autocracy

1. government by an individual with unrestricted authority

2. the unrestricted authority of such an individual

3. a country, society, etc., ruled by an autocrat

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

autocracy

rule by one person, especially arbitrary or absolute rule. Compare ABSOLUTISM.

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Autocracy

a form of government involving the unlimited and unchecked sovereignty of one individual in a state. The despotic monarchies of the ancient East, the tyrannical governments in some ancient Greek states, the Roman and Byzantine empires, and absolute monarchies of recent times were autocracies. The notion of autocracy was also used to designate unlimited authority in any given sphere of state activity. In contemporary literature, the notion of autocracy also designates political regimes characterized by the supreme power of a “leader” (Führer, duce, caudillo) who is not controlled by representative organs.

V. S. NERSESIANTS

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References in periodicals archive

If rulers and ruled (or, to be precise, a small portion of the latter) worked jointly for a reforming and reformed autocracy in the 18th century, the picture becomes much more complicated in the course of the next century or so.

Rulers and ruled, 1700-1917

In contrast, in an autocracy power is concentrated in the ruling party or the elite, which has an incentive to maximize the total amount of corruption and to develop the economy (so that it can extract further bribes and prevent a potential overthrow).This incentive encourages the ruling party/elite to award economic resources and projects to those firms that pay the highest bribes, assuming all bribers subject to the same project specifications, the highest bribe payer is the most efficient.

Corruption, regime type, and economic growth

Her topics include hearing the people's complaints: Kandahar to Kabul 2001-09, vertically integrated criminal syndicates in Kabul and Garmisch 2009-10, the Arab Spring as a revolt against kleptocracy, the post-Soviet kleptocratic autocracy in Uzbekistan about 2013, up a level to Afghanistan and Washington from June 2010 to January 2011, and violent extremists.

Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security

Yemen has been suffering some political unrests since a popular uprising that erupted in 2011 ended the autocracy of President Ali Abdullah Saleh a year later.

Iran Sends Humanitarian, Medical Aids to Yemen

Peteza said that "without the politicians, government tends to become autocratic." But aren't we, in fact, already in thrall of an autocracy of political dynasties and pocket empires?

PH not a democracy, ruled by 'pocket empires'

Onlookers can no longer claim that "anything is better than despotism." Democracy does not automatically replace autocracy, and well-functioning institutions of law, education and governance can vanish overnight.

Freedom Vs. Stability: Are Dictators Worse Than Anarchy?

She by no means intends to feed the narrative of doomed autocracy but rather to read each killing as a juncture "in a historical road that pointed in several directions" (11).

Courtrooms most Russian?

"The autocracy of Nawaz Sharif has been exposed, we will not leave them.

Khan says PTI to lodge FIR against Nawaz, Nisar

He continued that there were not a partnership, but it was autocracy, and the authorities in Baghdad want to control everything, and this is unacceptable to us.

Barzani : All options are open before us and we may not take part in the next government