Talk:Autocracy

See also is for more than just things in the same category

Thebiguglyalien reverted my addition of Patriarchy to the See also list, commenting that patriarchy is not a form of government. I'm not going to fight this right now, but wanted to at least go on the record that this is a made-up limit on the See also section, which can include any page which is relevant enough. (And of course patriarchy is highly relevant to autocracy.) John_Abbe (talk) 17:05, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

There are thousands of things relevant to autocracy, and I'd hardly consider patriarchy to be in the top one hundred, let alone prominent enough to be in the article's "see also" section. The section should be reserved for the most pertinent links. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:14, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Autocracy/GA3. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Thebiguglyalien (talk · contribs) 20:42, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Kimikel (talk · contribs)
Hello, I'm going to be doing this review as part of the July GA backlog drive. It should take me no longer than a week. 22:01, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien:: Overall, I could find very little to be addressed in the article. Please see my suggestions below and consider implementing them when you have a chance. Kimikel (talk) 00:33, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Kimikel, I've made the changes that you suggested. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:28, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien I read through the article again and could not find anything amiss. Thank you for making this a super easy review, and for quickly implementing my suggestions. I appreciate your work, congratulations on another good article! Kimikel (talk) 23:08, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Well-written

• Every issue in the past review has been addressed.

Modern era

• "The decline in autocracy across Western Europe..." > This paragraph would make more sense if you flipped the next two sentences, as it starts by saying that it affected other areas of the world, and then says that it was resisted or ineffective.
• In terms of prose, that was the only suggestion I had.

Verifiable

Spot check:

1. 20: Verified
2. 25: Verified, though I would clarify that this is historically true, in spite of the spread of democracy in the 20th century, which is a caveat the author himself makes.
3. 48: Verified
4. 59: Verified
5. 65: Verified
6. 66: Verified, though author is listed as Edward J. Shultz

Broad

• Broad in its coverage

Neutral

• No issues with neutrality

Images

• No issues with images

Stable

• Stable, no warring

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Absolute power is....?

To quote from the first sentence: "Autocracy is a system of government in which absolute power..."

This article centres on "absolute power" - who holds it and how they wield it. The article does not provide a definition of what absolute power is. Wikipedia itself has an entry for Absolute power, however this is a disambiguation page, which then directs us back to this article (plus some others). The term "absolute power" needs to be defined in this article; it is unclear how this article earned a GA quality status without getting this critical term clarified. 14.2.192.197 (talk) 08:04, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

The reasoning behind a recent (and recently reverted) edit of mine

The reason I made this edit is because the article on dictatorship defines that term as "a form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, who hold absolute or near-absolute political power". It is my understanding that rule by "a group of leaders" is what constitutes an oligarchy. Therefore, the statement that autocracy includes "all forms of dictatorship" partially contradicts the given definition of dictatorship. My edit was to rectify that contradiction. Do I have permission to restore my edit? ZFT (talk) 01:10, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Hello ZFT,

I will modify the lede section on the article Dictatorship by removing the phrase altogether. You are right that "dictatorship" usually refers to one man rule. I will link the "Autocracy" article with in the first sentence of the dictatorship article. UPDATE: Here is the editPlasticwonder (talk) 00:59, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

"Undemocratic" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Undemocratic has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 November 15 § Undemocratic until a consensus is reached. Thepharoah17 (talk) 05:01, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

Rewording?

At the end of the Formation section, there's this paragraph:
• "There is great variance in the types of states that become autocratic. Neither a state's size, its military strength, its economic success, nor its cultural attributes significantly affect whether it is likely to be autocratic. Autocracy is more likely to form in heterogeneous populations, as there is greater inequality and less social cohesion. Autocracies formed under these conditions are often more volatile for the same reasons."

I'm unsure if this is a useful paragraph or not. On one hand I appreciate how it acknowledges nuance, but on the other it kinda conflicts with the most famous examples of autocracies in history- the Roman principate & empire as well as the Chinese imperial dynasties. These emerged in heterogeneous populations, but (albeit with a few notable exceptions) they were remarkably stable. Basically, I'm not sure if I'm just reading this too literally or not- but it seems like this final paragraph detracts more than it adds in terms of value. Mike Honey (talk) 22:37, 21 May 2026 (UTC)