How many, and where? I know Saddam in Iraq, but how many others are there?
Well I know of at least one, GEORGE W. HITLER AND HIS OIL CRONIES IN WASHINGTON!!!11!!!1!!
As I think it was just demonstrated above…one man’s dictator could be another’s hallowed leader.
Depending on your definition, I think you could make a case for the Pope or Queen of England being a dictator. But I don’t think they fit in the same catagory as Idi Amin and Saddam. Would Osama be in the running, despite the fact that he is indeed on the run?
I’ve got 3 more:
Fidel Castro (Cuba)
Kim Il Sung(?) (North Korea)
Who’s the new guy in China? Hu?
Well, Osama doesn’t really have his own country, so i wouldn’t include him. Is Idi Amin still in power? Qaddaffi is still running around, IIRC.
Africa, the Arab world, and the former Soviet Union are swarming with dictators. One good source for counting them would be the Freedom House measure of political freedom in each country; see http://www.freedomhouse.org/ratings/index.htm
Of course, you will have definitional problems–in China, the Communist Party as an institution holds dictatorial power, but no one individual is all-powerful. In Saudi Arabia, power inheres in the royal family. In neither case would one encounter a single Saddam-like Big Brother. But regardless of how you count, you’ll find plenty of dictators to go around.
From the top of my head:
Alexandr Lukashenko, Belarus.
Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan.
Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe.
Idi Amin left Uganda in 1979. Currently it is believed that he lives in Saudi Arabia.
A: All of them
I wouldn’t call a chinese leader a dictator, since China is ruled collectively. I mean that the chinese prime minister doesn’t have at all the power someone like, say, Stalin had. He has to take into account the opinion of other influent leaders or factions. Also, he can be ousted, replaced, etc…
I mean China may be a dictatorship, but his leader isn’t necessarily a dictator (I tend to associate dictator and personnal power).
It would be a lot simpler and quicker to list the countries that are NOT dictatorships; IOW have democratically elected and replaced governments answering to the people.
United Nations consist of 168 countrier - I doubt that a third of them would fit the definition of democratic.
Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan is one (took power in a coup against an elected Prime Minister).
Big slam website: http://terrorism.reallybites.com/article1.htm
Venezuela has an elected President, but the US is on the side of those trying to oust him, I don’t know why.
Definition of dictator, from wordreference.com
"dictator [dktet]
n.
- a. a ruler who is not effectively restricted by a constitution, laws, recognized opposition, etc.
b. an absolute, esp tyrannical, ruler. - (in ancient Rome) a person appointed during a crisis to exercise supreme authority.
- a person who makes pronouncements, as on conduct, fashion, etc., which are regarded as authoritative.
- a person who behaves in an authoritarian or tyrannical manner. "
Funny, I would have thought that illegitimate seizure of power would have been mentioned.
…and the definitions above come awful close to applying to GWBush, who does not seem to be effectively restricted by the Constitution, ie the Fourth Amendment “No one shall be imprisoned without due process of law” or words to that effect.
But I refuse to believe this, for one reason if we lived under a dictatorship we’d have to go around saying Yes Sir and sucking up to all the henchmen and minions.
In the future, Lisa Simpson has been elected President. she speaks to Kearney, Secret Service Agent:
Lisa: Oh, but Bart could screw everything up.
Kearney: You want him … eliminated?
Lisa: No, just keep him out of my hair.
Kearney: Out of your hair with extreme severity?
Lisa: No!
Kearney: Come on, every President gets three secret murders. If you don’t use them by the end of the term pffft! they’re gone.
The U.N.'s present membership is 191. The only generally recognized sovereign state that does not belong is Vatican City. (Taiwan does not belong either, because of its peculiar status.)
The Chaser mentions a few in the article on Gaddafi.
This estimate, too, is rather out of date. This may have been true 30 years ago, but it is not so now.
Checking jklann’s link, Freedom House’s analysis of 174 countries (up to 1999-2000) lists 76 (44%) as “free,” 56 (32%) as “partly free,” and 42 (24%) as “not free.” Note that many, probably most, of the countries listed as “partly free” are democracies, just not fully functioning ones by Freedom House’s criteria (e.g., Mexico, Peru.) And not all the “not free” countries are run by a dictator in the commonly used sense of the word. Some are authoritarian monarchies (Saudi Arabia), some are run by collective leaderships (China, Myanmar), some are anarchies under the control of local warlords (Somalia). Relatively few are run by a single all-powerful strongman who does not have to contend with some other center of political power in the country.
That’s nice. An Abbot and Costello sketch for the 21st century.
The method by which you come to power has nothing to do with whether you’re a dictator or not. You can come to power by entirely legitimate means but, once in power, have no effective restraints on your power and no accountability; you’re a dictator. Conversely, you can seize power in a bloody coup in which you overthrow a peace-loving democracy, but find that, once in office, you are beholden to a vested interests, pressure groups or even public opinion; you’re not a dictator.
Dictatorship has to do with the exercise of power, not its acquisition.
??
So you regard his pronouncements on conduct, fashion, etc. to be authoritative?
He was appointed during a crisis to exercise supreme authority?
He is not restricted by Congress and the Supreme Court?
He is an absolute ruler?
I think maybe it would be better to answer the question and resist the temptation to turn this into a Great Debate.
R
All right, let’s count them. I counted 45 countries listed on the “Freedom House” survey as “not free”. From these, I excluded:
- Afghanistan, where there has been an “intervention”
- The Communist states of China, Vietnam, and Laos, where no one individual (at least, that I know about) appears to be dominant
- Somalia, Burundi, and Rwanda, which appear to be so close to anarchy that no one is in a position to dictate anything
- The monarchies of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Brunei, Bhutan, Oman, and Qatar. Monarchies don’t seem like dictatorships, although they can be just as repressive. The ruler usually has to share power with his family.
What remains is a rogue’s gallery of 31 of the baddest dudes on the planet:
- Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algeria
- Jose Eduardo dos Santos, Angola
- Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus
- Than Shme, Burma
- Hun Sen, Cambodia
- Paul Biya, Cameroon
- Idriss Deby, Chad
- Denis Sassou-Nguesso, Congo-Brazzaville
- Joseph Kabila, Congo-Leopoldville
- Fidel Castro, Cuba
- Hosni Mubarak, Egypt
- Teodoro Mbasogo, Equatorial Guinea
- Isaras Afwerki, Eritrea
- Yahya Jammeh, Gambia
- Lansana Conte, Guinea
- Ali Khamenei, Iran
- Saddam Hussein, Iraq
- Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan
- Daniel arap Moi, Kenya
- Emile Lahoud, Lebanon
- Moammar Qadhafi, Libya
- Kim Jong Il, North Korea
- Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan
- Omar al-Bashir, Sudan
- Bashir Assad, Syria
- Imomali Rakhmonov, Tajikistan
- Zine Ben Ali, Tunisia
- Saparmurad Niyazov, Turkmenistan
- Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan
- Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen
- Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe
If your favorite strongman didn’t make the list, it’s probably because Freedom House rated his domain as at least “partly free”. Also, I don’t claim to be an expert on all these places, and it’s possible that in some cases I listed the head of state without identifying the real power source.
Funny you say that. I got an email the other day with the “new” Who’s on First appropriatly titled “Hu’s on First”. It made fun of good ol’ George 2 by confusing him with Hu (GW: Who’s that guy in China again? Guy: Hu? GW: No, I was asking you), Yassir (GW: Why don’t you get me the UN guy on the phone Guy: Yes, Sir GW:No, the UN guy, not Yassir!), Kofi (Guy: Oh, you want Kofi? GW: Sure, I like mine with two lumps of sugar), and Condoleza Rice (Rice: Rice, here GW: Great, and why don’t you get a couple egg rolls and some wonton soup while your at it)
Maybe I’ll post it (or maybe it’s already been posted), I summarized most of it though (and I’m getting very off topic).