Benevolent dictatorship

Benevolent dictatorship is a form of government in which an authoritarian leader exercises political power for the benefit of the whole population rather than exclusively for the benefit of himself or herself or only a small portion of the population. A benevolent dictator may allow for some democratic decision-making to exist, such as through public referendums.

The label is often applied to leaders such as Josip Broz Tito, and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Characteristics

Many dictators' regimes portray themselves as benevolent, often tending to regard democratic regimes as messy, inefficient and corrupt, but few are widely viewed as such outside their country or supporters.^{[citation needed]}

In the Spanish language, the pun word dictablanda is sometimes used for a dictatorship conserving some of the liberties and mechanisms of democracy.^{[citation needed]} The pun is that, in Spanish, dictadura is "dictatorship", dura is "hard" and blanda is "soft". Analogously, the same pun is made in Portuguese as ditabranda ou ditamole. In February 2009, the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo ran an editorial classifying the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964–1985) as a "ditabranda", creating controversy.

See also

• Benevolent Dictator For Life, for the related concept in Free and open source software
• Enlightened absolutism
• Philosopher king