In Russia, they have only 1 party left, so the party clearly doesn’t matter. In Usa, it is not an official dictator yet. In other countries with a dictatorship, I don’t know about their parties. So do you know any examples where the parties still matter?

  • Brave Little Hitachi Wand@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Authoritarianism isn’t an ideology per se, and often dictatorship isn’t official. Even Stalin was the “general secretary” of his party. And yet, authoritarianism of every stripe demonstrates similar styles regardless of their political ideology. Smashing dissent, regressive economics and consolidated power, militarism, etc. These have never been solely the purview of avowed fascists. So no, for most of those that suffer under dictators, the ideology of those thugs rarely matter.

    But make no mistake, a multi-party democracy with varied ideologies is not the opposite of authoritarianism. Factions can be just as much a poison pill, if the balance of powers are not subordinate to an informed electorate. The opposite of authoritarianism is anarchism.

    • j4k3@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      The opposite of authoritarianism is anarchism.

      But anarchism is the opposite of all governance while authoritarianism is a subset.

    • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip
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      1 month ago

      Just take a look at the countries that have the word “democratic” in their name. Seems like that’s the unofficial way to let everyone know exactly how authoritarian the country actually is.

  • Jordan117@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    It’s actually pretty rare for dictatorships to have only one legal party. Even North Korea is nominally a multi-party state. Such minor parties are just token controlled opposition ofc, but they serve to give a flimsy “democratic” veneer.

    America’s trajectory rn is aiming closer to the illiberal/managed democracy of Hungary under Viktor Orban, where there are true opposition parties with an actual chance at winning, but the media, government, and electoral system is strongly biased against them.

    • Flax@feddit.uk
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      1 month ago

      I think China in a way is democratic as long as you have allegiance to Xi Jinping. So as long as two people have opposing policies that neither of them contradict “Xi Jinping thought”, then there is some choice I guess?

          • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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            1 month ago

            OK fair enough. I think I get what you mean. China has more of an elaborate bureaucracy than the typical dictatorship. I’m not sure what word best describes this model.

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 month ago

    By definition in a dictatorship, there are either no parties, or there is only one party, or the parties that are not the one the dictator belongs to are not allowed to be in actual opposition to the ruling one or attempt to become the ruling one. (That last one is the case in North Korea and was the case in East Germany for most of its history.)

    • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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      1 month ago

      NK is such an interesting case. They even have a party for North Korean Japanese voters. And with a 13% turnout across all the non-WPK parties, that’s a large amount of social influence they must wield relative to the WPK, even if they are under their control.

  • DragonsInARoom@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Yeah because if his party is unpopular than no one will know who he is. A two party electoral system is a death sentence for freedom of choice.

  • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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    1 month ago

    I don’t understand the question, what do you mean by it mattering which party a dictator belongs to? It depends what you’re asking/concerned about.