ↑ Petersen, German (2018). "Elites and Turnovers in Authoritarian Enclaves: Evidence from Mexico". Latin American Politics and Society. 60 (2): 23–40. doi:10.1017/lap.2018.4. ISSN 1531-426X. S2CID 158275919.
- ↑ Curato, Nicole (2018). "From authoritarian enclave to deliberative space: governance logics in post-disaster reconstruction". Disasters. 42 (4): 635–654. doi:10.1111/disa.12280. PMID 29484700.
- ↑ Lawson, Chappell (2000). "Mexico's Unfinished Transition: Democratization and Authoritarian Enclaves in Mexico". Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos. 16 (2): 267–287. doi:10.2307/1052198. JSTOR 1052198.
- ↑ Herrmann, Julián Durazo (2014). "Reflections on Regime Change and Democracy in Bahia, Brazil". Latin American Research Review. 49 (3): 23–44. doi:10.1353/lar.2014.0050. ISSN 0023-8791. JSTOR 43670192. S2CID 144223560.
- ↑ Gibson, Edward L. (2012). Boundary Control: Subnational Authoritarianism in Federal Democracies. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-19223-1.
- ↑ Twenty Years of Studying Democratization; Vol 2: Democratization, Democracy and Authoritarian Continuity. Taylor & Francis. 2016. pp. 102–103. ISBN 9781317660873.
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