Autocracy: Difference between revisions

Autocratic government has been found to have effects on a country's politics, including its government's structure and bureaucracy, long after it democratizes. Comparisons between regions have found disparities in citizen attitudes, policy preferences, and political engagement depending on whether it had been subject to autocracy, even in different regions within the same country. Citizens of [[postcommunist]] nations are more likely to distrust government and free markets, directly hindering the long term economic prosperity of these nations. Xenophobia is generally more common in post-autocratic nations, and voters in these nations are more likely to vote for far-right or far-left political parties.{{Sfn|Grzymala-Busse|Finkel|2022|loc=The Legacies Autocracies Leave Behind}}

 

 

The concepts of tyranny and despotism as distinct modes of government were abandoned in the 19th century in favor of more specific typologies.{{Sfn|Richter|2005|p=222, 235}} Modern typology of autocratic regimes originates from the work of [[Juan Linz]] in the mid-20th century, when his division of democracy, authoritarianism, and totalitarianism became accepted.{{Sfn|Gerschewski|2023|p=31}} The first general theory of autocracy that defined it independently of other systems was created by [[Gordon Tullock]] in 1974 through applied [[public choice theory]].{{Sfn|Kurrild-Klitgaard|2000|p=63}} At the end of the Cold War, [[Francis Fukuyama]]'s theory of the [[end of history]] became popular among political scientists. This theory proposed that autocratic government was approaching a permanent decline to be replaced by [[liberal democracy]]. This theory was largely abandoned after the increase in autocratic government over the following decades.{{Sfn|Mauk|2019|p=1}} In the 2010s, the concept of "autocracy promotion" became influential in the study of autocracy, proposing that some governments have sought to establish autocratic rule in foreign nations, though subsequent studies have found little evidence to support that such efforts are as widespread or successful as originally thought.{{Sfn|Tansey|2015|pp=155–156}}{{Sfn|Way|2016|pp=64–65}}