Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilisation in which it appears. In Western culture, depending on the particular nation, conservatives seek to promote and preserve a range of institutions, such as the nuclear family, organised religion, the military, the nation-state, property rights, rule of law, aristocracy, and monarchy. Conservatives tend to favour institutions and practices that enhance social order and historical continuity.
A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a polity. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to rule the republic in times of emergency. Like the terms "tyrant" and "autocrat", dictator came to be used almost exclusively as a non-titular term for oppressive rule. In modern usage the term dictator is generally used to describe a leader who holds or abuses an extraordinary amount of personal power.
A dictatorship is an autocratic form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, who hold governmental powers with few to no limitations. Politics in a dictatorship are controlled by a dictator, and they are facilitated through an inner circle of elites that includes advisers, generals, and other high-ranking officials. The dictator maintains control by influencing and appeasing the inner circle and repressing any opposition, which may include rival political parties, armed resistance, or disloyal members of the dictator's inner circle. Dictatorships can be formed by a military coup that overthrows the previous government through force or they can be formed by a self-coup in which elected leaders make their rule permanent. Dictatorships are authoritarian or totalitarian, and they can be classified as military dictatorships, one-party dictatorships, personalist dictatorships, or absolute monarchies.
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Opposed to anarchism, democracy, pluralism, egalitarianism, liberalism, socialism, and Marxism, fascism is at the far right of the traditional left–right spectrum.
Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and controls the public sphere and the private sphere of society. In the field of political science, totalitarianism is the extreme form of authoritarianism, wherein all socio-political power is held by a dictator, who also controls the national politics and the peoples of the nation with continual propaganda campaigns that are broadcast by state-controlled and by friendly private mass communications media.
Neo-fascism is a post-World War II far-right ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, ultraconservatism, racial supremacy, right-wing populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration sentiment, sometimes with economic liberal issues, as well as opposition to social democracy, parliamentarianism, Marxism, capitalism, communism, and socialism. As with classical fascism, it occasionally proposes a Third Position as an alternative to market capitalism.
A military dictatorship, or a military regime, is a type of dictatorship in which power is held by one or more military officers. Military dictatorships are led by either a single military dictator, known as a strongman, or by a council of military officers known as a military junta. They are most often formed by military coups or by the empowerment of the military through a popular uprising in times of domestic unrest or instability. The military nominally seeks power to restore order or fight corruption, but the personal motivations of military officers will vary.
Peronism, also known as justicialism, is an Argentine ideology and movement based on the ideas, doctrine and legacy of Argentine ruler Juan Perón (1895–1974). It has been an influential movement in 20th- and 21st-century Argentine politics. Since 1946, Peronists have won 10 out of the 14 presidential elections in which they have been allowed to run. Peronism is defined through its three flags, which are: "Economic Independence", "Social Justice" and "Political Sovereignty".
In political science, a political system means the form of political organization that can be observed, recognised or otherwise declared by a society or state.
The National Union was the sole legal party of the Estado Novo regime in Portugal, founded in July 1930 and dominated by António de Oliveira Salazar during most of its existence.
General Miguel Primo de Rivera's dictatorship over Spain began with a coup on 13 September 1923 and ended with his resignation on 28 January 1930. It took place during the wider reign of King Alfonso XIII. In establishing his dictatorship, Primo de Rivera ousted the liberal government led by Prime Minister Manuel García Prieto and initially gained the support of King Alfonso XIII and the army. During the Military Directory (1923–1925), the dictatorship created the official party of the regime, the Unión Patriótica (UP). It also censored the Spanish press and worked to eliminate separatism in Catalonia. Under Primo de Rivera's dictatorship, Spain won the Rif War, where Spanish forces fought Riffian tribes in Morocco.
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and the rule of law. Political scientists have created many typologies describing variations of authoritarian forms of government. Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military. States that have a blurred boundary between democracy and authoritarianism have some times been characterized as "hybrid democracies", "hybrid regimes" or "competitive authoritarian" states.
Paul H. Lewis is professor emeritus and former Chair of Political Science at Tulane University. Lewis received his BA from the University of Florida and PhD from UNC Chapel Hill. In 1991, he helped organize the Louisiana chapter of the National Association of Scholars.
A coup d'état, or simply a coup, is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is when a leader, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means.
Metaxism is a Greek authoritarian, monarchist ideology associated with Ioannis Metaxas. It called for the regeneration of the Greek nation and the establishment of a modern, culturally homogenous Greece. Metaxism disparaged liberalism, and held individual interests to be subordinate to those of the nation, seeking to mobilize the Greek people as a disciplined mass in service to the creation of a "new Greece."
Authoritarian conservatism is a political ideology that seeks to uphold order, tradition and hierarchy, often with forcible suppression of radical and revolutionary enemies such as communists, Nazis, and anarchists. Authoritarian conservative movements and regimes have included Chiangism in China, Metaxism in Greece, and Francoism in Spain.
Throughout its history and up to the present day, the United States has had close ties with authoritarian governments. During the Cold War, the U.S. backed anti-communist governments that were authoritarian, and were often unable or unwilling to promote modernization. U.S. officials have been accused of collaborating with oppressive and anti-democratic governments to secure their military bases in Central America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The Economist Democracy Index classifies many of the forty-five currently non-democratic U.S. military base host countries as "authoritarian governments".
Para-fascism refers to authoritarian conservative movements and regimes that adopt characteristics associated with fascism such as personality cults, paramilitary organizations, symbols and rhetoric, but it diverges from conventional fascist tenets such as palingenetic ultranationalism, modernism, and populism. It often emerges in response to the need for a facade of popular support in an age of mass politics, without a genuine commitment to revolutionary nationalism, instead focusing on maintaining tradition, religion, and culture. Para-fascist regimes may co-opt or neutralize genuine fascist movements. Examples of para-fascism include the regimes and movements of Austrofascism in Austria, Metaxism in Greece, the “New State” of Salazars’ Portugal, and Francoism in Spain.
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