Autocracy: Overview, Types, and Historical Examples

Basically, autocracy is the exercise of unrestricted power to rule by one's own right without external authorization. As a form of rule, autocracy therefore combines all the powers of the political system in a central force and provides neither for the participation of the people in state power nor for any kind of reference back to a higher authority that controls and legitimizes the exercise of rule. An autocratic government therefore rules by definition on its own authority and is accountable to no one. If God's grace is assumed, this absolute authority is relativized only insofar as it is limited by the responsibility of the ruler or rulers to God. The holder of all these powers can be a single person (e.g. king, dictator) or a group (party, junta, central committee).

The classic examples of autocracies are the absolute monarchy and the illegitimate dictatorship. While the absolutist monarch at least recognizes divine and historical law as an authority that is also binding on him and usually also grants his subjects the integrity of the person and of property, a pure dictator sees himself in principle as not bound by any legal norms and is limited in setting norms and executing government only by the factual circumstances and possibilities of exercising power (such as the availability of a military apparatus).

According to Juan Linz, autocracies can be divided into authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. In more recent considerations, so-called hybrid regimes or defective democracies are also included, which are classified as an "in-between" between (formally existing) democracy and (de facto) autocracy.

The political scientist Uwe Backes names three types of autocracies, which he distinguishes according to the prevailing legitimacy of rule in them:

1. regimes with a chiliastic ideology of rule, which he calls ideocracies. These ideologies make an exclusive claim to truth for their very far-reaching descriptive and normative statements. They develop visions of an ideal future that transcend the boundaries of historical existence and point back to a supposedly long-gone mythical ideal state that they set out to restore. As examples, he cites the regimes hitherto subsumed under totalitarianism, but also the Islamic Republic of Iran.
2. Regimes without or with only apparent ideology, maintained for the self-interest of the ruler or rulers and out of pure greed for power. This type he calls despotism. As examples he cites various non-European regimes such as that of the Duvaliers in Haiti or Zaire under Mobutu Sese Seko.
3. Regimes with a limited idea of rule. Here Backes distinguishes between absolutism, which legitimates itself dynastically and regionally, and authoritarianism, which relies, for example, on the maintenance of public security, the preservation of proven traditions, the enhancement of national prestige, or moderate modernization in the sense of a development dictatorship. Examples of this are Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser or the Baath parties in Iraq and Syria.

Autocratic Governments in Ancient Rome

The sole rule of the king was replaced in the Roman state around the 6th century B.C. (in the context of the efforts of the city of Rome to gain independence from Etruscan rule) by the republic, in which the city nobility (patricians) initially possessed state power, in which the lower strata of the Roman citizenry (the "people") later also participated.

In times of war and crisis in the Roman Republic there was the possibility of appointing a dictator with very far-reaching powers for six months. This dictator held the summum imperium, i.e. all offices of the magistrate were under his control (for a limited period of time). The powers of the tribunes of the people were suspended during the dictatorship, as was the right of Roman citizens to appeal to the criminal courts. The dictator, however, was not allowed to change the constitution or declare wars or levy new taxes. He could not himself be prosecuted for acts committed while in office. A comparable "sacrosanct" (Latin sacrosanctus, "inviolable") position was otherwise only held by the tribunes of the people as specially protected representatives of the people. The Roman dictatorship can hardly be equated with dictatorial regimes of the modern era, since it was a legitimate institution that was limited in the extent and duration of its power. In the late period of the Republic, however, it was increasingly in danger of being misused for despotic purposes by individual political actors. Thus, shortly before his assassination, Caesar is said to have attempted to have a lifelong dictatorship bestowed upon him.

When the principate was founded in the imperial period, the rights and powers of the tribunes of the people in particular were transferred to the princeps ("first", from which the titles prince and prince arose), who functioned as an unlimited autocrat and used the titles Augustus and Caesar (from which: emperor). The appearance of an exceptional government acting in the sense of the republican state constitution was preserved. The title Imperator ("commander", actually the honorary title of a military commander), which was also used by most Roman emperors, corresponded to the term Autokrator ("autocrat") in the Greek imperial titulature, which was used parallel to or instead of the Latin designations, especially in the later phases of the Roman Empire.

Autocratic governments in Russia

In the Russian Empire, from 1721 onwards, the tsar officially bore the title of autocrat for a long time and called himself the "Autocrat of All the Russias" (Russian Император и Самодержец Всероссийский Imperator i Samodershez Vserossiysky, literally "All-Russian Emperor and Autocrat"), i.e. "autocrat of all Russia". The form of government of the Russian tsars since the abolition of the ecclesiastical patriarchal office by Tsar Peter I is also known as Caesaropapism. Although the secular ruler did not directly unite secular and spiritual power in one person, the church was directly subordinate to the state authorities.

After the Russian Revolution and the introduction of the Soviet system, this was realized in the form of autocratic rule by the Communist Party, as it came to fruition in particular in the constitution of the Soviet Union in force from 1936 to 1977.

Autocratic governments in Germany