What's the difference between autocracy and autocrat?

Autocracy


Definition:

  • (n.) Independent or self-derived power; absolute or controlling authority; supremacy.
  • (n.) Supreme, uncontrolled, unlimited authority, or right of governing in a single person, as of an autocrat.
  • (n.) Political independence or absolute sovereignty (of a state); autonomy.
  • (n.) The action of the vital principle, or of the instinctive powers, toward the preservation of the individual; also, the vital principle.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The Copts stand to lose more than any other group in Egypt's current drift following the fall of an unpopular autocracy, and now face an uncertain future with a wide spectrum of possible outcomes, from a liberal democracy to an Islamic republic, or most likely of all, a continuation of army rule with different window-dressing.
  • (2) At the beginning, David Cameron spoke respectfully of "President Mubarak" and the "Egyptian government"; by this weekend, the prime minister is using the much more pejorative "regime" to describe the crumbling autocracy.
  • (3) The privy council only provides the flummery which camouflages their autocracy.
  • (4) Without question, the increased access to people's lives that the data revolution brings will give some repressive autocracies a dangerous advantage in targeting their citizens.
  • (5) The leader of the world’s largest autocracy will enjoy a 103-gun royal salute and a sumptuous, white-tie state banquet attended by three generations of the royal family; he will address the houses of parliament and at night will sleep in the palace’s Belgian Suite, in the very same bed that Duke and Duchess of Cambridge used on their wedding night .
  • (6) After five days away from his homeland, Abu Majid is convinced that the four decades of unshakable autocracy he left behind are now steadily unravelling.
  • (7) A toy autocracy may easily invite a real one; it was recently revealed that nuclear war would have made the monarch a genuine tyrant with the power to appoint a prime minister without an election, although it is hard to imagine Elizabeth II – with her rugs bearing a knitted royal crest, and her tiny dogs – as Gaius Julius Caesar.
  • (8) The book’s success was celebrated by the entry of a new word into the Russian lexicon: oblomovism, which became a term of abuse for the class that helped the autocracy survive for so long.
  • (9) The Kremlin, whose long slide into autocracy shows no sign of relenting, made deals with several of them, knowing it would be easier to keep them on side than to open up Russia's economy to proper procedures, competition, and fair trade.
  • (10) All of which confirms a country slipping from democracy back towards autocracy.
  • (11) The relentless expansion of markets over recent decades has generated a growing disconnect between citizens and states, be they military autocracies or august procedural democracies; for better or for worse, from the rise of maverick politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to institutional chaos in southern Europe and the dissolution of national borders in the Middle East, existing political models are buckling under the strain.
  • (12) A chaotic session of parliament before Christmas saw the annual budget voted through outside the main chamber without opposition support, while the outgoing president of Poland’s highest constitutional court accused Law and Justice of setting the country “on the road to autocracy”.
  • (13) An arrogant assumption, of course, to imply she spoke for all her people – and exactly the question that is impossible to answer in such a repressive autocracy.
  • (14) No more regressive form of taxation has been devised on this continent since the old autocracies were overthrown.
  • (15) For instance, in his speech, Jeb called for strengthening Egypt, the sclerotic autocracy the United States propped up for decades and whose torture and repression birthed Sayyid Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood (out from under whose robes al-Qaida scuttled into the world); its current president took power in a coup and is hardly known for his weakness on anything but human rights and press freedoms .
  • (16) "So when Sisi stepped forward and did what he did, it was seen as a heroic act, taking a last-step measure to save the country from an ailing economy and a religious autocracy."
  • (17) True, he played a significant role in steering his country from pariah autocracy to a democracy embraced by the international community.
  • (18) In the conservative autocracies of the middle east, Qatar, a wealthy gas-rich emirate, has built up a reputation as a maverick, epitomised by its ownership of the al-Jazeera satellite television channel, which has often infuriated many Arab leaders.
  • (19) "This is not going to be an autocracy," Egypt's foreign minister, Nabil Fahmy, told the Guardian on Sunday.
  • (20) During the 2011-12 fiscal year, under President Bingu wa Mutharika (the current president’s older brother) donors withdrew budgetary support because of poor governance and the then president’s increasing autocracy.

Autocrat


Definition:

  • (a.) An absolute sovereign; a monarch who holds and exercises the powers of government by claim of absolute right, not subject to restriction; as, Autocrat of all the Russias (a title of the Czar).
  • (a.) One who rules with undisputed sway in any company or relation; a despot.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Indeed, his reaction to the nationwide citizens' revolt reveals ominous parallels with another autocratic leader who has recently found himself in a tight spot: Vladimir Putin.
  • (2) A popular strain of foreign policy thought has long held that the US should be guided primarily by self-interest rather than human rights concerns: hence, since the US wants its Fifth Fleet to remain in Bahrain and believes ( with good reason ) that these dictators will serve US interests far better than if popular will in these countries prevails, it is right to prop up these autocrats.
  • (3) The elections, in May, were widely regarded to be the fairest held in Ethiopia , which has a long history of autocratic rule.
  • (4) Image: Courtesy of Pew Research Center The data also show why autocrats might have reason to fear open discussions in cyberspace.
  • (5) The policies of zero tolerance equip local and federal law-enforcement with increasingly autocratic powers of coercion and surveillance (the right to invade anybody's privacy, bend the rules of evidence, search barns, stop motorists, inspect bank records, tap phones) and spread the stain of moral pestilence to ever larger numbers of people assumed to be infected with reefer madness – anarchists and cheap Chinese labour at the turn of the 20th century, known homosexuals and suspected communists in the 1920s, hippies and anti-Vietnam war protesters in the 1960s, nowadays young black men sentenced to long-term imprisonment for possession of a few grams of short-term disembodiment.
  • (6) Britain's high commissioner described him as "becoming ever more autocratic and intolerant of criticism" – and was expelled in retaliation .
  • (7) It reinforces the fears held by many that a counter-revolution is well underway, setting the country back on the path of another long autocratic rule.
  • (8) Business leaders sometimes fall foul of the regime in autocratic countries such as China, and when they do, they risk having their assets appropriated by the state .
  • (9) A leading academic who taught on the London School of Economics' controversial Libya programme has blamed the British government for encouraging educational links with the autocratic state.
  • (10) Beyond the sumptuous lifestyle spreads in glossies or the gift-strewn shop windows at Harrods and Selfridges, and Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop website , shows like Downton Abbey keep us in thrall to the idea of moolah, mansions and autocratic power.
  • (11) But the Establishment also had a more interesting and benign meaning: a network of liberal-minded people who could counteract the excesses of autocratic and short-sighted governments.
  • (12) Trump approves of working with autocrats, at least, and would probably make fast friends with the galaxy’s less reputable leaders – especially those who share his interests, eg crimelord Jabba the Hutt, who lives in an ostentatious palace , loves parties , demeans women and feeds a literal Rancor .
  • (13) Using multivariate analysis, it was found that 'autocratic management style' was a strong predictor of job dissatisfaction, while 'qualitative and quantitative work overload' was the major source of lack of mental well-being.
  • (14) The political assassinations two years earlier had threatened the new democracy taking root after the autocratic president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was toppled in 2011.
  • (15) China has become increasingly diligent about quashing critical voices, apparently fearful that they could spark protests like those that unseated autocrats in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya last year.
  • (16) While the NDP was disbanded and its offices shut down in 2011, months after an uprising toppled the autocratic Mubarak, its members could still run in elections.
  • (17) Bingu, who has built strong ties with China, forgives but does not forget the leaked diplomatic cable from the then British high commissioner, Fergus Cochrane-Dyet, that branded him "autocratic", resulting in tit-for-tat expulsions.
  • (18) With billions of dollars worth of assets of Muammar Gaddafi frozen by the UN and member countries, and other legal moves to recover the wealth of deposed autocrats such as Tunisia's Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, the drive to seize billions plundered by corrupt leaders has never been higher.
  • (19) For the next quarter century, until the 1979 Islamic revolution, the US government supported the autocratic Shah – whose regime also enjoyed close relations with Israel.
  • (20) The autocrat in the Kremlin is rightly worried about Euromaidan – he knows that it can serve as a prelude to an "Eroploshchad" in Moscow: that is, the success of Euromaidan represents an opportunity for democratic forces within Russia.