Talk:Dictatorship

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Contents

[edit] Benevolent Totalitarian Dictatorships

Dictatorship in no way implies "authoritarian" OR "totalitarian". Dictatorships are merely governments led by one person, not following the herity of monarchal rulers. There are Benevolent and Totatalitarian Dictatorships, but "Dictatorship" should never be used to show suppression of rights.

Somebody should redact the human rights article.

Removed this:

Ironically, several dictatorships include the word democratic in their official names, such as Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The irony is a lot more complex than this reader realizes.

And much more dubious than this commentator realizes as well. The alleged status of Communist regimes as 'dictatorships' is a matter of debate, however the notion that the term of 'democratic' is befitting of these regimes is factually incorrect. The citizens of North Korea are unable to vote and ellect political movements which embody an alternative to that representing the current regime or the system of the country, and are actively persecuted by the current regime if they commit to such alternative movements underground. This makes the country unqualified to be considered a democratic republic in anything but the name, which makes the two words dubious in the context of North Korea's full & official title. 80.201.97.60 10:54, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Democratic should be included in dictator page since it is an example of how dictators attempt to hide the fact that only the dictatorial leader of the country will lead the country even though there are 'democratic' elections.

The average citizen would be intimidated into voting 'for' the dictator for fear of imprisionment, torture, or death. See Iraq for a good example.

Other dictatorships allow multiple parties on the ballot all of which are hand picked by the dictator to nominate the dictator as leader.

Other methods include fradulent counting of votes and other election rigging.

The conception of the term "democratic" under Communist regimes refers to more than just voting. It's viewed more in a class or an socio-economic sense than political.

172


That part about communits regimes gravitating to socio-economic equality would be a welcome addition to the general info on North Korea, Soviet Union, Cuba and other communist countries past and present.

Such an addition would make the article biased, given the rather large gap between theory and practice the recent history of Communist nations has forced us to take into consideration.

[edit] Keep it relevant

This is about the system of government, not the person running it. That information belongs in dictator. Some of the text needs to be removed so we dont repeat ourselves. --Jiang 23:46, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I have moved the following from the article. I don't see much relevance, nor can I verify the authenticy of the quote - google find exactly two hits which are wikipedia mirrors. As I side-note: similar quotes were inserted into Computer science and Afterlife and reverted as nonsense. andy 07:30, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"Being in power is like a lady".If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.
Navin Kumar


[edit] This is an essay

This article is more likely an essay. It has not the objectivity and clarity of an encyclopedic article.

  • Etimology and definition for dictatorship

I think that definition need to more concise and it should be only one definition for the concept. Special particularities could be moved on chapter "Style".

  • Style

"In the 20th century, the term dictatorship has come to mean a form of government in which absolute power is concentrated in the hands of a dictator and sometimes his supporters" - It is exactly the political system of the Middle Age, only that the dictator called himself/herself in some other ways. Hitler wanted for his "Reich" to last for 1,000 years, as the Dark Age lasted in Europe. The term of dictatorship re-appears in the 20th century, the concept and the model is far more old. Speaking of "style", it seems there are so many styles of dictatorship.

  • Types of dictatorship

I am not sure that I understand what is the difference beetween "type" and "style".

These initials chapters should have a higher degree of abstractisation. And then, the concretisation:

  • History of dictatorship

Based on the "types" and "styles" of dictatorship, I think the history of dictatorship will be more clear, complete and objective. This is the place for examples, and I suppose it could be a very good example of collaborative work in order to complete this history.

Or rather the article should refer only on the "modern" dictatorship. In its actual form, the article "Dictatorship" is contradictory with the article about "Napoleon Bonaparte". --Vasile 15:32, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Vasile, you're right on target here. This article was unsavable-- a mess like so many of the related topics, so I have replaced it with a passable, if brief, rewrite. 172 06:49, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 172 Rewrite

The old dictatorship page wasn't that good. The re-write done by 172 I think does improve things overall. However, I'm not sure about removing all the links to various examples of dictatorship. Really the whole idea of "dictatorship" is so nebulous. As the US Supreme Court said in regards to porn, its a definite "know it when I see it" type of thing. So having all the examples is useful.

On the plus side, these lists help make the encyclopedia more navigable, with its Wikilink systes, but this one had to go. Since Wikipedia lacks a professional review board, and prohibits "original research," editors could never properly determine a way to categorize regimes throughout history, and make consident judgments on which ones are worth reporting as widely regarded as "dictatorships." There is also the issue of differences in the definition, depending on the source, which the new article is careful to work around in order to stay neutral. 172 06:57, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps the single best way to measure the level of undemocratic tenure within any given regime is by the amount of annual fugitives fleeing the country on the risk of losing their lives, even though there is no immediate threat of military conflict within the country neither by internal nor external causes. When a person is willing to risk their life and that of their children in order to emigrate from a country through any means required, it may well be indicative of the problems within their country of origin which seem to transcend the problems a person fiercely opposed to the Bush administration experiences while living in America, to give but one example. 80.201.97.60 10:44, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

The lists by Wallechinsky certainly aren't "oringinal research." Are you suggesting that the regimes cited are *not* correctly categorized? If so, I'd like to see some citations to defend that position.

[edit] Merge dictator ?

Merge because it's a fork. Santa Sangre 22:52, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

That makes no sense. Dictator covers the use of the title, in many historical instances, often not in a dictatorship, while most dictatorships used another style, or didn't even have an (individual) dictator but a collective, such as a junta or politburo. It might make more sense to merge in articles on specific types of dictatorship, although in time that could well become to long. Fastifex 11:41, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


no, why should we do that? 62.179.207.247 19:10, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that dictators should be seperate. In the dictators section you can have historic dictators, in dictatorship just have the history of this form of government. Just like the pages for the other types of governments.

As with over govermental pages the position, in my opinion should be left seperate.

[edit] 19th century

I've removed this:

In the 1860s, Queen Victoria of Great Britain expressed fears of dictatorial tendencies in her Prime Minister William Gladstone.

It doesn't seem enough to justify a section called "19th century". I'm not sure if this section is needed either. At the moment the article deals with Roman dictators and 20th century. If we add an overview of dictatorship throughout history, we might as well refer to History since some form of dictatorship has always been the rule much more than the exception. I don't think it would be valuable. Someone should outline a structure for this article, something to start from. And the most important thing on a page like this is the linking to other pages such as absolute monarchy, Chinese Emperors, and so on. Not just a link in "See also" but some description. On the whole I think the best thing for this page would be to restart from scratch. Piet 12:17, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Integration

Stub articles were merged in per WikiProject Integration. Cwolfsheep 20:35, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Present Day

This article requires a section concerning present day dictatorships in the world. We should be able to ensure political neutrality if it is made clear that the named countries are effectively dictatorships as the result of the actions of the current rulers who incorporated the principles of dictatorship and autocracy within their style of rule, and thus not neccesairly due to the imposed systems of these nations. 80.201.97.60 11:13, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The map

China and Saudi Arabia aren't dictatorships? Yeah, tell that to this guy. Also, the "former dicatorship" crap is useless, seeing as every country in the world before the 19th century was a dictarship. --The monkeyhate 20:52, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Suppression, even persecution, of free speech is not the same thing as totalitarian dictatorship. By the way, that guy didn't die, the gruesome images of crushed carcass some show as a sequel is from somewhere else. 71.222.152.8 15:19, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article Not Inclusive

Some political theories and government bodies have used the term "dictatorship" in other senses, such as the communist-socialist "dictatorship of the proletariat," referring to a government in control of a specific and not necessarily small or oligarchic group of people. In Chinese constitution, the term "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat" is used, meaning a democratic government in hands of the proletarians. Some other political theories call the exclusive democracy of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, even modern democracies that exclude women/slaves as dictatorships of special groups. Although this form of government is not necessarily or is no longer practiced, it is an extremely influential concept that is not included in the article. 71.222.152.8 15:19, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Use of "Dictator" in Wikipedia

Please see here for debate, thanks. Tazmaniacs 15:34, 17 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Pro-USA dictatorship = Democracy?

USA is hyprocrite, she always put blame on China, Pakistan and Burma for lack of democracy, but why never blame Mikheil Saakashvili for his dictatorship over George .

(USA supports pro-American dictator Mikheil Saakashvili via Rose Revolution.) 203.218.176.220 04:54, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Distinction between Dictatorship, Monarchy, and Despotism

I think that this article, as well as the other ones I mentioned, fail to answer a question of mine that I think many others have: What is the technical difference between a monarchy, a dictatorship, and despotism. Aren't monarchy and despotism simply another word for dictatorship? Fusion7 (talk) 19:03, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with "autocracy"

The very first line of this article states that dictatorship is a form of autocratic government. This is self-evident that the two articles refer to the same idea. I think they should be merged. Dust429 (talk) 13:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Autocracy specifically refers to rule by one man. A dictatorship may involve several persons like in juntas.Ultramarine (talk) 14:02, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Nope. No merge. Since etymologically, the term historically has not had the identical meaning as it does today. Far from it.

[edit] Etymology and Definition

The article lacks etymology.

Only provides recent, modern tense of the word; being generally synonymous with despotism, brutal autocracies and tyranny.

The term had a different tense, for example, in the 19th century, and the era of writers such as Karl Marx. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.49.14.20 (talk) 02:21, 15 May 2008 (UTC)