Non-democratic regime: concept, types. Totalitarian and authoritarian political regimes

Undemocratic regimes are divided into authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. They are states based on the power of the dictator or the ruling isolated elite. In such countries, a simple population can not exert pressure on the authorities. Undemocratic regimes are associated with numerous wars, terror and other horrors of despotism.

Features of totalitarianism

Any undemocratic regime deprives the people of the status of a source of power. In a country with such a system of government, citizens are largely unable to interfere in state affairs. In addition, people who do not belong to the elite are deprived of their freedoms and rights. Nondemocratic regimes are divided into two types - totalitarian and authoritarian. Neither in any case, there is no de facto democracy. The entire administrative and power resource is concentrated in the hands of a certain group of people, and in some cases, even one person.

The main basis on which the totalitarian undemocratic regime is kept is the figure of the leader, which, as a rule, is put forward by a powerful group (party, military, etc.). Power in such a state is kept to the last at the expense of any means. In relation to society, including violence is used. At the same time, totalitarian power is trying to look legitimate. For this, such regimes are enlisted by mass social support through propaganda, ideological, political and economic influence.

Under totalitarianism, society is deprived of its civil basis and independence. His life in many ways is nationalized. Totalitarian parties have always sought to infiltrate any social structures - from municipal authorities to artistic circles. Sometimes such experiments can affect even the personal and intimate life of a person. In fact, all people in such a system become small cogs of a huge mechanism. The non-democratic regime is cracking down on any citizens who are trying to interfere with its existence. Totalitarianism makes possible repressions not only against ordinary people, but against the approximate dictator. They are necessary for the strengthening and preservation of power, since the periodically renewed terror allows you to keep others in awe.

Propaganda

A typical totalitarian society has several characteristic features. It lives under a one-party system, police control, a monopoly on information in the media. A totalitarian state can not exist without universal control over the country's economic life. The ideology of such power, as a rule, is utopian. The ruling elite uses slogans about the great future, the exclusiveness of its people and the unique mission of the national leader.

Any undemocratic regime necessarily uses in its propaganda the image of the enemy against which it fights. Opponents may be foreign imperialists, democrats, as well as their own Jews, peasants, kulaks, etc. The search for enemies and wreckers explains such power of failure and internal disorder in the life of society. Such rhetoric allows people to mobilize to fight against invisible and real enemies, distracting them from their own problems.

For example, the political state regime of the USSR constantly turned to the topic of enemies abroad and in the ranks of Soviet citizens. At various times in the Soviet Union, they fought against the bourgeoisie, kulaks, cosmopolitans, pests at work, spies and numerous foreign political enemies. Its "flowering" totalitarian society in the USSR reached in the 1930s.

The primacy of ideology

The more active the authorities put pressure on their ideological opponents, the stronger the need for a one-party system. Only it allows to eradicate any discussion. The power takes the form of a vertical, where people "from below" unswervingly embody the next general line of the party. In the form of just such a pyramid, there was a Nazi party in Germany. Hitler needed an effective tool that could realize the Führer's plans. The Nazis did not recognize any alternative to themselves. They ruthlessly cracked down on their opponents. On the cleaned political field of the new government, it became easier to conduct its course.

The dictatorial regime is primarily an ideological project. Despots can explain their policy by scientific theory (like Communists talking about class struggle) or the laws of nature (as the Nazis reasoned, explaining the exceptional importance of the German nation). Totalitarian propaganda is often accompanied by political education, entertainment and mass actions. Such were the German torchlight processions. And in our days similar features are inherent in the parades in North Korea and carnivals in Cuba.

Cultural Policy

The classic dictatorial regime is a regime that completely subordinates culture and exploits it for its own purposes. In totalitarian countries, there is often a monumental architecture and monuments to the leaders. Cinema and literature are called to praise the imperial order. In such works, in principle, there can be no criticism of the existing system. In books and films, only all good is emphasized, and the message "life has become better, life has become more fun" is the main one in them.

Terror in such a coordinate system always acts in close connection with propaganda. Without ideological recharge, it loses its mass impact on the inhabitants of the country. At the same time, propaganda itself is not capable of fully influencing citizens without regular waves of terror. The totalitarian political state regime often combines these two concepts. In this case, acts of intimidation become propaganda weapons.

Violence and Expansion

Totalitarianism can not exist without power bodies and their dominance over all aspects of society. With the help of this tool, the government organizes complete control over people. Under close supervision is everything: from the army and educational institutions to art. Even a person not interested in history knows about the Gestapo, the NKVD, the Stasi and their methods of work. They were characterized by violence and total surveillance of people. In their arsenal are powerful signs of an undemocratic regime: secret arrests, torture, long imprisonment. For example, in the USSR black funnels and a knock at the door became a symbol of a whole pre-war era. "For prevention" terror can be directed even at a loyal population.

A totalitarian and authoritarian state often seeks territorial expansion in relation to its neighbors. For example, the ultra-right regimes of Italy and Germany had a whole theory about the "vital" space for the further growth and prosperity of the nation. In the Left, this idea is disguised as a "world revolution," assistance to the proletarians of other countries, and so on.

Authoritarianism

The well-known researcher Juan Linz singled out the main features characteristic of authoritarian regimes. This restriction of pluralism, the lack of a clear guiding ideology and a low level of people's involvement in political life. Simply put, authoritarianism can be called a mild form of totalitarianism. All these are types of non-democratic regimes, only with varying degrees of distance from the democratic principles of government.

Of all the features of authoritarianism, the key is precisely the lack of pluralism. The one-sidedness of the accepted views can exist simply de facto, and may be fixed de jure. Limitations primarily affect large interest groups and political associations. On paper, they can be extremely blurry. For example, authoritarianism allows the existence of "independent" parties from the government, which in fact are either puppet or too small to influence the real state of affairs. The existence of such surrogates is a way to create a hybrid regime. He can have a democratic showcase, but all of his internal mechanisms work according to the general line, given from above and not allowing objections.

Often authoritarianism is only a stepping stone to totalitarianism. The state of power depends on the state of the state institutions. Totalitarianism can not be built overnight. In order to form such a system, it takes some time (from several years to decades). If the authorities took the path of the final "tightening of the nuts", then at some point it will still be authoritarian. However, as the totalitarian system becomes legally consolidated, these compromise features will increasingly be lost.

Hybrid modes

With an authoritarian system, power can leave the remnants of civil society or its individual elements. However, in spite of this, the main political regimes of this kind rely solely on their own vertical and exist separately from the bulk of the population. They regulate themselves and reform themselves. If citizens are asked their opinions (for example, in the form of plebiscites), then this is done "for a tick" and only to legitimize the already established order. An authoritarian state does not need a mobilized population (unlike a totalitarian system), since without a firm ideology and ubiquitous terror such people will sooner or later oppose the existing system.

What else is democratic and undemocratic? In both cases, there is an electoral system, but its situation is quite different. For example, the US political regime entirely depends on the will of citizens, while in an authoritarian system elections become props. Excessively powerful authorities can use administrative resources in order to achieve the necessary results in referendums. And in presidential or parliamentary elections, she often resorts to scrubbing the political field, when people are given the opportunity to vote only for the "right" candidates. In this case, the attributes of the electoral process are outwardly preserved.

With authoritarianism, an independent ideology can be replaced by the supremacy of religion, tradition and culture. With the help of these phenomena, the regime makes itself legitimate. The emphasis on tradition, dislike for change, conservatism - all this is typical for any state of this kind.

Military junta and dictatorship

Authoritarianism is a general concept. To it it is possible to carry the most different control systems. Often in this series there is a military-bureaucratic state, which is based on military dictatorship. For such a power, there is a lack of ideology. The ruling coalition is a union of military and bureaucrats. The US political regime, like any other democratic state, is somehow connected with these influential groups. However, in a system governed by democracy, neither military nor bureaucrats occupy the dominant privileged position.

The main purpose of the above-described authoritarian regime is to suppress active population groups, including cultural, ethnic and religious minorities. They can pose a potential danger to dictators, because they have better self-organization than other residents of the country. In a military authoritarian state, all posts are distributed according to the army hierarchy. This can be both a dictatorship of one person, and a military junta consisting of the ruling elite (such was the junta in Greece in 1967-1974).

Corporate authoritarianism

In the corporate system for non-democratic regimes, monopolistic representation in the power of certain interest groups is characteristic. Such a state arises in countries where economic development has achieved certain successes, and society is interested in participating in political life. Corporate authoritarianism is something between a one-party government and a mass party.

Limited representation of interests makes it easily manageable. A regime based on a certain social stratum can usurp power, while at the same time giving handouts to one or more groups of the population. Such a state existed in Portugal in 1932-1968. Under Salazar.

Racial and colonial authoritarianism

A unique form of authoritarianism appeared in the second half of the 20th century, when numerous colony countries (primarily in Africa) gained independence from their metropolises. In such societies, the low level of the well-being of the population was and remains. That is why postcolonial authoritarianism was built "from below". The elite has acquired key posts with few economic resources.

The support for such regimes is the slogans of national independence, which overshadow any other internal problems. For the sake of preserving the imaginary independence in relation to the former metropolis, the population is ready to give power to any state levers. The situation in such societies is traditionally tense, it suffers from inferiority and conflicts with neighbors.

A separate form of authoritarianism can be called a so-called racial or ethnic democracy. Such a regime has many features of a free state. It has an electoral process, however, only representatives of a certain ethnic stratum are allowed to vote, while the rest of the country's inhabitants are thrown out of the political life. The situation of the rogue is either fixed de jure, or exists de facto. Within the privileged groups there is a typical competition for democracy. However, the existing inequality of races is a source of social tension. An unjust ratio is maintained by the strength of the state and its administrative resource. The most vivid example of racial democracy is the recent regime in South Africa, where the policy of apartheid was paramount.