Sultanism

In political science, sultanism is a form of authoritarian government characterized by the extreme personal presence of the ruler in all elements of governance. The ruler may or may not be present in economic or social life, and thus there may be pluralism in these areas, but this is never true of political power.

The term sultanism is derived from

Ceauşescu, and North Korea under Kim Il Sung".^[1] According to Linz and Stepan:

[T]he essential reality in a sultanistic regime is that all individuals, groups and institutions are permanently subject to the unpredictable and despotic intervention of the sultan, and thus all pluralism is precarious^[1]

In sultanism, the sultan may or may not adopt a ruling

gangs as stated by Max Weber in Economy and Society:

[I]n the extreme case, Sultanism tend[s] to arise whenever traditional domination develops an administration and a military force which are purely instruments of the master. [...] Where domination [...] operates primarily on the basis of discretion, it will be called sultanism. [...] The non-traditional element is not, however, rationalized in impersonal terms, but consists only in the extreme development of the ruler's discretion. It is this which distinguishes it from every form of rational authority.^[2]

References

^
Linz, Juan J.; Stepan, Alfred
(1996). "Modern Nondemocratic Regimes". Problems of Democratic Transition & Consolidation. Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore.

^ Weber, Max (1978). Economy and Society. University of California Press: Berkeley.

Sultanism

See also

References

Further reading