Authoritarian States

Defining a state as “authoritarian” is problematized by a number of competing definitions and typologies. However, at the core, classifying a state as such denotes that power and control within the state are unfairly concentrated, exercised, and maintained. Repression, whether political or physical, is utilized in order to safeguard the status quo and prevent political and social change. [Page 48]As such, authoritarian states restrict or fail to maintain institutions and processes designed to foster and ensure the rights and political participation of their people. Therefore, the legitimacy of such states can be questioned because of a lack of accountability and direct input of the governed population.

Authoritarian states routinely practice deception at both domestic and international levels in the context of propaganda, self-interest, self-preservation, and repression of their people. Such deception can be used to foster nationalism and support for the regime through the caricaturing of other nations, with ethnic or cultural groups seen as threatening, thus uniting the population in common opposition. This is often done with the support of state-owned or state-influenced media. Deception can also be used to cover up human rights violations and atrocities, or scapegoat others once evidence of such acts emerge, thus distancing the regime from such acts.

Authoritarian states are often governed through autocratic rule, whereby an individual exercises total control and power. Libya, while under the iron rule of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, is a good example of this. Gaddafi ruled by suppression and violence for decades before he was overthrown and killed as part of the Arab Spring events in 2011. However, as Barbara Geddes's typology (and other typologies) of authoritarian regimes demonstrates, authoritarian states can be governed through a range of leadership regimes, including military and single-party leadership, in addition to the personalization dictator model. Tunisia under Zine El Abidine Ben Ali is an example of the single-party type, whereas Algeria can be viewed as fitting the military type, in which unelected military and civilian personnel wield power and control. Authoritarian states can also exhibit a hybrid or amalgam of these models.

Such inequitable methods of governance can be contrasted with that of a democracy, in which greater accountability of leadership exists, and social and political rights of citizens are guaranteed and embedded by a range of institutions and processes. In authoritarian states in which some of these institutions and processes exist, they are influenced by the regime and ultimately serve to maintain the status quo and prevent political or social change.