Unusual Types of Governments Around the World

Dishonest people are usually the loudest ones trying to convince others that they are honest. Is it the same story with states? Every state in the world claims that they are free and safe democracies. 

Only 4 countries in the world officially admit that they are not democracies. Can you tell which 4 countries officially admit that they are not democracies? 

Find the answer at the end of this article. (Disclaimer: I am not suggesting that these 4 countries are honest, while others are not!)

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Importing democracy has been a political fashion in the last few years. Time will tell how it succeeds. Democracy is however, only one form of government. There are many others currently in use around the world. Historically, many countries e.g., China and Russia have experimented with different types of governments in their glorious past. Some have worked better than others.

What works when depends on a lot of factors and typically we are always wiser in hindsight. Despotic, liberal, monarchy, democracy, sultanate - these are some of the different political systems of government that can be found in the world. If we look at the types of governments found in the world today, we shall see some unusual ones like kritarchy too.

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Types of Governments Found around the World

Ethnocracy – Hitler’s dream for the thousand-year-Reich! One ethnic group dominates the state and its mechanisms and the government is explicit in its aims to serve the interests of this solitary ethnic group e.g., Israel.

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Ochlocracy – Mob rule or absence of clear authority. One of the only definitions political theorists agree on about what is a state – the monopoly of the use of violence, is not often valid in such cases. E.g., Libya after the toppling of Gaddafi.

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Plutocracy – A small group of the wealthiest citizens have practically all the power. Historically Italian seafaring merchant states such as Genoa, Venice were plutocracies. The City of London (the financial district, not the whole city) has 450, 000 non-resident well-off financial employee non-resident voters decide things there rather than the 9 000 residents. Some people consider USA to be behaving like a plutocracy.

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Kritarchy – Rule by judges. Ancient Israel described in the Book of the Judges (1380-1050 B.C.). Currently only Somalia is ruled by the Islamic Courts Union but Palestinian courts have women judges also. 

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Oligarchy – Power rests effectively in the hands of a tiny group of elite people. Some people consider South Africa in the 20^th century (especially during Apartheid) and modern Russia, with about 40 oligarchs owning more than $1 billion as examples of oligarchy.

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Stratocracy – Rule by military chiefs. This is different from military dictatorship, which illegally usurps power. In stratocracy, military leaders fill all the important posts. Whether society sanctions this without coercion, is entirely a different matter. Myanmar or Burma is an example.

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Bureaucracy – Non-elected officials rule the state, usually because elected politicians are not able to form a government. Bureaucrats ran the Netherlands (a constitutional monarchy otherwise) for 207 days in 1977, without an elected government. Iraq eventually broke this record of modern times in 2010.

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Theocracy – Government by people who are regarded by followers of a faith as divinely guided. The Vatican is an example. The CIA considers Iran to be a Theocratic Republic. Some people allege that the US state of Utah is a theocracy as 90% of the state legislature  and 80% of the judiciary are Mormons. 

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Ergatocracy – Another name for a communist state or rule by the working class. Early Soviet Union could be considered an example.

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Exilarchy – Basically a government in exile. The Tibetan government in exile in India, and the Biafran Government in Exile are examples.

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Diarchy – Rule by two equal heads of states sharing power. Ancient Rome had consuls sharing power. The only current example is Andorra with two co-princes sharing power until death. One of the princes is the sitting President of France, currently François Hollande.

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Kleptocracy – Basically a plutocracy, but the leader or leaders are solely focused on embezzling almost all the money available. A good example would be the rule of Mobutu, King of the African country of Zaire.

Zaire dictator MobutuSese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga with US President Nixon

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Meritocracy – Usually used in connection with workplaces. Some strong rulers have used meritocracy to differentiate their rule from aristocratic and inherited power systems preceding them. Genghis Khan in the Mongol Empire and Napoleon, in his early days are old examples. Today only Singapore officially claims to be a meritocracy. 

President of Singapore Tony Tan Keng Yam   Photo source:

Timocracy – Rule by property owners and by people who have a strong love of honour. Early United States could be considered as an example.

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Monarchy – Rule by a hereditary monarch. We have basically two kinds of monarchy: constitutional monarchy, where the monarch stays in the ceremonial role and does not interfere with elected rulers like the prime minister and parliament as in the UK. The other kind is absolute monarchy or autocracy as in Brunei, who is called the Sultan of Brunei. Absolute monarchs can also be elected as the Pope in Vatican is. Monarchy is not so common in the world today compared to the 19th and early 20th centuries. Currently there are 44 countries with a monarch as a head of state (16 of these are commonwealth realms).

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Democracy – This can be direct democracy, where citizens personally take part in decision-making as in the Swiss cantons of Glarus and Appenzell Innerhoden in Switzerland or representative democracy, or representative democracy e.g., UK.

The people in Appenzell Innerhoden are proud to report that this institution of Landsgemeinde has been working since 1378, though the original paper deed recording the foundation is missing now.

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 Answer: 

In case you tried to guess like me, North Korea is a wrong answer. Officially that country is called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The 4 countries are Brunei, Burma, Saudi Arabia and the Vatican. 

Are All Dictators Ruthless Despots?

Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Ceausescu, Genghis Khan, Saddam Hussein, and Idi Amin – we all know these names of dictators.

They come to mind immediately as examples of megalomaniac and brutal despots or dictators. Are all dictators ruthless despots?

How to Measure the Evil of Dictators?

Dictator Gallery in Thailand Museum

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Stalin once said "One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic." 

This is the dictator’s moral benchmark. Measuring evil is not only a gruesome affair, but it is also very difficult. If you are honest enough, it might get very uncomfortable for you if you start registering all your pernicious, vicious and evil thoughts. So, deeds only qualify. Conquering the largest territory is not a reliable measure of evil as this list shows. 

Francisco Pizarro (1470-1541) and Hernando Cortez (1485-1547) inflicted much more suffering and caused more damage, by wiping out entire civilizations, than Cyrus the Great (600-529 BC) or Alexander the Great, who conquered vast areas.

One way to measure the ruthlessness of dictators is body count – how many people they have killed.

The top place in recorded history goes to Mao Zedong of China with 70 million killed.

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Then Stalin and Hitler follow. Saddam Hussein killed about a million in a country of 22 million. 

Considering the death toll against a backdrop of population is another method. 

• Pol Pot of Cambodia would probably be the most dangerous dictator to his own people as he killed off 25% of Cambodia’s population. 

But, in this game of percentages, one woman puts all men dictators to shame. 

• She is Queen Ranavalona 1 of Madagascar. During her reign from 1828-1861 she terminated 50% of the population of Madagascar (from 5 to 2,5 million) through her atrocities. Tough bird!

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Are There Good Dictators too?


Yes, at least one in ancient Rome.

Photo source:   Cincinnatus returning the Fasces, the symbol of power to the Roman senate after accomplishing his mission and returning back to live as a farmer on his own farm.

Dictator was a title with a good sound in the ancient Roman Republic (509 BC-27BC) until Julius Caesar (49-44 BC). Roman consuls or generals like Cincinnatus (529-430 BC) were given the title Dictator with limitless powers only for a certain period. They usually returned the power after the mission was accomplished.

A “benevolent dictator” is a ruler (a man, mostly), who exercises supreme power for the good of his people and country rather than strictly for himself. At least this is how most of his supporters see things. 

• Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia
• Deng Xiaoping of China
• Józef Piłsudski of Poland
• Napoleon Bonaparte of France
• Park Chung-Hee of South Korea are such dictators.

There is another term in Spanish, “Dictablanda” where the word blanda implies soft dictatorship. “Dictadura” or hard dictatorship is the opposite.

Sometimes dictators are validated by the Supreme Court of the country as Pervez Musharaf of Pakistan (from 1999-2004) was or highly controversial plebiscites validate them like Pinochet did in 1980 in Chile.

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Dictators Have Crazy and Fantastic Titles

Some dictators have short titles like Der Fuehrer (German for Leader) for Hitler or Il Duce (Leader) for Mussolini. Some examples of unusual titles below.

• Vodca (Leader) – Jozef Tiso (1939-45) dictator of Nazi supported Slovakia.
• Vozhd (Russian for "Chief". Stalin as the Chief or the guide for the working class)
• Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriy, Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution - Muammar Al Gaddafi of Libya.
• Maximillien Robbespierre’s supporters called him “The Incorruptible”. The rest of France called him “Dictateur Sanguinaire” (French for Bloodthirsty dictator).
• The craziest title for a dictator goes to Idi Amin of Uganda – “President for Life, Field Marshall, Al Hadji Dr. Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular” - Wow! Nothing less.

Maximilien de Robespierre (1758-1794), France

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Many Hereditary Dictatorships Currently

Dictators rule almost thirty countries nowadays. You’d be more surprised by how many of them, like Burma, are good friends of Western democracies.

• Raúl Castro succeeded his brother Fidel Castro in Cuba
• Ilham Aliyev succeeded his father in Azerbaijan in 2003
• Ismail Omar Guelleh of Djibouti succeeded his uncle Hassan Gouled Aptidon in 1999
• Egypt’s Hosni Mubarrak plans to shift power to his son Gamal Mubarrak upon his death.
• Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has only two daughters and his (former) hairdresser wife is a mega shopaholic so son-in-law Sakher al-Materi will probably inherit power unless the whole circus is ousted pretty soon in popular uprising.

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How Dictators Want To Be Seen

Dictators love to be seen as friendly, charming and lovely persons whom children adore. Just the sort of person everyone should dream of inviting for dinner at their homes!

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Dictators also need to show that they are tough and merciless so that anyone planning to topple them should better watch out. 

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This gruesome Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge gesture is a typical dictator message to enemies.

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Dictators usually argue that there is nothing uniquely bad about their methods and they don’t differ from those used by Western democracies such as Britain in India earlier

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or by the current trigger-happy men with expensive guns in Iraq in the so-called Haditha Massacre. 

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War is senseless everywhere and as Steve Biko, the South-African anti-apartheid activist said

“The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”


If you want to know more about your favourite dictator, here is a good site and a blog.

If you want to get rid of a dictator, there is advice on Different Ways to Get Rid of Dictators.

Due to demands by readers, we really have to include the Chilean Augusto Pinochet among the dictators. Two of his most famous sayings sum up typical dictator thoughts:

1.  I regret and suffer those losses, but it's God's will. He will pardon me if I committed excesses, but I don't think I did.
2.  I'm not a dictator. It's just that I have a grumpy face.

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Fundamentalism of the Christian Kind is not Growing!

Liberal people all over the world love fundie-bashing. 

It is so snug and comfortable to show how deluded they, the fundamentalists are, how unreasonable, selfish and evil they are. Just put in any fundie you’d love to hate into the formula – the Muslim extremists, the Nazis, the fundamentalist Christians, the NeoCon Republicans, the Taleban – the list is endless.

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How Much Damage Religious Fundamentalists do?

If we look at the death toll of killing campaigns and mass deaths, the fundamentalists lose to secular killing campaigns straight out. The Inquisition or the Crusades total death toll lack a few zeroes, when compared to Mao and the Spanish Flu.

Now, we can argue that religion was involved in these massacres as well.

Stalin attended a theological seminary and almost became a priest, Mao was fighting eradicate religions, and the annihilation of the Native Americans was in the name of progress and religion too.

But religious persecution, of the Christian fundamentalist (“I am right and all others wrong” kind) did a lot of damage by terrorising entire societies. There is no negotiation or room for differences with them (do the Taleban sound familiar?)

Emperor Charlemagne in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain in one day on 5/27/1234 near Altenesch (Germany). Population numbers in those days were also lower than today, so killing 16, 000 persons removed a significant part of the population. Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists justify their actions by calling Western colonialism and post-war Western Imperialism by the chilling term al-Salibiyyah: the Crusade". (Karen Armstrong 2000).

Can Religious Fundamentalists do Any Good?

Religious fundamentalists function on a “If you are not with us, you are against us” principle made so notorious by George Bush. Extremists religious communities are very close knit and they support members much more than social security. Membership does have privileges, but they are withdrawn the moment you start dissenting. Earlier, dissenters were ‘removed’ too.


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I am not making any apology for any fundie. I’m awfully glad that the people of India did not put their faith in Hindu fundamentalism in the 2009 elections.

Liberalism and Not Fundamentalism is Rising?

Copernicus Marketing Consulting and Research, an American firm that helps Fortune 500 companies make better marketing decisions, reveals that the number of Americans who consider themselves fundamentalist is growing at a much faster rate than those with less orthodox or evangelical views has no basis in fact.

• In 1972, 18% of American considered themselves ‘liberals’
• In 2002, 29% of American considered themselves ‘liberals’

• In 1972, 27% of American considered themselves ‘fundamentalists’
• In 2002, 30% of American considered themselves ‘fundamentalists’

For various reasons, we have had slight difficulties in getting figures for Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia.

Yes, it seems that 'fundies' of different sorts put a terrible twist to things, mostly for their own benefit. We could be snug and say that 'fundies' are deluded as they call all others deluded. But then doesn’t it become a case of the blind leading the blind? I'm comfortable with people taking different roads or rather making different roads as long as they don't force it on me.

Here’s a very nice article about Christian Fundamentalism by Mark Gordon Brown, which inspired me to write this post.

Ref: Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (p.180)