A right-wing dictatorship (sometimes also referred to as a rightist dictatorship) is an authoritarian (or sometimes totalitarian) regime whose policy could be called rightist.
Contents
- Military government
- Religion and the government
- Europe
- List of European right wing dictatorships
- References
There are various definitions of the term "rightist." The broadest one includes all dictatorships that do not consider themselves communist. Those are usually pro-capitalist in economic matters and conservative in ideological ones.
The term fascist dictatorship is sometimes used interchangeably with the right-wing one. It is commonly accepted that Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy were ruled by fascist governments at some points of their history; how it refers to other right-wing regimes is a question of further debate. The Estado Novo in Portugal was a right-wing dictatorship which was corporatist in nature (much like Mussolini's fascism). Most South American dictatorships, during the second half of the 20th century, were right-wing: Pinochet, the Brazilian Military Government, etc. There have also been a number of military dictatorships installed by anti-communists which were generally conservative and rightist.
Military government
In the most common Western view, the perfect example of a right-wing dictatorship is any of those that once ruled in South America. Those regimes were predominantly military juntas and most of them collapsed in the 1980s. Communist countries, which were very cautious about not revealing their authoritarian methods of rule to the public, were usually led by civilian governments and officers taking power were not much welcomed there. Few exceptions include the Burmese Way to Socialism (Burma, 1966–1988), the Military Council of National Salvation (People's Republic of Poland, 1981–1983) or the North Korean regime's evolution throughout the rule of Kim Il-sung.
Religion and the government
Most right-wing regimes kept strong ties with local Churches (usually the Roman Catholic ones since most of those regimes happened in Catholic countries). This policy of a strong Church-state alliance is usually referred to as Austrofascism. The most pro-Catholic dictatorships were Portugal (1933–1974) and the Federal State of Austria (1934–1938). Non-Christian dictatorships include those in the Muslim world; the most famous being Iran since the revolution of 1979. There are several other examples of theocratic (and, therefore, right-wing) regimes in the region, like Somalia or Afghanistan under the Taliban. While it is unclear whether a monarchy could be called a dictatorship, theocratic absolute monarchies of Saudi Arabia or Vatican City share many similarities with the regimes mentioned above. Many of those are/were led by spiritual leaders; examples include the Slovak Republic under the Reverend Josef Tiso or Iran under the Ayatollahs Khomeini (1979–1989) and Khamenei (1989–present). Some right-wing dictatorships, like the Nazi Germany, were even openly anti-religious.
Europe
In some post-communist countries, people involved in the previous regime took power in the years following the end of the Cold War. The most famous example of a European dictatorship of that sort is Belarus under Alexander Lukashenko. Belarus and Azerbaijan were both considered "authoritarian regimes" by the Democracy Index as of 2008. Freedom House marks them "not-free states" together with Russia, so whether Russia is a dictatorship or just a seriously flawed democracy is a question of further debate. All three governments are non-communist and, especially in Russia, sometimes stay in total opposition to the communist parties. Therefore, they could be called right-wing as well.
List of European right-wing dictatorships
Considering a right-wing dictatorship any non-democratic (non-parliamentary or pseudo-parliamentary political system, suppression of basic freedoms such as association and speech, prosecution of opponents, etc.) regime that is not communist, the list of European examples would be as following:
^ Semi-authoritarian regime. ^ Semi-authoritarian regime in the years 1938–1940. ^ Semi-authoritarian regime.