Talk:Autocracy

Autocracy is currently a Politics and government good article nominee. Nominated by Thebiguglyalien (talk) at 05:52, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

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Short description: Form of government

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Divya Bhatnagar.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 17:43, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mmcnichol. Peer reviewers: MoeKasawaki.

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Countries

What countries use this type of government? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.124.192.13 (talk • contribs) 20:05, 2 December 2004

It's not as much a form of government, as it is a property of one! Its a property inherent to most empires or dictatorships. Wouter Lievens 22:22, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Technically not a single government remains to use this kind of government because it would be too complex to actually do it however the only nation that remotely comes close to such an Autocractic government would be N. Korea. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.78.175.238 (talk) 06:24, 30 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Russian title

Imperator i Samodyerzhets Vserossiysky ("All-Russian Emperor and Autocrat") - Might I respectfully suggest that this is both more accurately and elegantly rendered "Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias," the plural referring to the nations and territories within his domain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.9.233.183 (talk • contribs) 19:06, 20 March 2006

Historic use

As far as I know, historically the title 'autocrat' was used only by Byzantine and Russians, to emphasize ruler's power. It was also used by Ottoman Greeks for Ottoman sultan, in sense emperor. the definition of autocracy in this article is modern interpretation of the word as a form of government. historically it wasn't necessarily associated negatively, like tyrant etc. it was rather a characteristic of ruler. 85.101.221.5 (talk) 17:42, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can anyone please provide some sources on this? Thank you! Kennin (talk) 13:10, 27 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia Integration

This article has been modified to include content from similar articles per Wikipedia:WikiProject_Integration. Cwolfsheep 16:04, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ultramarine did a ton of cleanup on the absolutism before junking it from the article completely. If anyone wants to resurrect that material in one of the original merges: what needs to happen is to reduce the redundant subjects and keep out "stretchs" (the DC stuff wasn't as pertinant to absolute rule as it was to devolution). Cwolfsheep 16:09, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't display properly

The page doesn't display properly. The forms of government portal menu is overlapping the bottom menu bar. It's probably the result of poor css coding and the float doesn't work properly. I don't know but maybe Wikipedia should be informed of this error because it can be applicable to other pages with similiar structure. 86.153.158.63 (talk) 16:28, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What's the difference...

Between autocracy and despotism? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 11:34, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FYI

If people who watch this page are also interested in how Wikipedia is governed, be sure to check out this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Advisory_Council_on_Project_Development . Slrubenstein | Talk 13:29, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Autocracy/Monarchy

Although whoever posted the Merriam-Webster's definition of an autocracy was following a reasonable procedure, the definition provided by MW is very poorly written and not accurate. It reads: An autocrat is a person (as a monarch) ruling with unlimited authority. First of all, as the rest of the Wikipedia article goes on to demonstrate, autocrats are not necessarily monarchs. Secondly, even monarchs do not always fit the definition of autocrat as one who rules absolutely. For example the Monarchy of England is a constitutional monarchy which has powers that are limited. As such, I think this definition should be removed or at the very least modified.Saucybetty (talk) 06:26, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you wanted to sovle this issue, you should have it state that a Consitutional Monarchy is not an autocratic government and that true Monarchy is close to it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.165.115.234 (talk) 21:31, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Synonyms in the lead

I reduced the following portion of the lead involving the history of synonyms and meaning, because there was no source for the info. Here's how it read before my edit in case anyone wants to review:

"Today, the term autocrat is usually understood^{[citation needed]} as synonymous with despot, tyrant and dictator, although each of these terms originally had a separate and distinct meaning."

David Able 00:28, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting... 198.237.225.49 (talk) 16:30, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Autocracy vs. Dictatorship: Many leaders throughout history have been given these titles however there have been those that suggest that no single man or women can maintain power over a nation. A person must have someone and probably more than just a few people to enforce their policies and to protect them during inevitable confrontations. Too many leaders have been assassinated over the ages without the support of others and there have been many with very short life spans. Although various people want to believe that now and then, the most powerful tyrant comes along, so power and feared that they are empowered without the aid of others, it is highly improbable that such a person would last very long in the role of the supreme leader. It is possibly that these people may be highly charismatic and/or greatly feared but they are just the front person for a group that is the true leadership of the nation state. Most autocracies and dictatorships are therefore really oligarchies. It is not improbably that there are those within the oligarchy that maintain a public persona but also those that maintain high levels of secrecy to assist in diverting subversion or other desired secret policies and practices. The more recent historical accounts have, of course, exposed those behind the scenes to a greater extent than older history, but there are numerous accounts of these individuals throughout history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.204.100.196 (talk) 22:16, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mmcnichol 's edit on Autocracy

I think it is really good that you added few details and made couple improvements on other's edits. Adding to that, I really like that you added a lot of information about history and system they had for each countries and empires even Catholic Church! I like global ! My advice would be ...maybe you can add about Argentina on the current examples of autocracies, especially about vote buying that we talked in the class. But I really really like your edits so informative! .MoeKasawaki (talk) 13:42, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Edit recommendations

I think it is also important to mention the differences between autocracy and other forms of government, like democracy and technocracy. Right now only totalitarian regimes and military dictatorships get attention. Comparison with other forms of government would offer some more depth. It could also be important to mention some more current autocracies. I also think the part of autocracy promotion, could be more elaborated or could join the part about the development of autocracy. The structure of the article could also be better. I think it looks better when some of the subjects are switched in chronology. It makes a bit more sense if the origin and developments of autocracy are elaborated before there are comparisons being made with other forms of government. Also there are some basic features of authoritarian rule (stated in the book 'Comparative Government and politics'), which are maybe good to mention. There are also different forms of authoritarian rule. These are absolute monarchy, ruling presidents, ruling parties, military rule and theocracy. I think it is also good to mention and elaborate these forms a bit more Igeurts (talk) 11:10, 26 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sources

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/24/world/americas/argentina-elections-cristina-kirchner.html?_r=0 http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/03/19/children-of-the-dirty-war MoeKasawaki (talk) 13:42, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Autocracy/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

I have no classical background, but, by my opinion, the reference to foreign terms should be written in corresponding national alphabet, may be with latin transcription in parantheses. In concerns particularly greece language, but also russian and other languages. For people knowing russian language, it is very difficult to read english pseudophonetic transcription of this language. Why not use directly самдежавие ? or αυτοκρατíα ? Jiří Šoler, Czech Republic

Last edited at 20:21, 4 July 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 08:40, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Autocracy

Autocracy is autocracy with one person in control — Preceding unsigned comment added by WonderScienceKid (talk • contribs) 14:21, 7 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Life and its hardships!