Antidemocratic regime: concept and types

What is an anti-democratic political regime? On what grounds is it determined? What features does it have? How is the emergence of anti-democratic regimes? Here is an incomplete list of issues that will be considered in the framework of this article.

What is called a political regime?

This is the way to organize a system of ties that reflects the relationship of society and power. Important from this point of view is the level of political freedom and life in the state. This is largely due to the culture, traditions and historical features of the country's development that are present. All this has led to the fact that each state can boast of its unique political regime.

But, despite such features, it is not difficult to find similar features. Therefore, two generalized concepts are used in the scientific literature: the anti-democratic regime and the democratic one. They will be considered in parallel, so that by using a comparison one can get a broader idea of what they are. As technical features it is necessary to inform the reader that the anti-democratic regime is further divided into authoritarian and totalitarian.

Symptoms

What are the characteristics of political regimes? What are the peculiarities of talking about who is in power now? The signs of an anti-democratic regime are as follows:

1. Lawlessness and terror dominate.
2. There is no political pluralism.
3. There are no opposition parties to power.

And as its antipode is a democratic regime:

1. The law prevails.
2. There is a separation of power (executive, legislative and judicial).
3. There are real, not declarative, political and social rights and freedoms of citizens.
4. The bodies of state power are elected.
5. Opposition and pluralism exist and are actively working to improve public life.

Also, let's pay attention to the fundamental details. Under an authoritarian regime, political power is concentrated in the hands of a group of people or a particular individual. But outside the political sphere, relative freedom remains. Under the totalitarian regime, everything is under strict control of power. This is accompanied by a large number of supervisory bodies. Under democratic regimes, the main source of power is the people. Interaction is based on the principles of freedom and equality. So what features does the anti-democratic regime have?

Authoritarianism

In this case, when they talk about the anti-democratic state regime, they mean theocracy, monarchism, neototalitarianism, the rule of the military or personified power. Often authoritarianism goes along with dictatorship. There is no real political opposition, but in other spheres (ecology, medicine, and so on), the autonomy of the individual remains. We can distinguish such features:

1. The government has unlimited and uncontrolled nature and is expressed in the form of tyranny, monarchy, military junta and so on.
2. It is based on strength. But it is not a fact that the authoritarian regime will resort to mass repression. It can even be popular among the general population. But, if necessary, any action can be taken to compel citizens to obey.
3. Monopoly of the political sphere and power.
4. The replenishment of leading cadres is carried out through co-optation, and not through the use of competition mechanisms. Also because of this, there are problems with the continuity and transfer of power.
5. There is no total control over society. This is accompanied by a certain degree of non-interference in areas outside politics.

What is authoritarianism?

It is divided into a whole group of different directions with its own characteristics. There can be rigidly authoritarian, moderate, liberal, populist and national-patriotic regimes. Each of them has its own characteristics.

The first three are distinguished due to the different rigidity of the exercise of power. Populist authoritarianism is based on the masses. The national-patriotic regime uses a common (or most) idea to build a totalitarian or democratic society. That is, authoritarianism occupies an intermediate position.

Totalitarianism

The peculiarity of this regime is the presence of control over all spheres of society's life on the part of the authorities. And it is monopolized (the leader or the party). Also a feature is the existence of a single ideology, which is mandatory for all citizens. To ensure the absence of dissent, a powerful supervisory and supervisory apparatus is used. Police reprisals and acts of intimidation are widely used. The goal of totalitarian regimes in relation to citizens is the formation of an initiative person who is inclined to subordination. Under the control and compulsory regulation falls all the activities of citizens. What features does this antidemocratic state regime have?

Signs of totalitarianism

They can be accommodated in four points:

1. There is only one mass party. As a rule, at its head is a charismatic leader. There is also a merger, integration of state and party structures, with the latter having an advantage in terms of importance.
2. Centralization and monopolization of power provides that the most important is the party's loyalty to the state. Material, religious, aesthetic and other values are secondary. And as a result, the borders between spheres of life disappear, the entire country is viewed as a single camp.
3. The presence of a single official ideology. It is introduced into consciousness by the massive and purposeful imposition of it as the only true way of thinking. A feature of this ideology is that the emphasis is on shared values (race, nation, state, class or clan). There is intolerance to any dissent.
4. The presence of a system of psychological and physical terror. A police state is being built that uses the principle that "only what was ordered by the authorities is allowed."

Here are such features have different types of anti-democratic regimes. But now it is impossible to meet something ideal, there necessarily are elements of other political structures. Therefore, in order to understand the difference between the democratic and anti-democratic regime, let us consider the features of the first. Of course, this will be done on the ideal model of the state.

Democracy and its signs

From the Greek the term is translated as "democracy". Residents of a state with such a system are considered the main source of equality.

Democracy has the following features:

1. Electivity. Citizens are elected to government bodies on equal terms.
2. Separation of power. There are legislative, judicial and executive branches that are independent.
3. Civil society. People can influence the power, thanks to a large network of voluntary social organizations.
4. Equality. All have equal civil and political rights.
5. Pluralism. Foreign opinions and ideologies are respected. In the press there is no censorship and full publicity reigns.
6. Compromises. The relationship is aimed at finding a mutually beneficial solution. Conflicts are exhausted by legal means.

When they talk about political regimes: democratic and anti-democratic, then there may be problems with understanding the information received due to certain beliefs and mentality. The longest stay in the territory of a certain country helps best with this.

Antidemocratic regime: heterogeneity and features

It has already been mentioned that regimes differ in character. About the anti-democratic political regime was spoken back in the days of antiquity: then despotism and tyranny were popular. In the first case, arbitrary and unlimited power is implied, which is based on arbitrariness. Tyranny is based on one-man rule, when the power is usurped and cruel methods of its implementation are being introduced. A feature of this type is the displacement of the legitimate government through a coup d'état with the help of violence.

Also in the framework of practical implementation, military regimes are of interest. They are based on the fact that the real leaders of the armed forces receive power (alternatively, the special services). It is established through a coup when actions are directed against the rule of legitimate civilians.

Antidemocratic regimes of states of this type were very popular in the last century (but territorially limited to Asia, Africa, Latin and South America). After their establishment, a ramified military-police apparatus was created, which included the army, intelligence agencies and a number of other bodies to control the population, public associations and so on. But this is only a general concept of an anti-democratic regime of this type. To have better awareness, one should separately study each individual case.

Conclusion

So we dismantled what democratic and anti-democratic regimes are, and also the features of the latter. Alas, only the tip of the information iceberg is represented here. In order to understand the concept of the anti-democratic regime and the aspects and nuances that accompany it, it is necessary to study a large volume of specific, narrowly focused literature.