Authoritarianism - Authoritarian States

Authoritarian States

Since there is no precise, universally agreed definition of authoritarianism, there is no definitive list of states that are authoritarian. But several annual measurements attempt to do so, including the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index (which classifies 51 states as authoritarian) and Freedom House's Freedom in the World report.

Examples of states which are frequently characterized as authoritarian:

• Belarus under Alexander Lukashenko
• Vietnam under the Vietnamese Communist Party
• North Korea under the Korean Workers' Party
• China under the Chinese Communist Party
• Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge and Hun Sen
• Syria under Hafez al-Assad and Bashar al-Assad
• Iran under Supreme Leaders Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei
• Laos under the Lao People's Revolutionary Party
• Armenia under Serzh Sargsyan
• Burkina Faso under Blaise Compaore
• Cuba under Fidel and Raúl Castro
• Saudi Arabia under the House of Saud.
• Bahrain

Examples of states which were previously authoritarian, but are no longer:

• Burma from a 1962 coup until a transition to democracy beginning in 2011.
• South Korea from the early 1970s until a transition to democracy in 1987.
• Spain under Francisco Franco from 1936 to 1975, when the Spanish transition to democracy began after Franco's death.
• Taiwan from the 228 Incident of 1947 until a transition to democracy in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
• Libya under Muammar Gaddafi's rule.
• Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, and Hosni Mubarak.
• Brazil during both the Estado Novo period under Getúlio Vargas (1937–1945) and under military government from a 1964 coup until a transition to democracy in the early and mid-1980s.
• Argentina under the Argentine Revolution period of military rule (1966-1973) and later during the justicialismo rule of Juan Perón (populist authoritarianism).
• Chile under Pinochet.