Authoritarianism

Authoritarian regimes often adopt "the institutional trappings" of democracies such as constitutions.[13] Constitutions in authoritarian states may serve a variety of roles, including "operating manual" (describing how the government is to function); "billboard" (signal of regime's intent), "blueprint" (outline of future regime plans), and "window dressing" (material designed to obfuscate, such as provisions setting forth freedoms that are not honored in practice).[14] Authoritarian constitutions may help legitimize, strengthen, and consolidate regimes.[15] An authoritarian constitution "that successfully coordinates government action and defines popular expectations can also help consolidate the regime's grip on power by inhibiting re coordination on a different set of arrangements".[16] Unlike democratic constitutions, authoritarian constitutions do not set direct limits on executive authority; however, in some cases such documents may function as ways for elites to protect their own property rights or constrain autocrats' behavior.[17]

The concept of "authoritarian constitutionalism" has been developed by legal scholar Mark Tushnet.[18] Tushnet distinguishes authoritarian constitutionalist regimes from "liberal constitutionalist" regimes ("the sort familiar in the modern West, with core commitments to human rights and self-governance implemented by means of varying institutional devices") and from purely authoritarian regimes (which reject the idea of human rights or constraints on leaders' power).[18] He describes authoritarian constitutionalist regimes as (1) authoritarian dominant-party states that (2) impose sanctions (such as libel judgments) against, but do not arbitrarily arrest, political dissidents; (3) permits "reasonably open discussion and criticism of its policies"; (4) hold "reasonably free and fair elections", without systemic intimidation, but "with close attention to such matters as the drawing of election districts and the creation of party lists to ensure as best it can that it will prevail—and by a substantial margin"; (5) reflect at least occasional responsiveness to public opinion; and (6) create "mechanisms to ensure that the amount of dissent does not exceed the level it regards as desirable".[18]

Scholars such as Seymour Lipset,[19] Carles Boix, Susan Stokes,[20] Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Stephens and John Stephens[21] argue that economic development increases the likelihood of democratization. Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi argue that while economic development makes democracies less likely to turn authoritarian, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that development causes democratization (turning an authoritarian state into a democracy).[22]

Eva Bellin argues that under certain circumstances the bourgeoise and labor are more likely to favor democratization, but less so under other circumstances.[23] Economic development can boost public support for authoritarian regimes in the short-to-medium term.[24]

Within authoritarian systems, there may be nominally democratic institutions such as political parties, legislatures[25] and elections, but they are managed in a way so as to entrench authoritarian regimes.[26][9] Within democracies, parties serve to coordinate the pursuit of interests for like-minded citizens, whereas in authoritarian systems, they are a way for authoritarian leaders to find capable elites for the regime.[9] In a democracy, a legislature is intended to represent the diversity of interests among citizens, whereas authoritarians use legislatures to signal their own restraint towards other elites as well as to monitor other elites who pose a challenge to the regime.[9]

Fraudulent elections may serve the role of signaling the strength of the regime (to deter elites from challenging the regime), as well as force other elites to demonstrate their loyalty to the regime, whereas in democracies, free and fair elections are used to select representatives who represent the will of the citizens.[9][26] Elections may also motivate authoritarian party members to strengthen patron–client and information-gathering networks, which strengthens the authoritarian regime.[26] Elections may also motivate members of the ruling class to engage in public goods provision.[27]

According to one study, "most dictatorships led by parties have regular popular elections". Prior to the 1990s, most of these elections had no alternative parties or candidates for voters to vote on. Since the end of the Cold War, about two-thirds of elections in authoritarian systems allow for some opposition, but the elections are structured in a way to heavily favor the incumbent authoritarian regime.[26]

Hindrances to free and fair elections in authoritarian systems may include:[26]

• Control of the media by the authoritarian incumbents.
• Interference with opposition campaigning.
• Electoral fraud.
• Violence against opposition.
• Large-scale spending by the state in favor of the incumbents.
• Permitting of some parties, but not others.
• Prohibitions on opposition parties, but not independent candidates.
• Allowing competition between candidates within the incumbent party, but not those who are not in the incumbent party.

The foundations of stable authoritarian rule are that the authoritarian prevents contestation from the masses and other elites. The authoritarian regime may use co-optation or repression (or carrots and sticks) to prevent revolts.[28][29] In the 2010s, Kazakhstan has unsuccessfully tried to mobilize citizens and police to cooperate through the zero tolerance policing of petty crimes.[30]

According to a 2019 study by Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman, authoritarian regimes have over time become less reliant on violence and mass repression to maintain control. The study shows instead that authoritarians have increasingly resorted to manipulation of information as a means of control. Authoritarians increasingly seek to create an appearance of good performance, conceal state repression, and imitate democracy.[31]

Andrew J. Nathan notes that "regime theory holds that authoritarian systems are inherently fragile because of weak legitimacy, overreliance on coercion, over-centralization of decision making, and the predominance of personal power over institutional norms. [...] Few authoritarian regimes—be they communist, fascist, corporatist, or personalist—have managed to conduct orderly, peaceful, timely, and stable successions".[32]

Political scientist Theodore M. Vestal writes that authoritarian political systems may be weakened through inadequate responsiveness to either popular or elite demands and that the authoritarian tendency to respond to challenges by exerting tighter control, instead of by adapting, may compromise the legitimacy of an authoritarian state and lead to its collapse.[11]

One exception to this general trend is the endurance of the authoritarian rule of the Chinese Communist Party which has been unusually resilient among authoritarian regimes. Nathan posits that this can be attributed to four factors such as (1) "the increasingly norm-bound nature of its succession politics"; (2) "the increase in meritocratic as opposed to factional considerations in the promotion of political elites"; (3) "the differentiation and functional specialization of institutions within the regime"; and (4) "the establishment of institutions for political participation and appeal that strengthen the CCP's legitimacy among the public at large".[32]

Yale University political scientist Milan Svolik argues that violence is a common characteristic of authoritarian systems. Violence tends to be common in authoritarian states because of a lack of independent third parties empowered to settle disputes between the dictator, regime allies, regime soldiers and the masses.[28]

Authoritarians may resort to measures referred to as "coup-proofing", i.e. structures that make it hard for any small group to seize power. These coup-proofing strategies may include the strategic placing of family, ethnic, and religious groups in the military; creation of an armed force parallel to the regular military; and development of multiple internal security agencies with overlapping jurisdiction that constantly monitor one another.[33] Research shows that some coup-proofing strategies reduce the risk of coups occurring.[34][35] However, coup-proofing reduces military effectiveness,[36][37][38] and limits the rents that an incumbent can extract.[39] A 2016 study shows that the implementation of succession rules reduce the occurrence of coup attempts.[40] Succession rules are believed to hamper coordination efforts among coup plotters by assuaging elites who have more to gain by patience than by plotting.[40] According to political scientists Curtis Bell and Jonathan Powell, coup attempts in neighbouring countries lead to greater coup-proofing and coup-related repression in a region.[41] A 2017 study finds that countries' coup-proofing strategies are heavily influenced by other countries with similar histories.[42] A 2018 study in the Journal of Peace Research found that leaders who survive coup attempts and respond by purging known and potential rivals are likely to have longer tenures as leaders.[43] A 2019 study in Conflict Management and Peace Science found that personalist dictatorships are more likely to take coup-proofing measures than other authoritarian regimes; the authors argue that this is because "personalists are characterized by weak institutions and narrow support bases, a lack of unifying ideologies and informal links to the ruler".[44]

According to a 2019 study, personalist dictatorships are more repressive than other forms of dictatorship.[45]

Authoritarianism and democracy are not necessarily fundamental opposites as it is possible for some democracies to possess authoritarian elements, and for an authoritarian system to have democratic elements.[57][58][59] An illiberal democracy, or procedural democracy, is distinguished from liberal democracy, or substantive democracy, in that illiberal democracies lack features such as the rule of law, protections for minority groups, an independent judiciary and the real separation of powers.[60][61][62][63]

A further distinction that liberal democracies have rarely made war with one another; research has extended the theory and finds that more democratic countries tend to have few wars (sometimes called militarized interstate disputes) causing fewer battle deaths with one another and that democracies have far fewer civil wars.[64][65]

Research shows that the democratic nations have much less democide or murder by government. Those were also moderately developed nations before applying liberal democratic policies.[66] Research by the World Bank suggests that political institutions are extremely important in determining the prevalence of corruption and that parliamentary systems, political stability and freedom of the press are all associated with lower corruption.[67]

A 2006 study by economist Alberto Abadie has concluded that terrorism is most common in nations with intermediate political freedom. The nations with the least amount of terrorism are the most and least democratic nations, and that "transitions from an authoritarian regime to a democracy may be accompanied by temporary increases in terrorism".[68] Studies in 2013 and 2017 similarly found a nonlinear relationship between political freedom and terrorism, with the most terrorist attacks occurring in partial democracies and the fewest in "strict autocracies and full-fledged democracies".[69] A 2018 study by Amichai Magen demonstrated that liberal democracies and polyarchies not only suffer fewer terrorist attacks as compared to other regime types, but also suffer fewer casualties in terrorist attacks as compared to other regime types, which may be attributed to higher-quality democracies' responsiveness to their citizens' demands, including "the desire for physical safety", resulting in "investment in intelligence, infrastructure protection, first responders, social resilience, and specialized medical care" which averts casualties.[69] Magen also noted that terrorism in closed autocracies sharply increased starting in 2013.[69]

Another type of authoritarian regime is the competitive authoritarian regime, a type of civilian regime that arose in the post-Cold War era. In a competitive authoritarian regime, "formal democratic institutions exist and are widely viewed as the primary means of gaining power, but ... incumbents' abuse of the state places them at a significant advantage vis-à-vis their opponents".[70][71] The term was coined by Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way in their 2010 book of the same name to discuss a type of hybrid regime that emerged during and after the Cold War.[70][72]

Competitive authoritarian regimes differ from fully authoritarian regimes in that elections are regularly held, the opposition can openly operate without a high risk of exile or imprisonment and "democratic procedures are sufficiently meaningful for opposition groups to take them seriously as arenas through which to contest for power".[70] However, competitive authoritarian regimes lack one or more of the three characteristics of democracies such as free elections (i.e. elections untainted by substantial fraud or voter intimidation); protection of civil liberties (i.e. the freedom of speech, press and association) and an even playing field (in terms of access to resources, the media and legal recourse).[73]

Authoritarianism is considered a core concept of fascism[74][75][76][77] and scholars agree that a fascist regime is foremost an authoritarian form of government, although not all authoritarian regimes are fascist. While authoritarianism is a defining characteristic of fascism, scholars argue that more distinguishing traits are needed to make an authoritarian regime fascist.[78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86]

Part of a series on
Revolution
Types Bourgeois Colour Communist Democratic Nonviolent Permanent Political Proletarian Social Wave
Methods Boycott Civil disobedience Civil war Class conflict Coup d'état Demonstration Guerrilla warfare Insurgency Nonviolent resistance Protest Rebellion Revolutionary terror Samizdat Strike action Tax resistance Terrorism
Causes Authoritarianism Autocracy Capitalism Collaborationism Colonialism Cronyism Despotism Dictatorship Discrimination Economic depression Economic inequality Electoral fraud Famine Fascism Feudalism Imperialism Military occupation Monarchy Millenarianism Natural disaster Nepotism Persecution Political corruption Political repression Poverty Tyranny Totalitarianism Unemployment
Examples Neolithic Commercial Industrial English Atlantic American Brabant Liège French Haitian Serbian Greek Of 1820 Of 1830 Belgian Texas Of 1848 Hungarian (1848) Philippine 1st Iranian Young Turk Mexican Chinese Of 1917–1923 Russian German Spanish Guatemalan Chinese Communist Hungarian (1956) Cuban Rwandan Cultural Nicaraguan 2nd Iranian Saur People Power August Revolution Carnation Of 1989 Velvet Romanian Singing Bolivarian Bulldozer Rose Orange Tulip Kyrgyz Arab Spring Tunisian Egyptian Yemeni Euromaidan 2018–2020 Arab protests Sudanese
Politics portal

Linz distinguished new forms of authoritarianism from personalistic dictatorships and totalitarian states, taking Francoist Spain as an example. Unlike personalistic dictatorships, new forms of authoritarianism have institutionalized representation of a variety of actors (in Spain's case, including the military, the Catholic Church, Falange, monarchists, technocrats and others). Unlike totalitarian states, the regime relies on passive mass acceptance rather than popular support.[87] Totalitarianism is an extreme version of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism primarily differs from totalitarianism in that social and economic institutions exist that are not under governmental control. Building on the work of Yale political scientist Juan Linz, Paul C. Sondrol of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs has examined the characteristics of authoritarian and totalitarian dictators and organized them in a chart:[88]

Sondrol argues that while both authoritarianism and totalitarianism are forms of autocracy, they differ in "key dichotomies":

(1) Unlike their bland and generally unpopular authoritarian brethren, totalitarian dictators develop a charismatic "mystique" and a mass-based, pseudo-democratic interdependence with their followers via the conscious manipulation of a prophetic image.

(2) Concomitant role conceptions differentiate totalitarians from authoritarians. Authoritarians view themselves as individual beings largely content to control and often maintain the status quo. Totalitarian self-conceptions are largely teleological. The tyrant is less a person than an indispensable function to guide and reshape the universe.

(3) Consequently, the utilisation of power for personal aggrandizement is more evident among authoritarians than totalitarians. Lacking the binding appeal of ideology, authoritarians support their rule by a mixture of instilling fear and granting rewards to loyal collaborators, engendering a kleptocracy.[88]

Compared to totalitarianism, "the authoritarian state still maintains a certain distinction between state and society. It is only concerned with political power and as long as that is not contested it gives society a certain degree of liberty. Totalitarianism, on the other hand, invades private life and asphyxiates it".[89] Another distinction is that "authoritarianism is not animated by utopian ideals in the way totalitarianism is. It does not attempt to change the world and human nature".[89] Carl Joachim Friedrich writes that "a totalist ideology, a party reinforced by a secret police, and monopoly control of [...] industrial mass society" are the three features of totalitarian regimes that distinguish them from other autocracies.[89]

Both World War II (ending in 1945) and the Cold War (ending in 1991) resulted in the replacement of authoritarian regimes by either democratic regimes or regimes that were less authoritarian.

World War II saw the defeat of the Axis powers by the Allied powers. All the Axis powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan) had totalitarian or authoritarian governments, and two of the three were replaced by governments based on democratic constitutions. The Allied powers were an alliance of Democratic states and (later) the Communist Soviet Union. At least in Western Europe the initial post-war era embraced pluralism and freedom of expression in areas that had been under control of authoritarian regimes. The memory of fascism and Nazism was denigrated. The new Federal Republic of Germany banned its expression. In reaction to the centralism of the Nazi state, the new constitution of West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany) exercised "separation of powers" and placed "law enforcement firmly in the hands" of the sixteen Länder or states of the republic, not with the federal German government, at least not at first.[93]

Culturally there was also a strong sense of anti-authoritarianism based on anti-fascism in Western Europe. This was attributed to the active resistance from occupation and to fears arising from the development of superpowers.[94] Anti-authoritarianism also became associated with countercultural and bohemian movements such as the Beat Generation in the 1950s,[95] the hippies in the 1960s[96] and punks in the 1970s.[97]

In South America, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile and Uruguay moved away from dictatorships to democracies between 1982 and 1990.[98]

With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Soviet Union in 1991, the other authoritarian/totalitarian "half" of the Allied Powers of World War II collapsed. This led not so much to revolt against authority in general, but to the belief that authoritarian states (and state control of economies) were outdated.[99] The idea that "liberal democracy was the final form toward which all political striving was directed"[100] became very popular in Western countries and was celebrated in Francis Fukuyama's book The End of History and the Last Man.[100] According to Charles H. Fairbanks Jr., "all the new states that stumbled out of the ruins of the Soviet bloc, except Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, seemed indeed to be moving toward democracy in the early 1990s" as where the countries of East Central Europe and the Balkans.[101]

In late 2010, the Arab Spring arose in response to unrest over economic stagnation but also in opposition to oppressive authoritarian regimes, first in Tunisia[102][103] and spreading to Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain and elsewhere. Regimes were toppled in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and partially in Yemen while other countries saw riots, civil wars or insurgencies.[104]

Since 2005, observers noted what some have called a "democratic recession",[100][105] although some such as Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way have disputed that there was a significant democratic decline before 2013.[105] In 2018, the Freedom House declared that from 2006 to 2018 "113 countries" around the world showed "a net decline" in "political rights and civil liberties" while "only 62" experienced "a net improvement".[106] Its 2020 report marked the fourteenth consecutive year of declining scores.[107] By 2020, all countries marked as "not free" by Freedom House had also developed practices of transnational authoritarianism, aiming to police and control dissent beyond state borders.[108]

Writing in 2018, American political journalist David Frum stated:

The hopeful world of the very late 20th century—the world of NAFTA and an expanding NATO; of the World Wide Web 1.0 and liberal interventionism; of the global spread of democracy under leaders such as Václav Havel and Nelson Mandela—now looks battered and delusive.[109]

Michael Ignatieff wrote that Fukuyama's idea of liberalism vanquishing authoritarianism "now looks like a quaint artifact of a vanished unipolar moment"[100] and Fukuyama himself expressed concern.[99] By 2018, only one Arab Spring uprising (that in Tunisia) resulted in a transition to constitutional democratic governance[104] and a "resurgence of authoritarianism and Islamic extremism" in the region[110] was dubbed the Arab Winter.[111][112][113][114][115]

Various explanations have been offered for the new spread of authoritarianism. They include the downside of globalization, and the subsequent rise of populist neo-nationalism,[116] and the success of the Beijing Consensus, i.e. the authoritarian model of the People's Republic of China.[117] In countries such as the United States, factors blamed for the growth of authoritarianism include the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and slower real wage growth[118] as well as social media's elimination of so-called "gatekeepers" of knowledge – the equivalent of disintermediation in economics – so that a large fraction of the population considers to be opinion what were once "viewed as verifiable facts" – including everything from the danger of global warming to the preventing the spread of disease through vaccination – and considers to be fact what are actually only unproven fringe opinions.[119]

The following is a non-exhaustive list of examples of states which are currently or frequently characterized as authoritarian.

State	Time period	Ruling group or person	Notes
Angola	1975–	People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola	[120]
Azerbaijan	1993–	New Azerbaijan Party	[121]
Bahrain	1746–	House of Khalifa	[122]
Belarus	1994–	Alexander Lukashenko	[123][124][125][126][127]
Cambodia	1985–	Hun Sen	[128][129]
Cameroon	1982–	Paul Biya	[130][131]
Chad	1990–	Idriss Deby	[132]
People's Republic of China	1949–	Communist Party of China	"Some scholars have deemed the Chinese system a 'fragmented authoritarianism' (Lieberthal), a 'negotiated state' or a 'consultative authoritarian regime'".[133] According to research by John Kennedy et al. (2018), Chinese citizens with higher education tend to participate less in local elections and have lower levels of democratic values when compared to those with only compulsory education.[134]
Republic of the Congo	1979–	Denis Sassou Nguesso	[135]
Cuba	1959–	Communist Party of Cuba	[136]
Egypt	2014–	Abdel Fattah el-Sisi	[137]
Equatorial Guinea	1979–	Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo	[138]
Eritrea	1993–	Isaias Afwerki	[139]
Gabon	1961–	Gabonese Democratic Party	[140]
Hungary	2010–	Viktor Orbán and Fidesz	It has recently moved more towards illiberalism.[141][142][143]
Iran	1981–	Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei	[144] Linz wrote in 2000 that "it is difficult to fit the Iranian regime into the existing typology, as it combines the ideological bent of totalitarianism with the limited pluralism of authoritarianism and holds regular elections in which candidates advocating differing policies and incumbents are often defeated".[145]
Jordan	1946–	House of Hashim	[146]
Kazakhstan	1990–	Nur Otan	[130]
Laos	1975–	Lao People's Revolutionary Party	[147]
Morocco	1957–	Alaouite dynasty	[146][148][149]
Montenegro	1990–	Democratic Party of Socialists under Milo Đukanović	[150][151][152][153][154]
Myanmar	2016–	National League for Democracy and Min Aung Hlaing	[155]
Nicaragua	2007–	Daniel Ortega	[156][157]
North Korea	1947–	Kim dynasty and the Korean Workers' Party	[158]
Oman	1970–	House of Al Said	[159]
Palestine	1964–	Palestine Liberation Organization	[160]
	2006–	Hamas
Poland	2015–	Law and Justice	It has recently moved more towards illiberalism.[141][161][162][163][164][165][166]
Qatar	1971–	House of Thani	[167]
Russian Federation	1999–	United Russia under Vladimir Putin	Has authoritarian tendencies and is described by some as "really a mixture of authoritarianism and managed democracy"[168][169][170] (see Putinism for more).
Rwanda	2000–	Paul Kagame	[171]
Saudi Arabia	1744–	House of Saud	[172]
Serbia	2012–	Serbian Progressive Party under Aleksandar Vučić	[173][174][175][176]
South Sudan	2011–	Sudan People's Liberation Movement under Salva Kiir Mayardit	[177]
Republika Srpska	2006–	Milorad Dodik	[178][179][180]
Syria	1963–	Ba'athist regime and al-Assad family	[181]
Tajikistan	1994–	Emomali Rahmon	[182]
Thailand	2014–	King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha	Overthrew the democratically elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra in a military coup and installed a military junta to oversee the governance of Thailand.[183]
Turkey	2003–	Justice and Development Party under Recep Tayyip Erdogan	Described as a "competitive authoritarian regime".[184]
Turkmenistan	1991–	Democratic Party of Turkmenistan	[185]
United Arab Emirates	1972–	Royal families of the United Arab Emirates	[186][187]
Uganda	1964–		[188]
Uzbekistan	1989–	Uzbekistan Liberal Democratic Party	[189][190][191]
Venezuela	1999–	United Socialist Party of Venezuela under Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro	[192]
Vietnam	1976–	Vietnamese Communist Party	[193]
Zimbabwe	1980–	ZANU-PF	[194][195]

The following is a non-exhaustive list of examples of states which were historically authoritarian.

State	Time period	Ruling group or person	Notes
Algeria[196]	1999–2019	Abdelaziz Bouteflika
Argentina[197][198]	1946–1955	Justicialista rule of Juan Perón	Peronism's populist authoritarianism.
	1966–1973	Military government	Argentine Revolution period of military rule.
	1973–1976	Justicialista rule of Juan Perón and Isabel Martínez de Perón	Peronism's populist authoritarianism.
	1976–1983	Free trade and deregulatory rule of Jorge Rafael Videla	The National Reorganization Process (NRP) ruled the country under a military dictatorship. However, the unfavourable outcome after the Falklands War prompted large protests against the NRP, hastening its downfall and the democratisation of the country.
Austria	1934–1938	Party of National Unity	Officially called the Federal State of Austria, it was ultimately annexed by Nazi Germany, known as the Anschluss.
Brazil[199]	1937–1945	Getúlio Vargas	Estado Novo period.
	1964–1985	Military government
Burma[200]	1962–2011	Military government and Socialist Programme Party
Burundi	2005–2020	Pierre Nkurunziza	[201]
Chile[202]	1973–1990	Augusto Pinochet	Largely ended after the 1988 Chilean national plebiscite rejected extending Pinochet's rule.
Republic of China	1927–1949	Kuomintang and Nationalist government (Chiang Kai-shek)	After losing the mainland in the Chinese Civil War, Chiang continued as a authoritarian leader after retreating to the island of Taiwan.
Democratic Republic of the Congo	1965–2019	Mobutu Sese Seko, Laurent-Désiré Kabila and Joseph Kabila	[203]
Croatia[204][205]	1990–1999	Franjo Tuđman
Czechoslovakia	1938–1939	Party of National Unity
Egypt[206]	1952–2011	Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak
Ethiopia	1991–2019	Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front	[207]
Hungary[208]	1920–1944	Miklós Horthy, Unity Party
Indonesia	1967–1998	Suharto	Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, which resulted in the New Order.
Iran	1925–1979	Pahlavi dynasty	The dynasty was ultimately overthrown in the Iranian Revolution, where it was turned into an Islamic republic.[209]
Iraq	1968–2003	Hassan al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein
Libya[210]	1969–2011	Muammar Gaddafi	After leading Libya throughout four decades, Muammar Gaddafi was ultimately captured and killed in the midst of the NATO–led intervention in Libya, as part of the wider Arab Spring.
Lithuania[211]	1926–1940	Antanas Smetona
FYR Macedonia[212][213]	2006–2016	Nikola Gruevski
Malaysia	1981–2003	Mahathir Mohamad	Operation Lalang and the 1988 Malaysian constitutional crisis. Mahathir would briefly end up as leader once again after the 2018 Malaysian general election, serving from two different parties and on non-consecutive terms. At the time until his resignation in 2020 due to the 2020 Malaysian political crisis, he was the oldest living state leader.
Philippines	1965–1986	Ferdinand Marcos	Initially democratically elected, Marcos espoused an ideology of "constitutional authoritarianism", and subsequently ruled as a authoritarian dictator until he was subequently overthrown.[214]
Portugal[215]	1926–1933	Military government	National Dictatorship.
	1933–1974	António de Oliveira Salazar and Marcelo Caetano	Under the Estado Novo regime.
Spain[216]	1936–1975	Francisco Franco	Established after the Nationalist faction had won the Spanish Civil War. Franco ruled as a authoritarian leader for 36 years, classifying himself as Caudillo. Spain would transition to democracy shortly after his death, as Juan Carlos I dismantled the Francoist regime.
South Africa[217][218]	1948–1994	National Party	Regime ended with the end of apartheid.
Singapore	1965–1990	Lee Kuan Yew	Singapore was classified as a pragmatic "semi-authoritarian" state especially under the leadership of its first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who was seen as a "benevolent dictator" by many Singaporeans. In contrast to other authoritarian states, corruption was low under his rule and remains so today, even as the country democratises.[219][220][18]
South Korea[221][222]	1948–1960	Syngman Rhee	South Korea under Rhee was highly authoritarian, violently suppressing uprisings such as the Jeju uprising and being the orchestrators behind massacres such as the Mungyeong massacre and Bodo League massacre.
	1961–1987	Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan	Although Rhee resigned in the midst of the April Revolution, the country would remain authoritarian for decades to come, and subsequent popular uprisings such as the Gwangju Uprising were violently suppressed under Chun's administration. Authoritarianism largely ended after the success of the June Struggle, where the government was unwilling to resort to violence before the 1988 Olympic Games to avoid international condemnation. However, corruption and political scandals remains rampant, largely influenced by chaebols (Korean: 재벌; lit. "rich family"), and half of all living former South Korean presidents are currently in prison for various crimes ranging from abuse of authority, bribery and embezzlement. Furthermore, the National Security Act enacted in 1948 still exists today.[223][224]
Sudan[130]	1989–2019	Omar al-Bashir
Taiwan[225]	1945–1987	Kuomintang (Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo)	The KMT ruled Taiwan as a highly repressive one-party authoritarian state, enacting martial law for almost 40 years after the February 28 incident, while supppressing political dissidents now known as the White Terror. The KMT still exists today, now largely under a two-party system.
Turkey[226][227]	1923–1950	Republican People's Party
Kingdom of Yugoslavia	1929–1934	Under Alexander I and Yugoslav Radical Peasants' Democracy
	1934–1941	Under Milan Stojadinović and Yugoslav Radical Union
SFR Yugoslavia[228][229]	1944–1980	Josip Broz Tito
FR Yugoslavia[230][231]	1989–2000	Slobodan Milošević