Democracy and Non-Democratic Governments: Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism, Monarchism

Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Democracy allows people to participate equally—either directly or through elected representatives—in the proposal, development, and creation of laws. It encompasses social, economic, and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of political self-determination. The term originates from the Greek word: δημοκρατία (dēmokratía), which translates to “rule of the people”. This term was used around 400 BCE to denote the political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably Athens.

A democratic government contrasts two forms of government where power is either held by one, as in a monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of individuals, as in an oligarchy or aristocracy. Nevertheless, these oppositions, inherited from Greek philosophy, are now ambiguous because contemporary governments have mixed democratic, oligarchic, and monarchic elements. Several variants of democracy exist, but there are two basic forms, both of which concern how the whole body of citizens executes its will: direct democracy and representative democracy.

Direct democracy is a form of democracy in which people vote on policy initiatives directly. This is different from a representative democracy, in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives.

Representative democracy is a variety of democracy founded on the principle of elected people representing a group of people. For example, three countries which use representative democracy are the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Poland.

Unlike democracy, authoritarianism and totalitarianism are forms of government where an individual or a single-party concentrates all power.

Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority as well as the administration of said authority. In politics, an authoritarian government is characterized by highly concentrated and centralized power maintained by political repression and the exclusion of potential challengers. It uses political parties and mass organizations to mobilize people around the goals of the regime. Authoritarianism emphasizes arbitrary law rather than the rule of law, including election rigging and political decisions being made by a select group of officials behind closed doors. Authoritarianism is marked by “indefinite political tenure” of an autocratic state or a ruling-party state.

An autocracy is a system of government in which a supreme political power is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control. By contrast, a singleparty state is a type of party system government in which a single political party forms the government and no other parties are permitted to run candidates for election. Typically, single-party states hold the suppression of political factions as a self-evident good. The Communist Party of China’s single-party rule of the People’s Republic of China is a prominent contemporary example.

Totalitarianism is an extreme version of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism primarily differs from totalitarianism in that social and economic institutions exist free from governmental control. By contrast, totalitarianism is a political system where the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life wherever necessary. The term ‘an authoritarian regime’ denotes a state in which the single power holder – an individual ‘dictator,’ a committee or a junta or an otherwise small group of political elite – monopolizes political power. However, a totalitarian regime attempts to control virtually all aspects of the social life, including economy, education, art, science, private life, and morals of citizens. The concept became prominent in Western anti-communist political discourse during the Cold War era in order to highlight perceived similarities between Nazi Germany and other fascist regimes on the one hand, and Soviet communism on the other.

Political scientists Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski were primarily responsible for expanding the usage of the term in university social science and professional research, reformulating it as a paradigm for the Soviet Union as well as fascist regimes. For Friedrich and Brzezinski, the defining elements were intended to be taken as a mutually supportive organic entity composed of the following: an elaborating guiding ideology; a single mass party, typically led by a dictator; a system of terror; a monopoly of the means of communication and physical force; and central direction, and control of the economy through state planning. Such regimes had initial origins in the chaos that followed in the wake of World War I, at which point the sophistication of modern weapons and communications enabled totalitarian movements to consolidate power.

A monarchy is a form of government in which sovereignty is actually or nominally embodied in a single individual, the monarch. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and rules for life or until abdication. Monarchs may be autocrats (absolute monarchy) or ceremonial heads of state who exercise little or no power or only reserve power, with actual authority vested in a parliament or other body such as a constitutional assembly.

Monarchs have various titles — king or queen, prince or princess, Malik or Malikah, emperor or empress, duke or grand duke, and Shah. Monarchy is associated with political or sociocultural hereditary rule; most monarchs, both historically and in the modern day, have been born and brought up within a royal family and trained for future duties. However, some monarchies are nonhereditary. In an elective monarchy, the monarch is elected but otherwise serves as any other monarch. Historical examples of elective monarchy include the Holy Roman Emperors and the free election of kings of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Monarchies have existed throughout the world, although in recent centuries many states have abolished the monarchy and become republics. Advocacy of republics is called republicanism, while advocacy of monarchies is called monarchism. As of 2010 in Europe, there are twelve monarchies: seven kingdoms, one grand duchy, one papacy, and two principalities, as well as the diarchy of Andorra.