Category talk:Authoritarian regimes

Why isn't Nicaragua listed as an authoritarian regime? Ortega is slowly becoming a dictator and changing the country's constitution. ^{— Unsigned, by: Jisims95 / talk / contribs}

Since Communist states is a subcategorie of this one

Shouldn't we remove Soviet Union, East German and Vietnam? It seems redundant. GeeJayK (talk) 04:13, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Removed some countries from the category by using EIU's Democracy index as a source

I know it's not perfect, but it's probably the best we've got. I kept Hungary and Israel on the category since they are probably the most controversial entries. Maldives is not on EIU's list, but as far as I know, they are mostly democratic. If you know something I don't, feel free to revert. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 15:27, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm wondering why countries like Singapore and Malaysia were removed. Singapore is a de facto one party state and Malaysia is an apartheid state. Carthage (talk) 15:30, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

As I said, the Democracy Index qualifies them as democracies. I'm not saying that it is a perfect ranking, but it's probably the best one out there. In Singapore's case, the main criticism against the PAP to my knowledge is their usage of constitutional hardball which is immoral, but not necessarily undemocratic. The opposition has grown steadly over the last years there. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 15:37, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Have you ever heard of an illiberal democracy? You can have a country with an electoral system while still featuring authoritarian characteristics. There is a spectrum here. I would also consider constitutional hardball to be antidemocratic. Carthage (talk) 15:39, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Yes, illiberal democracy is a thing. While I have mixed feeling about the guy, I'll quote Friedrich Hayek on the subject:

Equality before the law leads to the demand that all men should also have the same share in making the law. This is the point where traditional liberalism and the democratic movement meet. Their main concerns are nevertheless different. Liberalism (in the European nineteenth-century meaning of the word, to which we shall adhere throughout this chapter) is concerned mainly with limiting the coercive powers of all government, whether democratic or not, whereas the dogmatic democrat knows only one limit to government-current majority opinion. The difference between the two ideals stands out most clearly if we name their opposites: for democracy it is authoritarian government; for liberalism it is totalitarianism. Neither of the two systems necessarily excludes the opposite of the other: a democracy may well wield totalitarian powers, and it is conceivable that an authoritarian government may act on liberal principles.

Stricto-sensu, an authoritarian regime is the a regime that only one person (in dictatorships) or a group of people (in aristocracies) have unconstrained power. Meanwhile, in a democracy (again, stricto sensu), a majority makes the decision. However, EIU uses a lato-sensu term for democracy and has incorporated liberal values on their methodology. According to themselves, these are their criteria: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. An illiberal democracy would have a decent electoral process and maybe a civil government (I'm not sure where political participation would fit), but they also consider civil liberty and political culture. Either these countries have civil liberty and political culture, or the lack of civil liberties and political culture are not enough to consider them to be authoritarian. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 15:51, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

For the record, if someone feels really strong that EIU's classification is incorrect about some specific country, I probably won't dispute, as I ignored their position myself on Israel and Hungary. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 16:14, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Disagree with your removal of India. I don't know enough about Indonesia. Carthage (talk) 16:27, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. I wasn't sure about India myself. Pinging @CircularReasoning and Sqrt-1 to see their opinions as they are definitely more qualified than the two us on India's politics and history. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 16:30, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

My views: Malaysia is *not* an apartheid state IMHO. I know RW has an article on this that describes it that way, but while Ketuanan Melayu has major issues, I think calling it apartheid is ridiculous. Malaysia's policies "in this direction" are essentially a combination of nationalism, certain too-Malay-oriented cultural laws, and a heaping dose of affirmative action in practice. (The cultural lock-in is also is not as strong as its heyday, having been reformed some in the 1990s and then coming and going ever since.) I think there's plenty to criticize about these policies without going into hyperbole.

I also think that calling India is an authoritarian state is ridiculous as well, just look at the Wiki article on the list of current Indian ruling and opposition parties at a state level. It's not all BJP (though some of the parties are aligned with them, others are not). Just keeping the focus on Narendra Modi's ultra-nationalism should be enough.

If electing one nationalist leader is all it takes to get the "authoritarian state" tag, then we'd have to apply this tag to Brazil, Italy, and the United States (among others). Let's not be that hyperbolic, eh? BobJohnson (talk) 17:27, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

What objectively distinguishes the policies in Malaysia from apartheid other than that you think the label is "ridiculous"? Apartheid in South Africa had plenty of opposition, but South Africa was undeniably an apartheid state. The same can be said for Israel. As for India, again authoritarianism is a spectrum. I think you're also being unnecessarily dismissive when you say "if electing one nationalist leader is all it takes to get the authoritarian state that." What really matters is policy and platforming. If a state's conduct is authoritarian, even if that state has an electoral system, that state is authoritarian. Carthage (talk) 17:55, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Hyperbole risks diluting the label. India and China now are the same under your category. Donald Trump's conduct was authoritarian, does this mean that the United States should be labeled "authoritarian regime"? Modi and Trump frankly are pretty comparable.

Current Malay politics aside (which as I said, Malaysia is a bit less pro affirmative action these days, depending on which party is in power), part of the issue (from my viewpoint at least, I know there are some that have used the term) with calling Malaysia an "apartheid state" is that some of the Malay-favored affirmative action policies (such as Aritcle 153, a purportedly temporary affirmative action measure drafted at independence that... still is in place today) began in order for the majority Malay to undo damage from British colonialism. In practice this meant policies that favor the majority Malay over the Chinese merchants and others that settled in Malaysia during the colonial period and dominated the business sector at the time; after independence, the Malays were the majority in population, but not in financial power. Like other affirmative action policies, in other words, I don't think Malaysia's discriminatory policies cannot be denounced completely as "apartheid", because instead of being motivated by pure racial concerns, a lot of the justification was attempting to right a past wrong. (Now, I do think there is plenty you can quibble with the Malay privilege system at the present -- for a start, 60+ years later, it hasn't worked well at all, and a lot in the RW article is quite correct about the impact -- but there's always that colonialism / imperialism footnote hovering over the policies. These policies honestly are from what I know a very contentious topic in Malaysia due to all the history behind it.) BobJohnson (talk) 19:12, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ You're ignoring that the way power manifests itself is complex, and therefore authoritarianism can also manifest in a myriad of ways. The US, a nominally democratic country, has many authoritarian features that go beyond Trumpist subversion of the political process. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, felon disenfrachisement, all of these are antidemocratic ways of reducing the electorate that have a long and sordid history prior to the rise of MAGA. We have authoritarian policies like extensive, warrantless surveillance, the real possibility of indefinite detainment, and literal concentration camps. Authoritarianism can even be argued to extend beyond the political scene. Foucault, for instance, argues that because of the total control institutions like psychiatric wards and schools have over their subjects, they can be compared to prisons. Workers typically also have very little agency in the workplace. In fact significant periods of our lives we spend with little agency, kowtowing the dictates of authority or risking severe punishment. That is all pretty authoritarian. Carthage (talk) 11:35, 28 May 2024 (UTC)