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Essentials of Comparative PoliticsChapter 6
Nondemocratic Regimes
Defining Nondemocratic Rule
Nondemocratic Regimes:
• Nondemocratic regimes are those controlled by a small group of individuals who
exercise power over the state without being constitutionally responsible to the
public.
• Public has little or no role in selecting or removing leaders from office.
• Non-democratic regimes deny their citizens: participation, competition and
liberty.
• Nondemocratic regimes restrict individual freedom.
• Some (not all) nondemocratic regimes like communist ones limit individual
freedom to produce greater economic equality.
• Some nondemocratic regimes are highly ideological (Fascism and communism);
others reject ideology and simply pursue power for power’s sake and the benefits
that come with it. In this case the leader, in essence, is the regime.
• Nondemocratic regimes may be institutionalized, stable and legitimate.
• The term of authoritarianism is used to cover many different forms of
nondemocratic rule.
,Totalitarianism and Nondemocratic Rule
Totalitarianism:
• Totalitarianism is a form of nondemocratic rule with a highly centralized state
whose regime has a well-defined ideology and seeks to transform and fuse the
institutions of the state, society, and economy.
• Totalitarian regimes often use violence and terror to maintain control and destroy
obstacles to change. This is not to say that all violent regimes are totalitarian.
• Totalitarian regimes have a strong ideological goals.
• Many scholars used the term of Totalitarianism to describe Nazi Germany and the
Soviet Union and its satellite states.
• Currently, North Korea can be accurately described as totalitarian.
• Kim Jong-un is a supreme leader.
• State and party control all aspects of life:
- Jobs and education chosen by state.
- State controls the media.
- No independent civil society or opposition.
• Arbitrary arrests and widespread repression:
- Up to 120,000 people in forced-labor prison camps.
- Prison camps include men, women, and children.
Origins and Sources of Nondemocratic Rule
Modernization and Nondemocratic Rule:
• Modernization theory argues that nondemocratic regimes are more likely to
emerge in poor countries that lack a middle class (though there are some
exceptions).
• Not all nondemocratic countries are poor.
• The absence of a middle class is more likely to result in a polarization between
those few in power and a wider population that is weakly organized.
, • Modernization process may generate instability and feed non-democratic
movements.
• Modernization can bringing increased inflation or unemployment, weakening
economic development, and destabilizing the political order.
Elites and Nondemocratic Rule:
• In highly unequal societies, those who monopolize economic power may
monopolize political power. This because elites may be less willing to share
power when they fear losing their economic opportunities.
• The threat of revolution may make these systems unlikely to provide much in the
way of participation, competition, or liberty.
• Some argue that some countries with huge quintinites of natural resources (such
as minerals) have a barrier to modernization and democracy because wealth is
concentrated among elites who control those resources. (Resource Trap)
• Resources in the ground give leaders the wealth necessary to run the state without
taxation, so they can effectively ignore the people’s political demands.
• Also, since natural resources are not portable, those in power know that should
they give up power, they will not be able to take these assets with them.
Society and Nondemocratic Rule:
• Civil society is a non-governmental organization created by people to help define
their own interests, these organizations are not necessarily political.
• Civil society is crucial to democratic life because it allows individuals to
organize, articulate their preferences, and form networks that cross economic,
social, or political divisions.
• Many authoritarian systems are characterized by the absence of civil society.
Those in power often monitor or destroy civil society.
• Populism is not a specific ideology. It commonly takes on an anti - governmental
and anti-institutional approach.
• Populism can destabilize democratic practices and provide a foundation for
antidemocratic leaders to come to power.
• Populism led to polarization and weakened democratic opposition.
- Example: Venezuela under Hugo Chavez.
- Chavez mobilized (mostly) poor voters against urban upper classes.
• Civil Society itself may take on nondemocratic tendencies.
• Examples:
- The groups that advocate preferred rights for one ethnic or religious group
over another.
- Anti-Muslim groups in the USA can be seen as a form of civil society.
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