Idi Amin Dada: Authoritarian Leadership

Authoritarian style governments come in different forms and apply varying amounts of violence when enforcing their rule. People who live in democratic style governments often do not understand why people accept living in an authoritarian state, forgetting that in fact the authoritarian form of government is the oldest form of government on earth. A dictatorship government is one type of authoritarian government that gains world attention most notably by the extreme violence used to control their citizens. This paper will review authoritarianism; why humans put up with it; traits of paranoid, narcissistic, and charismatic personalities; and highlight Idi Amin Dada as a case in point.

Tendency to Favor Authoritarianism

In his book International Politics on the World Stage John T. Rourke (2008) states that governments range from the strict authoritarian at one end of the spectrum to a completely unfettered democracy at the other end (p. 78). His definition of an authoritarian style government is a “political system that allows little or no participation in decision making by individuals and groups outside the upper reaches of the government” (p. G-1). Those of us who live in a country that has a democratic government may find it difficult to understand why people who live in countries with authoritarian governments do not revolt and change their system of government, but in fact a truly democratic system of government is a relatively new concept in the age of man.

Rourke (2008) points out that the form of government most common throughout the history of man was authoritarian; leaders were an individual or group of people who exercised control. The people these leaders ruled had little opportunity to contribute to t...

... middle of paper ...

....about.com/od/leadership/f/autocratic-leadership.htm

Boddy-Evans, A. (2003). Biography: Idi Amin Dada. In About.com online. Retrieved from http://africanhistory.about.com/od/biography/a/bio_amin.htm

Davison, G. D., Neale, J. M., & Kring, A. M. (2004) Abnormal Psychology (9th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Orizio, R. (2004). Talk of the devil: Encounters with seven dictators (4th ed.). (A. Bardoni Trans. 2003). New York, NY: Walker & Company. (Original work published 2002).

Post, J. M. (2004). Leaders and their followers in a dangerous world: The psychology of political behavior. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press

Rourke, J. T. (2008). International Politics on the World Stage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill

Somit, A. & Peterson, S. A. (1997). Darwinism, dominance, and democracy: The biological basis of authoritarianism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press