(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.
Despotism
Definition:
(n.) The power, spirit, or principles of a despot; absolute control over others; tyrannical sway; tyranny.
(n.) A government which is directed by a despot; a despotic monarchy; absolutism; autocracy.
Example Sentences:
(1) Right now, with Kabila already 10 years in power and looking immovable, despotism seems to have democracy on the ropes.
(2) All the while, a long list of corrupt and venal despots turned their rule into virtual kleptocracies and stole their children's futures.
(3) One is the stubborn mystery of how a giant of its liberation movements, an intellectual who showed forgiveness and magnanimity years before Mandela emerged from jail, could turn into the living caricature of despotism.
(4) If it fails to do so, it will rightly stand accused of placing a higher value on its alliance with murderous despots than the security of its own people.
(5) To crush any residual affinity for the monarchy, British propaganda against Thibaw “went into high gear”, said Thant Mtint-U, painting the monarch as an ogre, despot and drunkard.
(6) It took Harry Guy Bartholomew, first editorial director and then chairman after Rothermere unloaded his shares, to run the business on despotic lines and, with a mixture of flair and vindictive thuggery, create one of the great popular newspapers.
(7) The Red Army attacked despotic gentry and evil landlords, people who exploited our country and exploited individuals," she says, recalling her reasons for joining.
(8) The tabloid conclusion is that the North's leaders are crazed – Kim Jong-un is a "deranged despot", the Sun wrote on Friday – while the Team America version is that they are idiotic.
(9) Its words are an attack on tyrants and despots, and a call for liberty.
(10) Even though the event was celebrating victory over fascism, some of the world’s most notorious despots were in attendance, including Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov, Turkmenistan’s Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.
(11) "We couldn't believe our eyes," grinned Shamad, recalling the sight of Tunisia's ousted despot, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, fleeing a land he had ruled for 23 years.
(12) When it comes, the fall of a famous despot sends a shiver that is felt across the world.
(13) Jacobs checked Moses's mad worship of the car and his despotic excesses.
(14) In 1989, according to the Washington Post , he was hired to massage the image of the despot Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) for $1m a year.
(15) Responding to suggestions by pro-coup pundits that he should be more statesman-like, he was adamant: “I won’t change my personality, because I am a person with multiple personalities.” As with other interesting despots, none of this affects his ability to wield absolute power.
(16) What of the jobs that we’re told would be endangered if we adopted the exotic policy of not selling arms to despots?
(17) As Assange noted drily: "It's nicer, particularly given the frequency of equatorial despotism, to be tortured in the computer room."
(18) In an age of infinite European promise - summed up by the annus mirabilis of 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell and the countries of eastern Europe and former Yugoslavia freed themselves from Soviet-style despotism - Slobodan Milosevic, who has died aged 64, was the wild card.
(19) In championing the oppressed, deterring aggression, curbing the excesses of despots, challenging the victimisation of scapegoats, tackling poverty or preventing genocide, the international community still has a long way to go.
(20) Pogrund and cameraman Dewald Aukema pick up not only the whirlwind nature of that first head-of-state visit, but the exotic and breathtaking beauty of Africa and Mandela's buttoned lip as he visits the lavish basilicas built by despots on the land of the poor.