Glossary · Term · government
Dictatorship
Dictatorship began as a lawful Roman office, supreme power granted for a single emergency and surrendered when it passed. In the modern world the word came to mean rule without legal limits or free elections, by soldiers, single parties or one man; it was the form under which many of the 20th century’s mass killings took place, and it remains common today.
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See also
Cite this entry
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Dictatorship. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/dictatorship
- MLA
- “Dictatorship.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/dictatorship. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Dictatorship.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/dictatorship.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Dictatorship’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/dictatorship (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻