1

Authoritarian regimes Other authors have criticized the latter

approach, suggesting instead that authoritarian
GABRIELA GONZALEZ VAILLANT
and totalitarian regimes are different forms of
anti-democratic regimes altogether (see Linz
Authoritarianism can be understood both as a
2000). A lot of ink has been spilled around the
political regime and an ideological construct.
issue of possible taxonomies of authoritarian
The term has also been employed to refer to
regimes and their applications around the
certain psychological traits. As a political
world. It would be impossible to point out
regime, authoritarianism can be defined as a
one generally accepted classification scheme.
form of government that monopolizes author-
Table 1 summarizes some key typologies of
ity over the state without guaranteeing political
authoritarian regimes, each placing the loci on
pluralism or defense of civil liberties and with
a different dimension.
little or no accountability to the population. In
The definitional borders between the differ-
order to enforce exclusive claim over power,
ent types of authoritarian regimes are not always
authoritarian regimes revert to unconstitu-
clear, and the complex realities of concrete
tional or illegitimate means such as the use of
political regimes around the globe have often
force, censorship, or infusion of fear. The idea
undermined any attempt to establish clear dis-
of authoritarianism emerges in sharp opposi-
tinctions between them. The existence of
tion to the concept of democracy and it is often
“hybrid” regimes has severely challenged all
presented as its negative. Even though authori-
efforts to establish clear taxonomic differences
tarian regimes were the norm prior to moder-
between political systems. Political gray zones
nity, “authoritarianism” first came to be
emerge as contemporary authoritarian regimes
employed as a concept at the end of the nine-
attempt to gain legitimacy by increasingly dis-
teenth century, becoming popularized only
playing a number of democratic features
after World War I (the gradual emergence of
(Diamond 2002). Democracy, as a value and as
the Rule of Law as a governing principle).
an ideology, still retains its universal appeal, and
Etymologically, the word “authoritarianism”
many authoritarian governments seek to legiti-
comes from the Latin auctor, meaning leader
mize themselves in those terms. As an example,
or master. Authoritarian can be employed as an
many dictatorships resort to labeling their
adjective and as a noun.
regimes as “de facto” or “of exception” in order
Authoritarian regimes can take a number of
to convey the idea of transitional government
forms, ranging from traditional (such as mon-
that will eventually re-establish constitutional
archies and theocracies) to modern ones (such
democracies (for examples of authoritarian
as dictatorships or juntas); from regimes char-
regimes in the Southern Cone, see O’Donnell
acterized by the concentration of power on a
1970). In a controversial piece, Ake (1997: 285)
sole leader (such as autocracies) to those that
affirms that globalization is “rendering democ-
concentrate power in power-elites (such as oli-
racy irrelevant,” as the laxity of the concept has
garchies). Furthermore, some authors have
allowed many regimes to claim democratic
suggested that, instead of thinking of absence/
legitimacy without actually practicing it.
presence of authoritarianism, one should think
After the fall of the Soviet Union and the
of authoritarian regimes in terms of a contin-
Berlin Wall, some authors affirmed that we
uum, ranging from electoral/competitive
were witnessing the death of authoritarian
authoritarianism (regimes that give the illusion
regimes. In an oft-quoted assertion, Francis
of multiparty elections) to totalitarianism
Fukuyama (1992) announced the “end of his-
(regimes that have monistic centers of power).
tory,” referring to this believed triumph of

The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization, First Edition. Edited by George Ritzer.

© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
2

Table 1 Typologies of authoritarian regimes.

Dimensions Classifications Useful references

Ideology Conservative Almond and Powell (1966)

Inclusion/exclusion of
popular sectors
Type of rulers
Degree of competitiveness
Modernizing
Bureaucratic-authoritarianism O’Donnell (1970)
Populist-authoritarianism
Traditional-authoritarianism
Personalist Geddes (2003)
Military
Single-party regimes
Competitive authoritarian Diamond (2002)
Hegemonic electoral
authoritarian

Western liberalism and democracy around the
world. This affirmation has been shown to
have been rather premature, as authoritarian
regimes are still a common form of govern-
ment in many countries in our present world.
The Index of Democracy compiled by the
Economist Intelligence Unit (2010) has shown
that out of the 167 countries considered in the
study, 55 countries (32.9 percent of the total) can
be classified as authoritarian regimes. The num-
ber of regimes in the authoritarian list (Table 2)
has increased from 51 in 2008 to 55 in 2010. The
most authoritarian governments – according to
the aforementioned study – are Turkmenistan,
Chad, and North Korea, the latter being the most
authoritarian of the three. This index is based
on a scale composed of 60 indicators grouped
around five categories: (a) electoral process and
pluralism; (b) civil liberties; (c) the functioning
of government; (d) political participation; and
(e) political culture. The study places regimes
within one of four types: full democracies, flawed
democracies, hybrid regimes, and authoritarian
regimes. What is striking in this study is the geo-
graphical concentration of authoritarian regimes
in certain regions of the world, most of them
being located in the Middle East and Northern
and sub-Saharan Africa, but with significant
numbers in Asia and the former Soviet Union.
Debates about the survival of authoritarian
regimes around the world in the last decades
are wide and sometimes passionate. The
debates often center on the question of globali-
zation and its differential impact on the politi-
cal regimes of developed and developing
nations. Furthermore, the controversy is inti-
mately related to the question of democratiza-
tion and globalization. Globalization can be
understood from very different perspectives,
depending on whether one stresses its cultural,
economic, or political dimension, even though
none of these can be understood in isolation
from the others. Studies tend to consider polit-
ical regimes as a dependent variable of globali-
zation, but the nature of the effect of
globalization upon regimes still remains a
highly contested issue. Succinctly, it is possible
to distinguish between two opposing views
about the relationship between globalization
and political regimes. On the one hand, there
are scholars who see globalization as pushing
towards increasing democratization around
the world and, on the other, there are scholars
who see the effect of globalization upon
regimes as a negative one.
Some authors believe that globalization has
led to a widening and deepening of democratic
regimes around the globe (and a concomitant
diminution of authoritarian governments).
This positive association between globaliza-
tion and democratization is rooted in some
key assumptions: (a) globalization pushes
forth liberalization of the world economy and
international capitalism, which in turn fosters
 3

Table 2 Authoritarian regimes across regions of the world for 2010, according to the Index of Democracy
of the Economist Intelligence Unit (2010).

Region No. of countries

Eastern Europe 6 Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan,

Uzbekistan
Latin America & 1 Cuba
the Caribbean
Asia & Australasia 7 Afghanistan, China, Fiji, Laos, Myanmar, North Korea, Vietnam
Middle East & 16 Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco,
North Africa Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab
Emirates, Yemen
Sub-Saharan 25 Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic,
Africa Chad, Comoros, Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of
Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea,
Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar,
Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Swaziland, Togo, Zimbabwe
Total 55

the emergence of democratic institutions; (b)
global information networks promote free
flow of information that challenges tight state
control and censorship and undermines
authoritarian powers; (c) globalization pro-
motes the emergence and strengthening of
multilateral organizations, multinational cor-
porations, humanitarian NGOs, regulatory
and foreign aid institutions, all which help to
project “universal values,” such as the protec-
tion of human rights and civil liberties. These
“universal values” call for a “democratic envi-
ronment” for their full expression. For a fur-
ther development of each of these factors and
theoretical debates around them, see
Schwartzman (1998). Among the authors who
see globalization as causing increasing democ-
ratization are prominent thinkers such as
Lipset (1994) and Held (1995).
Contrary to the vision expressed above are
other theorists who have suggested that the rela-
tionship between globalization and authoritari-
anism is, in fact, one of mutual interdependence.
For many authors, globalization has not only
hampered the development of democracies
around the world, but actually helped encour-
age the emergence in some cases, and the con-
solidation in others, of authoritarian regimes.
Possible reasons provided for this effect vary
depending on the analysis, but the most
recurrent are:(a) globalization weakens national
civil societies, thus making countries more vul-
nerable to concentration of power in the hands
of a few; (b) global capitalism condemns certain
regions of the world to poverty or dependence,
which in turn negatively impacts the possibility
of development and transitions towards
democracy;(c) authoritarian regimes are func-
tional and endemic to globalized markets.
Among some of the scholars who defend this
vision are Bauman (1998), Barber (2000),
Harvey (2003), and Stieglitz (2002). O’Donnell
(1970) has emphasized that globalization and
authoritarianism in dependent nations have
mutually reinforced each other under the form
of modernized authoritarianism.
As is clear, the discussion about globalization
and authoritarian regimes is embedded within
a discussion about capitalism (as the backbone
of globalization), the effect of economic growth
of nations on their political regimes, and a
country’s relative position in the global market.
Some studies have pointed to the fact that the
financial and economic crisis experienced in
recent years has discredited Western values
abroad and given increasing appeal to models
4
of authoritarian capitalism such as China (e.g.,
“Beijing Consensus”). Studies about the rela-
tionship between development and democrati-
zation have offered contradictory findings.
Another relatively recent phenomenon that has
helped to shape the contours of geopolitics in
recent years is the perceived risk of “Islamic
fundamentalism,” which has led – with the sup-
port of Western governments – to the reemer-
gence of autocratic governments in the Arab
world. The unexpected popular upheavals in
places like Egypt and Tunisia (2010/2011) are
raising a host of new questions about the rela-
tionship between globalization and authoritari-
anism. The modern landscape of authoritarian
regimes around the world is difficult to portray
and the path these countries will take is still
very much uncertain. The idiosyncrasies of spe-
cific regimes that challenge attempts to classify
them are constantly forcing us to rethink the
analytical concepts we have used to assess them.
SEE ALSO: Citizenship; Democracy; Develo-
ping countries; Geopolitics; Governance.
REFERENCES
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Barber, B.R. (2000) Can democracy survive globali-
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Bauman, Z. (1998) Globalization: The Human
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Diamond, L. (2002) Thinking about hybrid regimes.
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Fukuyama, F. (1992) The End of History and the Last
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Harvey, D. (2003) The New Imperialism. Oxford
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Held, D. (1995) Democracy and the Global Order:
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Linz, J. (2000) Totalitarian and Authoritarian
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O’Donnell, G. (1970) Modernization and
Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism. University of
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Stieglitz, J.E. (2002) Globalization and its Discontents.
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Schwartzman, K.C. (1998) Globalisation and democ-
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FURTHER READING
Beck, U. (2000) What is Globalisation? Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge.
Huntington, S. (1991) The Third Wave:
Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century.
University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Perlutter, A. (1981) Modern Authoritarianism: A
Comparative Institutional Analysis. Yale University
Press, New Haven, CT.