Okay but bow is authoritarian useful? Can you find a definition that applies to Vietnam, Cuba, China, etc, that doesn't also apply to the governments of NATO countries like the US, France, England, etc?

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I think Juan Linz created a decent criteria. It’s useful as a descriptor of how much personal liberty a person residing in a particular state can assert and how easily a person can petition their government without fear of reprisal.

[–] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Can you post the definition you're citing?

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Limited political pluralism, realized with constraints on the legislature, political parties and interest groups.
Political legitimacy based upon appeals to emotion and identification of the regime as a necessary evil to combat "easily recognizable societal problems, such as underdevelopment or insurgency".
Minimal political mobilization, and suppression of anti-regime activities.
Ill-defined executive powers, often vague and shifting, which extends the power of the executive.

He wrote this in the 1960’s, mainly in reference to Spanish Fascism but not exclusively.

[–] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Limited political pluralism, realized with constraints on the legislature, political parties and interest groups.

If you're talking about overton window size, this seems to apply more strongly to bourgeois democracy? The difference between fascist and liberal seems a lot smaller than the range of political opinion you'd find within the CPC or the old CCCP. I would recommend watching some translated videos of normal national assembly meetings in socialist countries

Political legitimacy based upon appeals to emotion and identification of the regime as a necessary evil to combat “easily recognizable societal problems, such as underdevelopment or insurgency”.

Socialist countries base their legitimacy on having more thorough democratic representation than bourgeois democracies. Look up participatory democracy and whole process peoples democracy and compare that to bourgeois theories of democracy. Maybe also look up democratic centralism and the notion of strong vs weak delegates.

Minimal political mobilization, and suppression of anti-regime activities.

There are over 100 million members of the CPC. In Vietnam every couple hundred people have a dedicated party representative that is their designated point of contact with the party. Do you have a designated point of contact for your neighborhood?

Ill-defined executive powers, often vague and shifting, which extends the power of the executive.

Socialist countries, with the exemption of during ww2 when fighting against the nazis, generally have a weaker executive more subject to discipline than capitalist countries.

And when you compare ww2 ussr to ww2 Britain you'll probably see the ussr as more democratic, and that is while 1/6 of their population was being exterminated