Autocracy is Definition, features, types. Autocracy form of government

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:55

The main features of a country are the presence of territory and public authority, the monopoly right to issue legislative acts, the legal use of force and the collection of tax fees from the population, which are necessary for the material support of politics and the maintenance of the state apparatus.

State power is a kind of public power, and its form is a defining element of the system of organization of government bodies, the order of their formation, interaction with each other and with citizens, competence and terms of activity.

Basic forms and modes of government

The main forms of government are the monarchy and the republic. In the first case, the supreme power belongs to the monarch - the sole head of the country. The monarch inherits the throne and is not responsible to the citizens. There are absolute (all power is concentrated in the hands of just one person) and limited (power is divided between the monarch and other state bodies) monarchy. Limited can be:

Class-representative. In this case, state bodies are formed according to the principle that their representatives belong to a certain class. There are no such monarchies left in the world today. Example: Zemsky Sobor in the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries in Russia.
Constitutional. In such a monarchy, power is limited by the constitution, and there is also another supreme state body, which is formed by election. The constitutional monarchy is divided into dualistic (the ruler has the highest power and has the right to remove parliament) and parliamentary (separation of powers between the parliament and the ruler).

In the republic, all supreme authorities are elected by the will of the people or formed by certain authorized institutions for a limited period. Elected politicians bear full responsibility to the people. Republics are presidential, parliamentary, mixed or collegiate (directories), when the executive power belongs to a group of authorized persons. Today, this form of government is characteristic of Switzerland, where the Federal Council consists of only seven members.

Autocracy as a form of government: concept

Autocracy is translated from Latin as “autocracy” or “autocracy”. From this, the main features of this form of government are already becoming visible. Thus, autocracy is a form of government based on uncontrolled and individual, unlimited sovereignty of one person. In history, this term also denoted cases of granting unlimited powers to individualgovernment entities.

In the modern sense, autocracy is authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, where the complete and uncontrolled power of the leader is exercised. The latter is also called leaderism, that is, the assertion of a person in the role of an indisputable leader. Autocracy and dictatorship, autocracy and absolute monarchy, autocracy and authoritarianism are similar in many ways.

Some features of an autocratic form of government

This form of government is characterized not only by the unlimited power of the ruler, but also by other features. Political decisions under an autocracy regime rarely contribute to development, since they often deny ordinary universal human values: freedom, justice, equality, and so on. Autocratic rule is opposed to democracy and the principles of political pluralism.

For modern states, such a form of government as autocracy is a transient, but still not overcome phenomenon.

Types of autocracies by scope of government functions

Autocracies are divided into totalitarian and authoritarian. The first type of state structure is based on the moral support of the majority of the population, the formal demonstrative participation of people in the formation of supreme power and the active intervention of the state in all spheres of the country's public life. Authoritarian boards are characterized by relative independence of the authorities. Such rule usually has a limited impact on the life of society.

Autocracy and the law of necessary diversity

Many historians, political scientists and researchers speak about the inefficiency of autocracy as a form of state power. Even mathematical laws confirm that autocracy is not the most efficient regime. So, according to the law of necessary diversity (also known as Ashby's law), the variety of the system that controls something should not be less than the variety of the system that is being controlled. And since the “diversity” of the one who concentrates all power in his hands is obviously less than the diversity of the rest of society, the autocratic form is characterized by a drop in efficiency.

In order to comply with the law of necessary diversity, in order to maintain the fullness of power, the monarch or leader must artificially suppress the diversity of other members of society. This is precisely what explains the cruelty of autocratic regimes, the tendency to ideological propaganda, complete unification and a complete ban on any manifestations of individuality.

Historical examples of autocratic rule

Examples of autocracies in antiquity include the monarchies of the Ancient East and tyranny in individual Greek states, as well as the Roman and Byzantine empires. Autocracies usually arose and for some time quite successfully dominated societies where full-fledged legal institutions were not sufficiently developed. Other examples include A. Hitler's Nazi dictatorship in Germany, Mussolini's regime in Italy and the totalitarianism of the USSR.

Absolute monarchies of modern times

In today's world, autocracy is a form of government, such as the UAE, the Vatican City State (theological monarchy), Omar, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Swaziland and Brunei. North Korea (unification and ideology), China (ideology), the Philippines (suppression of society, denial of universal human values by some actions of the authorities) are characterized by separate signs of autocracy, namely the actions of the government in order to preserve diversity under the existing regime.

Autocracy: meaning in philosophy

Autocracy is not only a political regime based on the uncontrolled power of a single authorized person. This concept exists in philosophy as well. Emmanuel Kant singles him out. The philosopher calls autocracy the dominion of a clear mind over negative inclinations. But still much more often this term is used in the context of politics and the state.