National Revolutionary Party (Mexico)

Dictatorship is a form of government in which a country or a group of countries is ruled by one person (a dictator) or by a polity, and power is exercized through various mechanisms in order to ensure that the entity's power remains strong.

A dictatorship is a type of authoritarianism, in which politicians regulate nearly every aspect of the public and private behavior of citizens. Dictatorship and totalitarian societies generally employ political propaganda in order to decrease the influence of proponents of alternative governing systems. In the past, different religious tactics were used by dictators in order to maintain their rule, such as the monarchical system in the west.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, traditional monarchies gradually declined and disappeared. Dictatorship and constitutional democracy emerged as the world's two major forms of government.

Between the two world wars, four types of dictatorships have been described: constitutional, communist (nominally championing the "dictatorship of the proletariat"), counterrevolutionary, and fascist, and many have questioned the distinctions between these prototypes. Since World War II a broader range of dictatorships has been recognized, including Third World dictatorships, theocratic or religious dictatorships and dynastic or family-based dictatorships.

During the Republican phase of Ancient Rome, a Roman dictator was the special magistrate who held well defined powers, normally for six months at a time, usually in combination with a consulship. Roman dictators were allocated absolute power during times of emergency. In execution, their power was originally neither arbitrary nor unaccountable, being subject to law and requiring retrospective justification. There were no such dictatorships after the beginning of the 2nd century BC, and later dictators such as Sulla and the Roman Emperors exercised power much more personally and arbitrarily. As the Roman Emperor was a king in all but name, a concept that remained anathema to traditional Roman society, the institution was not carried forward into the Roman Empire.

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