Authors: Lipset
Summary: In about 1650 words, this entry defines dictatorship, discusses the difference between totalitarian and nontotalitarian dictatorships, explores tyrannical amibition and totalitarian ideology, and offers some thoughts about the future.
The entry defines dictatorship as a form of twentieth century rule associated with totalitarian and authoritarian political systems. The term originated in ancient Rome, and referred to a function of constitutional government very similar to the emergency or war powers provisions in modern democratic constitutions.
Two twentieth century nondemocratic political systems have been specifically termed dictatorships--totalitarian systems like German Nazism and Soviet Stalinism, and non totalitarian authoritarian systems typified by Mussolini in Italy and Franco in Spain. The entry advocates analyzing modern dictatorships based on classical tyrannical typologies set forth by Plato, Aristotle and other ancient Greeks.
The entry also maintains that students of liberal democratic politics must understand tyrannical ambition and totalitarian ideology in order to understand modern dictatorships. In totalitarian systems, the dictator and the ideology are "mutually reinforcing dimensions of a single system"--each needs the other. Similarly, the popularity of totalitarian dictators like Hitler and Stalin is impossible to understand without understanding the commitment of their followers to the totalitarian ideology. The entry presents many useful examples throughout this discussion.
In conclusion, the entry offers some thoughts about the place of dictatorships and tyranny in the political future. Although it currently appears that liberal democracy has triumphed over dictatorships, recent events in places like the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda remind us that the kind of violence and social strife from which dictatorships spring are not yet fully gone. Thus, it is still necessary to study, recollect and reflect on past dictatorships in order to learn lessons that will safeguard the future.