Authoritarian Government Vs Democracy Government

Comparing the U.S. governments ability to meet the needs of its citizens compared to that of a dictatorship is far superior. A dictatorship is designed to benefit one or few individuals that have achieved power using capital or force. Their only concern is for themselves and what will increase their power. The U.S. form of government is restricted to the power of the constitution.

In an authoritarian regime the power is concentrated in the authority of the country and the citizens are subjected to the rules that the authority decides to impose and they are not given the right to vote. Mexico has characteristics of an authoritarian government, but there is a façade that it’s a democracy. Years ago there were elections and political activity that made it seem like citizens were really participating in a democracy. This made Mexico a hybrid regime. For 71 years the Partido Revolucionaro Institucional (PRI) governed Mexico uninterrupted. During this time the president had extensive political power over the other government branches and Mexican states.

In a democratic government, everyone has their basic rights and these rights are being assured. No one’s rights can be violated. The government would respect and listen to the people’s voice. In contrast, in a dictatorship, citizens’ rights can’t be assured. People’s right can be easily taken away. For example, their right of freedom of speech may be taken away. In the old times, people can be executed because they said something bad about their leaders. Through censorship, people’s right is being violated, because they can’t have access to some information, like when China censored YouTube and Facebook. Usually, dictator won’t listen to people’s voices and opinions.

Authoritarianism is a regime type and, furthermore, a political vision that seeks to create compliance in authority and establish order and peace by striving for absolute legitimacy. In an authoritarian regime, power relations are vertically-organized, where there is little to no accountability for those in power and where civil and political rights of citizens, if established, are restrictive and violated. Two common misconceptions of authoritarianism are that they are durable and they have always have a paternal figure as leader. To the first point: though an authoritarian regime would be relatively simple to establish, the difficult task of legitimizing and consolidating absolute authority makes authoritarian rule an incredibly arduous endeavour. Authoritarian regimes can easily be snubbed out as quickly as they began to burn, pointing to how the legitimacy of authority is by far the most essential tool to the authoritarian. But who is the authoritarian? Many see authoritarian regimes as patrimonial, meaning that though there still might be complex institutions of bureaucracy, security, and even political parties, all authority comes from the top and the top alone. However, there can also be authoritarian regimes run by an institution, whether through a military junta or hegemonic political party. Authoritarianism can easily derive from civil society instead of through the military, yet the coercive powers of military are essential for consolidating power.

Democratic and nondemocratic regimes are two broad categories in which all countries are able to fit into. Within each of the two regimes, there is a high degree of variance. Even though a majority of countries are currently categorized as democratic, nondemocratic countries still exist throughout the world in countries such as Russia and China. Major differences exist between the two regimes; however, they do share similar aspects and goals for their respective countries.

Totalitarianism is also sometimes referred to as authoritarianism. In this type of governing the leaders are in total control. Sometimes there is one supreme leader and other times there are a group of leaders. Individual freedom is non-existent as each citizen is forced to follow the policy of the leaders that are not held to a standard of a constitution (Anmal, 2011). The two most common types of totalitarianism include Theocratic and Secular rule.

In this writing prompt we were asked to compare the Authoritarian government to our own Democracy. First things first an Authoritarian is One individual having all the power. A Democracy is a group of people who represent the country. Now, let's get into the differences.

In these systems, the regimes possess some of these characteristics but have found ways to manipulate the system to consolidate their power. “Rather than openly violating democratic rules (for example, by banning or repressing the opposition and the media), incumbents are more likely to use bribery, co-optation, and more subtle forms of persecution, such as the use of tax authorities, compliant judiciaries, and other state agencies to ‘legally’ harass, persecute, or extort cooperative behavior from critics” . While it is apparent that these regimes are not fully democratic, it would be unfair to label them as fully authoritarian either. Unlike traditional totalitarian governments, the persistence of true democratic institutions in competitive authoritarian regimes allows the opposition to contest, weaken and occasionally even defeat autocratic incumbents. While these situations are generally uncommon, these situations are possible in competitive authoritarianism due to four independent means, the electoral arena, the legislature, the judiciary and the media. These four branches are virtually independent of the executive control however, unlike in democracies, the competitive authoritarian regimes use its power to undermine their independence. “In regards to the electoral arena, large-scale abuses of state power, biased media coverage, harassment of opposition candidates and activists are widespread, legislatures tend to be relatively weak, the

An authoritarian society exists to benefit authority, or the leaders in power. They achieve this by political and economic submission to authority, In an authoritarian societies, citizens exist to serve the leaders of the society or the state.

Again dictatorship does not give its citizens the freedom of choosing their leader which is the opposite of a democratic form of government. Democratic republic form of government, the people have the power to vote for the officers and representative who are responsible for them. This is not quite different from democracy because the people choose the leaders and officers who exercise the power and will of the people. Again in both, Democratic republic and Democracy, the leader don’t have absolute power and are restricted by

Authoritarianism is a form of government in which the leader or leaders have exclusive power concerning matters of the state. Although these

No government allows absolute freedom, but democracies do not heavily censor newspapers and public expression of opinions. The elections must be fair and competitive, and the government or political leaders cannot control the results. The government must respond in some way to citizen demands. Authoritarian governments might hold elections and they might have contact with their citizens, but citizens do not have any voice in how they are ruled. King's, military leaders, emperors, a small group of aristocrats, dictators and even presidents or prime ministers may rule authoritarian governments. The leader's title does not automatically indicate a particular type of

Dictators are very different from democracies because they view the government and world differently. Dictators think one way and democracy leaders think another way. Democracy has many rules to make it stay a democracy, but dictators make up their own rules.

Singapore 's former Prime Minster, Lee Kuan Yew once said: "Human beings, regrettable though it may be, are inherently vicious and have to be restrained" (Kwang, Fernandez, & Tan 1). One can infer from Kuan Yew’s statement that he 's subtly saying that individuals shouldn 't be in control of their choices, yet there ought to be somebody to settle on choices for them. An ideology such as this can stem from an authoritarian government. In this day and age, most nations have a tendency to have a democracy. However, it wasn 't generally that way. Throughout history, there were nations under authoritarian rule. In order to fully understand what an authoritarian regime is, one must know the meaning of it. An authoritarian government is "an oppressive regime that rules through strict, intrusive, and violent enforcement of laws. It can “take the form of a dictatorship, but may also manifest itself in totalitarian bureaucracies or oligarchies" (Ritter 576). An authoritarian regime exists when a leader or a small group of leaders owns all property and are the sole decision makers for the entire population. There are only two questions left to be asked. How are authoritarian regimes created and how do they even stay in power? Authoritarian governments ascend to power due to a postwar upheaval and the leader in the charge; they stay in power by employing a resource trap and having a one party system.

Scholars have defined the democracy as the government of the people, for the people, and by the people. People, in this type of government, are said to be the ruler themselves. Representatives are elected by the adult nationals through the voting process. Hence, it is the government of the people. By contrast, dictatorship is the type of government in which power is centralized. One single individual has all the power in hands, and the people have no role in government affairs. Governments in America, England, India, and Turkey are some of the examples of democracy, and governments in North Korea, Cuba etc. are examples of dictatorship.