Authoritarianism is one of the three main types of political systems (or regimes), democracy and totalitarianism being the other two. Social science scholars have identified a number of features of authoritarianism in its ideal type form. The ideal criteria may not be present in practice in actually existing authoritarian systems. Rather, descriptions of the ideal type provide a measuring stick for analysts to assess how authoritarian a particular system is. Scholars also increasingly recognize a hybrid between authoritarianism and democracy as forming its own ideal type regime, generally called either semi-authoritarian or semi-democratic systems (Ottaway 2003).
DEFINING FEATURES OF AUTHORITARIANISM
Defining features of authoritarianism include the existence of a single leader or small group of leaders with ultimate political authority. Believing in the supremacy of the authority of the state over all organizations in society, authoritarian leaders make all important government policy decisions. The state’s needs are paramount; individualism is encouraged only to the extent that it benefits the state. Ideal type authoritarianism lacks both official and unofficial limitations on its power, although Mark Hagopian (1984, p. 118) has argued that, in practice,powerful social groups can maintain unofficial, "extralegal" constraints over authoritarian leaders.
Whereas totalitarianism strongly emphasizes an official and overarching ideology serving as a blueprint for the remaking of society, authoritarianism is less concerned with ideology. When authoritarian leaders come to power, they often have a set of policy goals—such as eliminating corruption or resurrecting the economy—as well as what Juan Linz (1975) calls a "mentality" about the purpose of their rule. But this is quite different from the kind of ideology present in an ideal type totalitarian system.
Authoritarian systems commonly emerge in times of political, economic, and social instability, and thus, especially during the initial period of authoritarian rule, authoritarian systems may have broad public support. The stereotype of an authoritarian leader as uniformly despised by the general population is rarely accurate. In the majority of authoritarian systems, however, these public (and publicly supported) goals take a back seat to the maintenance of the regime’s power if the latter is threatened. Over time, if the government fails to achieve its policy goals, the public may withdraw its support.
Because of the government’s control of the state’s repressive mechanisms, declining support need not translate into popular unrest and antigovernment mobilization. Indeed, another of authoritarianism’s defining features is the limiting of mass political participation. Democratic and totalitarian systems encourage the general public’s political participation, although in the totalitarian case the state or ruling party controls all aspects of mass political mobilization. Authoritarian leaders typically prefer a population that is apathetic about politics, with no desire to participate in the political process. Authoritarian governments work to develop such attitudes, both by fostering a sense of a deep divide between society and government and by repressing expressions of dissent, violently if necessary. Consequently, authoritarian leaders view the rights of the individual, including those considered to be "human rights" by the international community, as subject to the needs of the government. Concern about the possible emergence of potential political opposition can become an obsession of authoritarian leaders, weakening their effectiveness as leaders and the policy performance of the government.
TYPES OF AUTHORITARIANISM
Just as social scientists identify various types of democratic systems, scholars highlight three types of authoritarianism. A military authoritarian system is one in which the military is not only privileged—as it typically is in all authoritarian systems—but actually in control of all major aspects of government decision-making. The rule of Augusto Pinochet in Chile from 1973 to 1988 is the classic example of a military authoritarian regime.
In party authoritarian systems, on the other hand, a single political party dominates the system. Though this is also true of totalitarian systems (e.g., Stalin’s USSR or Hitler’s Germany), party authoritarian systems penetrate into society less than totalitarian systems. Party authoritarian systems may even tolerate small opposition parties and use mechanisms of democracy like elections in an effort to increase their legitimacy with the public. Mexico’s authoritarian system prior to the reforms of the 1990s and 2000s is an example of a party authoritarian system.
Bureaucratic authoritarian systems are run by the military but rely heavily on experts in the fields of economics and other policy areas, often allowing them significant autonomy to set and oversee government policy. Social scientists often label these officials technocrats. Military leaders point to the technical expertise of these bureaucrats as a key component of their economic modernization policies, which are introduced under harsh authoritarian conditions to prevent opposition to economic reforms. Guillermo O’Donnell identifies Argentina from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s as the classic example of bureaucratic authoritarianism.
