Authors: Duhamel & Mény
Summary: Authoritarianism is a term best defined negatively. Authoritarian regimes do not conform to the norms of democratic pluralism, but cannot be considered totalitarian. Such a negative definition allows the term to be applied to many quite different regimes. For instance one of the leading examples of a modern authoritarian regime, the French empire under Bonaparte, established a new social order and linked itself to the radical principles of the French revolution. A different kind of authoritarianism is seen in 20th-century Spain under Franco's dictatorship, which identified itself with counter-revolution and the preservation of patriarchal forms of representation. And while Franco's Spain committed itself to modernization, the authoritarian regime of Portugal under Salazar turned away from modernization. Authoritarianism can also describe many Islamic and middle-eastern regimes for which the principles of legitimacy are quite different. Finally, authoritarian regimes may or may not maintain a high degree of popular support (as, for instance, in Peron's Argentina).
The usefulness of authoritarianism as a concept lies in the fact that it reveals the similarities among systems of "limited pluralism" (Juan Linz), and clarifies the phenomena of unstable equilibrium and political compromise that accompany political modernization outside the "classic" sphere of western democracy.