a sytem of government where the ruling authority extends its power over all aspects of society, and regulates every aspect of life. Totalitarian states maintain their existence by a combination of methods, including secret police, the banning of opposition, and control of the media. Everything in society is shaped to serve the ends of the totalitarian state. Education, for example is rigidly controlled, so as to socialize youth into the desired political attitudes. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were the classic examples of totalitarian states.
Ideology that espouses the complete political, economic, and social control of people and institutions by a dictatorial, single-party regime that is driven by a dogmatism, possesses a monopoly of weapons and communications, and is in charge of a centrally directed economy and society.
A centralized government that does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and that exercises dictatorial control over many aspects of life.
A government system in which all social, political, economic, cultural, and spiritual activities are subordinate to the purposes of the ruler of the state. Under the totalitarian dictator, each individual in the community is responsible to another person in a position of higher authority, with the exception of the dictator. Any non-government groups are organized in order to serve the purposes of the state. The characteristics of the totalitarian dictatorship include a monopoly of communications, a secret police, monopolization of all effective weapons, and a centrally controlled economy. The ruling party controls all forms of media and newscasters and authors are required to belong to the ruling party. Through the institution of the secret police, the populous is terrorized into subjugation. Adolf Hitler successfully instituted the totalitarian government along with his secret police force - the Gestapo. Under the totalitarian dictatorships, no legal means for effecting a change of government are provided.
a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.)
the principle of complete and unrestricted power in government
A system of centralized government in which a singled unopposed party exerts total and repressive control over a country's political, social, economic, and cultural life.
A form of authoritarianism in which the government attempts to control every aspect of the lives of individuals and prohibits independent associations.
A political system in which the state seeks to regulate all aspects of people's public and private lives.
An extremely repressive political system that attempts to completely control every aspect of a society through the use of force.
system of government where the state seeks to gain complete control over its citizens and does not recognise or tolerate parties of differing opinion
a state system based on monolithic unity and authoritarianism
A political regime which demands complete obedience to its extensive rules regarding not only politics, by virtually all aspects of life, including culture, economics, religion, and morality. A totalitarian political system might prescribe and proscribe the behavior and thoughts of its population in every domain of existence. Examples: contemporary North Korea, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.
Characterized by a government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control; "a totalitarian regime crushes all autonomous institutions in its drive to seize the human soul" or relating to the principles of totalitarianism according to which the state regulates every realm of life; "totalitarian theory and practice";"operating in a totalistic fashion"
Totalitarianism is a term employed by some political scientists, especially those in the field of comparative politics, to describe modern regimes in which the state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior.
