# What are the most stable democracies that have voted in a dictator? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 21, 2016, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494 "2016-09-21T11:27:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DagNation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@DagNation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DagNation)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/1 "2016-09-21T11:27:07Z")
Recent events have made me wonder, what are the longest lasting democratic governments that ended by empowering a dictator? I am aware that the US is at best a democratic republic, and there is no “perfect” democracy, but there are good ones, iffy ones, and not real democracies. Lets look at the ones that were good for at least a while. I am looking for examples of where the new autocrat was legally elected by the people, and then the legislature was dismissed or voted itself powerless in a legal procedure, thus allowing unchecked rule. The one that comes to mind is the Wiemar Republic, and it only lasted 10 or 15 years before Hitler was made into Fuhrer. Are there any other examples that lasted a longer time, before eventual failure? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/2 "2016-09-21T11:53:10Z")
Weimar doesn’t count for the _title_ of the OP, since in the last free election in Germany, the NSDAP only won a plurality, not a majority. If they did, then I would be comfortable with declaring Hitler “voted” in even though they were only voting for the party. Plus, even not counting its youth, Weimar was not a stable democracy due to Freikorps and Brownshirts attacking their opponents. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/3 "2016-09-21T12:12:25Z")
The Roman Republic elected dictators as and when they were needed; it eventually elected Julius Caesar Dictator Perpetuus, and his assassination soon thereafter precipitated the end of the Republic. The Prime Minister of the UK, especially one with a significant majority in the House of Commons, is pretty much an elected dictator. Tony Blair, for instance, enacted massive reform of the House of Lords, much to his benefit. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/4 "2016-09-21T12:37:03Z")
The French third Republic lasted for 70 years until the Parliament voted to grant full powers to Marshall Petain in July 1940. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/5 "2016-09-21T13:16:05Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > The Prime Minister of the UK, especially one with a significant majority in the House of Commons, is pretty much an elected dictator. How do you figure? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/6 "2016-09-21T13:24:43Z")
Yes, Maggie Thatcher and Neville Chamberlain’s views on that point may be interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/7 "2016-09-21T13:38:06Z")
It’s a reference to Lord Hailsham > [@Wiki](#): > > An “elective dictatorship” (also called executive dominance in political science) is a phrase popularised by the former Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom, Lord Hailsham, in a Richard Dimbleby Lecture at the BBC in 1976.[1] The phrase is found a century earlier, in describing Giuseppe Garibaldi’s doctrines,[2] and was used by Hailsham (then known as Quintin Hogg) in lectures in 1968 and 1969.[3] It describes the state in which Parliament is dominated by the government of the day. It refers to the fact that the legislative programme of Parliament is determined by the government, and government bills virtually always pass the House of Commons because of the nature of the majoritarian first-past-the-post electoral system, which almost always produces strong government, in combination with the imposition of party discipline on the governing party’s majority, which almost always ensures loyalty. In the absence of a codified constitution, this tendency toward executive dominance is compounded by the Parliament Acts and Salisbury Convention which circumscribe the House of Lords and their ability to block government initiatives. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/8 "2016-09-21T14:41:46Z")
If a democracy votes in a dictator, surely it is\* ipso facto\* unstable, even if that wasn’t necessarily apparent to everyone beforehand. But Weimar was never a stable democracy for both internal and external reasons, and it doesn’t take much benefit of hindsight to see similar inherent problems in the French Third Republic - essentially, opponents of democracy (both left and right) winning enough electoral support to make it improbable to impossible for there to be a clear choice of alternative democratic but stable governments. It then only takes an external shock for the formally democratic system to lose much or all of its legitimacy. You can see a similar pattern in other European countries confronted with the economic problems of the Great Depression, who all tilted towards various degrees of authoritarian rule (Austria, Portugal, Poland, Lithuania) - even the democratic governments of the Weimar Republic started to push measures through by emergency powers decrees. The force of those external shocks was such that I don’t think any country could have perceived, at the decisive moments, that they had a straightforward choice between stable democracy and authoritarianism as a means of dealing with those problems. You could say the same sort of thing happened to the Fourth French Republic under the strain of the Algerian war - but for the fact that de Gaulle simply had - as he always had - a different idea of how democracy could work in France, rather than Petain’s wholesale rejection of everything the Republic stood for, and in the end most of the democratic politicians handed over to him to come up with answers - and ended up with something much closer to the American system. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/9 "2016-09-21T15:22:44Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > If a democracy votes in a dictator, surely it is\* ipso facto\* unstable, even if that wasn’t necessarily apparent to everyone beforehand. I agree with that sentiment. One key aspect of democratic stability is the rule of law. And the rule of law is the antithesis of dictatorship. If the democracy elects someone who is able to rule without being subject to the rule of law, then the rule of law was already too weak for the society to be properly called a stable democracy. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/10 "2016-09-21T15:36:37Z")
Yeah, no “stable democracy” by modern standards has ever voted in a dictator. Some ancient representative style governments, both some of the Greek City-States and the Roman Republic, had a traditional practice of temporarily empowering people to powerful dictatorial-style offices in times of crisis. But those places, while hugely influential on 18th century thinking on democratic forms of government, were not democratic in any modern sense of the word. They weren’t monarchical, but they were in many ways pretty close to what we think of as an oligarchy. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/11 "2016-09-21T16:05:17Z")
Ask me in late November for an answer. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/12 "2016-09-21T18:50:07Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Ask me in late November for an answer. No, that’s unfair. Even if Trump wins, he will be just a President, not a dictator. If he were to try to hold on to power after serving two terms, if he were to reject the results of a 2020 election in which he lost… THEN you could call him a dictator. Or if he started trying to rule by fiat, despite being overruled by Congress and/or the Supreme Court, THEN you could call him a dictator. Until then, he’d be just another bad President. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/13 "2016-09-21T18:51:12Z")
Well, France democratically elected Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte as President. Then, after he made himself Emperor, the people voted to approve what he’d done. ---
**Author:** ![DagNation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@DagNation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DagNation)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/14 "2016-09-22T04:10:20Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Weimar doesn’t count for the _title_ of the OP,… OK, are there examples of longer more well established democracies that voted for their own failure? ---
**Author:** ![DagNation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@DagNation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DagNation)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/15 "2016-09-22T04:16:57Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > If a democracy votes in a dictator, surely it is\* ipso facto\* unstable, even if that wasn’t necessarily apparent to everyone beforehand. This is not exactly a binary thing, there is clearly movement along the continuum. Are there any examples of nations that were once good at democratic rule, who then lost it and then went autocratic? Even if the time between “good” and “autocratic” took 20 or more years? ---
**Author:** ![DagNation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@DagNation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DagNation)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/16 "2016-09-22T04:28:08Z")
OK, so the answers I am seeing so far are: 1. Wiemar was not really all that stable before 1933 2. France did it at least twice 3. Ancient Rome and Greece did it, but they were ruled by the wealthy who used a democratic system among only themselves - I don’t think this counts. Are there any other examples that are close? What was going on in France that they put a dictator in power? Was the law insufficient, the government not good at following the law, were the people wanting a strong leader? Where there crazy elections? In 1940, the war probably pushed toward a dictator, was there something similar for Napoleon III? Thanks for all the replies! ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/17 "2016-09-22T08:57:50Z")
Was de Gaulle President during a transition from one Republic to another? Would that qualify? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/18 "2016-09-22T13:17:01Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Was de Gaulle President during a transition from one Republic to another? Would that qualify? He was chairman of the provisional government after the liberation of France (even before, in fact). This government was unelected, being a national unity government formed by organizations and parties that had supported the resistance. So, it could qualify as a collective dictatorship (despite being its most proeminent member, de Gaulle didn’t have specific personal powers) until the elections that took place in late 1945, and even after those elections until the constitution of the fourth republic was adopted, it still was operating outside of any constitutional frame. He was also the last prime minister of the fourth republic, but this time according to the regular constitutional process. The drafting and adoption by referendum of the fifth republic constitution, however, was done without any respect for the existing constitutional revision process. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/19 "2016-09-22T14:11:45Z")
What if some citizens are disenfranchised, and the remainder _democratically_ elects a President who imposes his group’s will _dictatorially_ on the disenfranchised? Is this a “democracy” or a “dictatorship”? (Proceeding via divide-and-conquer, the ruling group can be made smaller and smaller.) Hitler became dictator through “democratic” processes such as the disenfranchisement of communists. In at least one modern democracy, “democratically” approved procedures have effectively disenfranchised some who would vote against the in-power group. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2016, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494/20 "2016-09-22T14:12:02Z")
> [@DagNation](#): > > What was going on in France that they put a dictator in power? Was the law insufficient, the government not good at following the law, were the people wanting a strong leader? Where there crazy elections? In 1940, the war probably pushed toward a dictator, was there something similar for Napoleon III? Technically, Petain was put into power by a constitutional process, i.e. in the face of the German invasion of most of France and the collapse of the French command, and apparently no agreement in parliament on a government and strategy, they simply voted him full emergency powers to get the best deal he could. In 1958 de Gaulle’s return to power followed a similar route - a military coup had taken over Algeria and was moving towards trying a forcible takeover in Paris, the parliament again couldn’t agree on a government and strategy to control the situation, the Algerian settlers and military thought de Gaulle was on their side and so were willing to step down to let him take power, he got more or less full powers for six months, including power to redraft the constitution to his liking, and once he’d got that, he shafted the settlers and the military right wing, who finally came to realise that when he went to Algeria in the aftermath of the coup and said “I have understood you”, he hadn’t at all meant what they thought. In both cases, the right was sufficiently strong to see the weakness and instability of governments, but in 1940, that also included wholesale rejection of republican and democratic values; in 1958, that was less in evidence, and de Gaulle ridiculed the whole idea that he was out to be a dictator - and demonstrated that he was not. Napoleon III was a different case. He’d had previous comic opera attempts to launch campaigns to take over, but was elected a clear winner in the first elections for President after the 1848 revolution, in part because he appealed as much to some left-wing as well as conservative sentiment, just as his uncle had. But the parliament was dominated by conservatives who sought to clip his wings, and refused to allow him to change the constitution to permit a second term. So he launched a coup d’etat against the constitution to declare himself Emperor and to repress his opponents. How sincere the support for his actions was in the plebiscites that followed - well, that might be another matter. But to go back to an earlier re-formation of the question, a number of countries moved from democracy to dictatorship through some sort of constitutional process, that usually involved some sort of vote to pass power over, but as to how “stable” you would reckon countries like Portugal, Austria, Poland and so on to have been in the 1920s, and as to how considered and uncoerced you might consider the handover to be - well, that’s a matter of judgement. A common factor seems to be the degree to which the major contending forces in the democratic process accept the sincerity of their opponents’ commitment to the legitimacy of the constitutional system. If they don’t trust that, then the system collapses in the face of external shocks, and/or an inability to agree on how to maintain the strength of the system. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-stable-democracies-that-have-voted-in-a-dictator/766494.md?page=2)