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The Authoritarian Regime And Authoritarian Government Essay

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Singapore 's former Prime Minster, Lee Kuan Yew once said: "Human beings, regrettable though it may be, are inherently vicious and have to be restrained" (Kwang, Fernandez, & Tan 1). One can infer from Kuan Yew’s statement that he 's subtly saying that individuals shouldn 't be in control of their choices, yet there ought to be somebody to settle on choices for them. An ideology such as this can stem from an authoritarian government. In this day and age, most nations have a tendency to have a democracy. However, it wasn 't generally that way. Throughout history, there were nations under authoritarian rule. In order to fully understand what an authoritarian regime is, one must know the meaning of it. An authoritarian government is "an oppressive regime that rules through strict, intrusive, and violent enforcement of laws. It can “take the form of a dictatorship, but may also manifest itself in totalitarian bureaucracies or oligarchies" (Ritter 576). An authoritarian regime exists when a leader or a small group of leaders owns all property and are the sole decision makers for the entire population. There are only two questions left to be asked. How are authoritarian regimes created and how do they even stay in power? Authoritarian governments ascend to power due to a postwar upheaval and the leader in the charge; they stay in power by employing a resource trap and having a one party system. One reason that triggers the ascent of an authoritarian regime is postwar upheaval.
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