Understanding one-party states and dictatorships around the world

1. Party States Today, in 2023, the vast majority of countries throughout the world are democracies. Some are republics, others are constitutional monarchies, but most of them granting power to the people, who every 2, 4 or 5 years get the chance to choose from a number of parties in an election, deciding which of them matches their beliefs and ideology more and granting them their votes. However, even in modern times, there are some countries that haven't evolved into being a democracy. They are autocracies, dictatorships or one-party states. In this video, we will do two things. First, learn what a one-party state is and how they work. Two, learn which countries in the world today follow that system. And three, learn how being a one-party state isn't a requirement for authoritarian regimes. Then looking at many other countries that aren't free but also aren't one-party states, being military dictatorships or just countries where parties are needed, but we'll get to that in a minute. So what is a one-party state? The first historical one-party system is said to have existed in 1913 in the Ottoman Empire, where a movement called the Committee of Union and Progress executed a coup and became the ruling party. A one-party state or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form government. All other parties are either outlawed or allowed to take only a limited and controlled participation in elections. Sometimes the term de facto one-party state is used to describe a dominant party system that, unlike the one-party state, allows democratic multi-party elections, but the existing practices or balance of power effectively prevent the opposition from ever winning those elections. With those being conditioned or all-out faked to grant the same party victory. The 20th century Estado Novo regime in Portugal is an example of this. Opposing candidates and parties were technically allowed to run, but they got ridiculously low amount of votes that didn't match the real support that they had. A similar thing happens today in Belarus, where the ruling party gets like 98% of the votes. One-party systems usually justify their existence with the need for national unity. The 20th century Portuguese dictatorship ruling party was literally called União Nacional, which means national unity. The Soviet government, for instance, argued that the existence of multiple parties would perpetuate class struggle, so only a single party could lead to a classless proletariat. Essentially, they make up whatever excuse they can to make it seem like it's a good thing that only one party exists, in order to perpetuate their power and government and have it be unopposed. Some one party states only outlaw opposition parties, allowing allied parties to exist as part of a permanent coalition that supports them, creating a fake perception of a choice for the voter and outside viewers. Other states are at least honest and outlaw all other parties and make it so that membership of the one party is a prerequisite for holding public office. I believe this was the case in Germany during the Third Reich, when party states are always considered to be authoritarian, but not all authoritarian or totalitarian states operate under one-party rule. Some, especially absolute monarchies, personal or military dictatorships, have so much power and control already that they have no need for a ruling party and therefore make all political parties illegal. So, now that we've understood what a one-party system is and how it works, let's find out which countries are one-party systems today. 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This means tons of content to explore, continuous updates including weekly events, themed challenges and constant feature rollouts. If you want to join these millions of players and try out the game yourself, you can download it on your Android or iOS device today and now back to the video. Technically and if we follow the strict definitions I just mentioned, there are only 7 countries in the world, there are one party states. China, Cuba, Eritrea, Laos, North Korea, Sarawi and Vietnam. All of these being led by a self-proclaimed communist party with the exception of Eritrea and Sarawi which have their own nationalist movements. They've all been around for a good amount of years, North Korea's is the most lasting one since 1945, then China since since 1954, Cuba since 1961, Laos 75, Vietnam and Sarawi 76 and Eritrea being the youngest since 1993. Most of these were implemented after some type of war or revolution justifying the existence of a single party with the triumph of one supposed ideology over another and or the need for stability after a troubled period. After all, the etymology of the word dictatorship shows us this. It comes from the Latin word dictator which in the Roman Republic designed a temporary magistrate who was granted extraordinary powers in order to deal with state crisis. However, this is a severely limiting definition because it makes it seem that only one party states are dictatorships and this is not at all the case. There are, sadly, not only 7 dictatorships in the world today, there are a lot more. regimes can, as we also saw earlier, have fake elections and multiple parties that may exist on paper but are severely conditioned and prevented from ever winning an election. And so, in order to get a real view of the list of countries that aren't democracies, we need to include both the de facto one party states, even when that technically isn't the case, and also other dictatorships that don't even use political parties for their system of government. According to the Freedom House ranking for 2022, almost one-third of countries worldwide are not free, 56 countries in total, and this percentage rises more in specific regions. In the Middle East, 77% of countries aren't free, 67% in Eurasia, 44% in Africa, 23% in Asia Pacific, 11% in the Americas, and 2% in Europe. In this map on page 20 of the report, we can see in purple which countries these are. In orange are the partly free countries and in green the fully free. If you guys want I can do a full video on the Freedom House ranking with the most and least free countries in detail. For instance, it's very interesting how Mongolia is the one green and free country in the middle of all these Asian autocracies. But we can see how dictatorships aren't at all exclusive to those one party states. Countries like Russia, Belarus, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, all of Central Asia and so many others in Africa are considered not to be free. Many of which are countries in which a lot of parties run for elections. Although it's important to point out that this ranking, it's not only political freedom that's being taken into account, but also civil freedom. So remember that a lot of the countries here in purple are democracies and many of them have full on free elections. So if these not free countries aren't one party states, then what are they? This map shows us the current monarchies that still exist today. In red are the ones that we need to know, the absolute monarchies, where either a single party or just the royal family and its circle rule the country. There's only 4 worldwide, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Brunei and Iswatini, oh and the Vatican, although the Vatican is a special case and kind of elective, so doesn't really count here. Some semi-constitutional monarchies are also listed as not free on Freedom House, such as Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. Many of these don't have a ruling party, so aren't considered a one party system, despite being the same thing, it's not a party but the royal family itself. And I believe none of them were ever a democracy before, the royal family's rule is maintained continuously throughout the centuries. Other cases where the ruling party doesn't exist and is simply replaced by another single faction are military dictatorships. These sometimes transition into one party systems, I couldn't find the most updated data for this but as of 2021 a few countries in the world were still under this regime such as Mali, Sudan or Myanmar. These usually take place after a revolution against whatever system existed before, be it a democracy or a monarchy or even another military dictatorship. One cool historical example is 1653 England when Cromwell ruled the country as Lord Protector with the help of the army. And then we also have other personal dictatorships, many of which can overlap with one party states or military ones, but as we've seen, they don't necessarily need to be. Although it's rare that a dictatorship doesn't have a central strong figure, the dictator himself, and they usually require support from the military. After all, you can't keep power without contest if the armed faction isn't by your side. This shows us how despite the fact we can categorize dictatorships in many different ways, depending on their main feature. All of them usually, if not always, involve the same types of things. Free elections don't take place, even if fraudulent ones do. The military is part of the regime, or the whole regime itself. A strong figure takes the role of dictator, whether he is replaced at the end of his life, or whether the regime changes upon their death. I couldn't find specific information about the remaining dictatorships in the world and what their main feature is, but we can conclude that they are a combination of these three factors, regardless of which is the main one. Also, important too, again, remember how some of the states listed as not free are listed this way because of their lack of civil liberties with political freedom existing in many cases. So, that is a quick summarization of what a one-party state is, how they work, and how they are always present in dictatorships, but how dictatorships can technically exist without them. Then allowing us to learn which countries in the world are not politically free, be it because they are one party states on paper, military dictatorships or absolute monarchies. Or just plain dictatorships with a strong figure as the leader. Then understanding how lack of free elections, military support and a one dictator are common traits in all states that aren't politically free and therefore concluding that a one-party state definition is a technical one, which, if followed strictly, provides a short-sighted view of the lack of political freedom in many countries that do have more than one party, but where one party or faction still controls all the power and represses others that contest it. Thanks so much for watching this video, leave a comment below with your opinions about this and any corrections or additional information you may have. Are any of the countries listed as not free actually free and which other main dictatorships did I not mention. Subscribe if you want to catch future videos and I will see you next time for more general knowledge.