Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The concept of authoritarianism has been used mainly to refer to a type of authority whose power is exercised within diffuse legal, institutional, or de facto boundaries that easily leads to arbitrary acts against groups and individuals. Those who are in power are not accountable to constituencies and public policy does not derive from social consent. Within sociology and political science, particularly within comparative politics, authoritarianism has been understood as a modern type of political regime. Therefore, the concept focuses on the way of accessing, exercising, and organizing power, on the nature of the belief system, and the role of citizens in the political process. This notion has had an important conceptual development since the 1970s, which clarified some ambiguities within political analyses that tended to mix up this type of regime with fascism and other forms of totalitarianism. The concept of authoritarianism has included a range of regimes, from personal dictatorships such as Franco's in Spain in the 1930s, hegemonic party regimes like the Mexican regime founded after the 1910 Revolution, and the military governments of South America established during the 1960s and 1970s. The context in which this type of regime was founded was generally a protracted situation of instability such as a revolution (Mexico), a civil war (Spain), a democratic crisis (Chile), and ... log in or subscribe to read full text