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Autocracy is a form of government in which a single person has unlimited authority to exercise power. The word comes from two ancient Greek words, auto (“self ”) and -cracy (“rule” from kratia). Modern authors are more likely to use the term authoritarian than autocracy, which is commonly used by some to describe ancient regimes that prevailed in backward societies without legal and political institutions to protect individuals.

Prevalence Of Autocracy In History

Until the advent of modern government, beginning with the American Revolution (1776–1783), almost all governments were autocratic governments ruled by tribal chiefs, kings, or emperors, with the exception of the ancient Greek democracies. Autocratic rulers have usually been accepted as the sole source of legitimate power, unless a competing autocrat were accepted as more just or successful or legitimate. The autocrat is not limited by constitutional or popular restraints or by political opposition. If any opposition arises, it is usually not tolerated and is eliminated.

The ancient empires of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, and Persians were fully autocratic. Various dynasties of ancient China were ruled by individuals in whom the power of their political system was centered. The Inca in Peru or various other empires around the world were without a doubt autocratic. Many autocracies were also theocracies because the exercise of power by the autocrat was based on some claim to divine right. The Buddhist theocracies or those of the Mayans were autocratic but also theocratic. It was mainly the Greek democracies that opposed autocratic government.

Even today autocratic governments exist in many places. Arab sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf region can be described as autocratic; although their rule often appears to be benign, it is still very strong. This can have administrative advantages because decisions can often be achieved without having to engage in exhausting battles with interest groups or opposition parties that exist in democratic states. Thus, a decision to adopt green technology can be made by the ruler even if other interests are hurt.

Theoretical Discussions Of Autocracy: Aristotle To Hobbes

Aristotle in his discussions of the forms or constitutions of government in his books Ethics, Rhetoric, and Politics defined monarchy and tyranny as rule by a single individual. The difference between a monarch and a tyrant lay in the object of concern of the autocrat. It was the people in the case of the monarch but self-interest in the case of the tyrant. Because tyrants have often masked their political actions, it has been difficult at times to distinguish them from monarchs.

Niccolò Machiavelli supported absolutism, which was similar to autocracy. He wanted a centralizing power in the hands of an absolute ruler as a solution for the violent strife between the various city-states that was wracking Renaissance Italy. Without a firm hand there would be no peace, and in that regard he counseled an ethic of success in the exercise of power. However, even Machiavelli was like many in autocratic regimes. The more the society matures, the less willing many are to tolerate unrestrained power in a single ruler.

Jean Bodin, author of Six Books of the Commonwealth (Les Six livres de la République), defined sovereignty as the absolute and perpetual power vested in a commonwealth. For him, a prince who was sovereign was only accountable to God. This vision of the autocratic state found its fulfillment in King Louis XIV’s reign (1643–1715), where the loss of liberty stimulated the quest of the Baron de Montesquieu for liberty (Spirit of the Laws), ending with federalism as an antidote. However, as Aristotle observed in Politics, autocracy tends to be unstable.

Thomas Hobbes was an advocate of an absolute monarchy. In Leviathan (1651), he used the idea of a social contract to place all power into the hands of a single sovereign who would keep the peace among men who would otherwise be in a “state of nature,” which was “a war of all against all” with lives that were “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” His absolute sovereign, if not an autocrat, is described as one who functions like an autocrat even if the sovereign power is vested in a legislative body.

Autocracy And Democracy In Modernity

In more recent centuries, the tsars of Russia, the absolutist rulers of eighteenth-century Europe including the Sultan of Turkey, and many of the smaller kingdoms or dukedoms of Europe were autocrats. The Russian emperors employed the title autocrat. The title came from the Byzantine Empire as a translation of imperator (emperor). In modern times it has been used also as a title for the Emperor of Japan. Some monarchs have ruled in an autocratic fashion, but with diminished power due to growing restraints.

However, the rise of liberal democracy, a partial revival of elements of ancient Greek democracy, brought most of the hereditary forms of autocracy to an end. Replacing autocracy that placed power in the hands of a single individual have been forms of authoritarianism.

Authoritarianism is absolutist, but it rests on the principle that authority per se is legitimate and must be obeyed. Authoritarianism uses ideological elements to enlist the whole population of a state into its service. The rulers of such regimes then aspire to be autocrats or become autocrats. Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, and others used ideology and party to gather absolute power to become autocratic totalitarian rulers. Rulers like Idi Amin Dada of Uganda, Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya, and El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba of Gabon have used tribal power supported by their personal ideology to justify their autocratic rule. Some modern autocratic rulers have assumed the trappings of democratic legitimacy.

The rise of democratic government has not ended its competition with autocracy. In times of stress people may seek refuge in autocracy for the sake of peace and prosperity as both Machiavelli and Hobbes recognized. Or those with authoritarian personalities may trade freedom for autocratic rule.

Autocracy can appear in areas of life other than civil politics. Religious organizations, businesses, management styles (e.g.,Theory X), or family life may be dominated by autocratic persons or groups.

Bibliography:

Downing, Brian. Military Revolution and Political Change: Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Friedrich, Carl J. Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965.
Roller, Matthew B. Constructing Autocracy: Aristocrats and Emperors in Julio- Claudian Rome. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001.
Rotberg, Robert. Ending Autocracy, Enabling Democracy: The Tribulations of Southern Africa, 1960–2000. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2002.
Tullock, Gordon. Autocracy. Leiden, Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1987.
White, Ralph K. Autocracy and Democracy: An Experimental Inquiry. New York: Harper, 1960.