Autocracy

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Autocracy

An autocracy is a form of government

Form of government

A form of government is a term that refers to the set of political institutions by which a government of a state is organized in order to exert its powers over a body politic....
in which the political power

Political power

Political power is a type of power held by a political organization in a society which allows administration of some or all of public resources, including labour, and wealth....
is held by a single, self-appointed ruler. The term autocrat is derived from the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
word 'a?t????t?? (lit. "self-ruler", or "he who rules by one's self"). Compare with oligarchy

Oligarchy

Oligarchy is a form of government where political power effectively rests with a small Elitism segment of society distinguished by royalty, wealth, family, military influence or occult spiritual hegemony....
("rule by the few") and democracy

Democracy

Democracy is a form of government in which power is held directly or indirectly by citizens under a free electoral system. It is derived from the Greek language d?????at?a , "popular government" which was coined from d???? , "people" and ???t?? , "rule, strength" in the middle of the 5th-4th century BC to denote the political syst...
("rule by the people").

Today it is usually seen as synonymous with despot
Despotism

Despotism is a form of government by a single authority, either an autocracy or oligarchy, which rules with absolute political power. In its classical form, a despotism is a state where a single individual wields all the power and authority embodying the state, and everyone else is a subsidiary person....
, tyrant
Tyrant

This article is about the political ruler. For other uses see Tyrant and Tyranny In modern usage, a tyrant is a single ruler holding absolute political power over a state or within an organization....
and/or dictator
Dictator

A dictator is an authoritarian ruler who assumes sole and absolute power without hereditary ascension such as an absolute monarch. When other states call the head of state of a particular state a dictator, that state is called a dictatorship....
, though each of these terms originally had a separate and distinct meaning.

Autocracy is not synonymous with totalitarianism

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is a concept used to describe political systems whereby a state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private life. Totalitarian regimes or movements maintain themselves in political power by means of an official all-embracing ideology and propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, single-party st...
, as this concept was precisely forged to distinguish modern regimes that appeared in 1923 from traditional dictatorship

Dictatorship

A dictatorship is usually defined as an Autocracy form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator, without hereditary ascension....
s.

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Where did the autocratic government originate from?

Encyclopedia

An autocracy is a form of government

Form of government

Political power

Greek language

Oligarchy

Democracy

Totalitarianism

Dictatorship

A dictatorship is usually defined as an Autocracy form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator, without hereditary ascension....
s. Nor is it synonymous with military dictatorship

Military dictatorship

A military dictatorship is a form of government wherein the political power resides with the military. It is similar but not identical to a stratocracy, a state ruled directly by the military....
, as these often take the form of "collective presidencies" such as the South-American juntas. However, an autocracy may be totalitarian or be a military dictatorship.

The term monarchy

Monarchy

A monarchy is a form of government in which supreme power is absolutely or nominally lodged in an individual, who is the head of state, often for Life tenure or until abdication, and "is wholly set apart from all other members of the state." The person who heads a monarchy is called a monarch....
also differs in that it emphasizes the hereditary characteristic, though some Slavic monarchs, specifically Russian Emperors traditionally included the title "autocrat" as part of their official styles. This usage originated in the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
, where the term autokrator was traditionally employed in Greek to translate the Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
imperator
Imperator

The Latin word Imperator was a title originally roughly equivalent to commander during the period of the Roman Republic. It later went on to become a part of the titulature of the Roman Emperors as part of their cognomen....
, and was used along with Basileus
Basileus

Basileus , signifies "Monarch" or "king". It is perhaps best known in English language as a title used by Byzantine Empire emperors, but also has a longer history of use for persons of authority in ancient Greece, as well as for the kings of modern Greece....
to mean "emperor". This use remains current in the modern Greek

Modern Greek

Modern Greek refers the varieties of Greek spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic modern features of the language had been present centuries earli...
language, where the term is used for any emperor (e.g. the Emperor of Japan), regardless of the actual power of the monarch. Historically, many monarchs ruled autocratically

Absolute monarchy

Absolute monarchy is a monarchy form of government where the king or queen has absolute power over all aspects of his/her subjects' lives. Although some religious authorities may be able to discourage the monarch from some acts and the sovereign is expected to act according to custom, in an absolute monarchy there is no constitution or legal...
but eventually their power was diminished and dissolved with the introduction of constitution

Constitution

A constitution is a system for government — often codified as a written document — that establishes the rules and principles of an autonomous political entity....
s giving the people the power to make decisions for themselves through elected bodies of government

Government

Government is the body within any organization that has the authority to make and the power to enforce laws, regulations, or rules. Typically, the government refers to a civil government -- local, provincial, or national -- but commercial, academic, religious, or other formal organizations are also administered by governing bodies....
.

The autocrat needs some kind of power structure to rule. Very few rulers were in the position to rule with only their personal charisma and skills, however great these may be, without the help of others. Most historical autocrats depended on their nobles, the military, the priesthood or others, who could turn against the ruler and depose or murder them. As such, it can be difficult to draw a clear line between historical autocracies and oligarchies.

Autocracy

See also