What's better: Absolute Monarchy, Military Dictatorship, or Theocracy?

[Blue3]

What's better: Absolute Monarchy, Military Dictatorship, or Theocracy?


The options in the poll show all 6 possibilities of how they could be ranked.

And I'd figure it would be interesting to see if Republicans/Democrats/Others are scattered or if there's a pattern.


Please explain and discuss too.

[Intell]

1. Theocracy
2. Monarchy
3. Dictatorship

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Monarchy > Dictatorship > Theocracy

Obviously there's room for variation though depending on specific circumstances. Theocracy under ISIS is different than theocracy at the Vatican.

[DemPGH]

Choice 1.

Monarchy, Dictatorship, Theocracy.

IMO, theocracy stifles everything. The first two might not stifle everything. Of course, I have in mind the possibly of the "enlightened despots" for the first two, but obviously none of the choices are desirable.

[Why]

The right theocracy is the better than the rest, the wrong theocracy is the worst.

[DavidB.]

In general: Monarchy > Dictatorship > Theocracy (R).

But there's also some truth in this...

The right theocracy is the better than the restother options in this poll, the wrong theocracy is the worst.

[dead0man]

It all depends on how benevolent the person/people in charge are.  What excuse the authoritarians use to maintain control is MUCH less important than how heavily they bang the hammer on anybody that dares step out of line.

[DavidB.]

It all depends on how benevolent the person/people in charge are.  What excuse the authoritarians use to maintain control is MUCH less important than how heavily they bang the hammer on anybody that dares step out of line.

This is also very true. It depends more on the freedom people still have under this regime than on the specific brand of the non-democratic regime.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well if we're thinking in terms of body count, then the worst of those is clearly a Military Dictatorship (in fact it isn't even close) although a Party State would be worse again. The record of Absolute Monarchies is patchy (though worse than you might suppose: a genuine Monarchist state is not the same thing as an Absolutist one, even if all of the latter are examples of the former), and there have been hardly any Theocracies and most of those have been functionally identical to Monarchist states.

[Blue3]

For now, I'm voting:
1. Military Dictatorship
2. Absolute Monarchy
3. Theocracy

Theocracy is following the commandments of a long-dead founder, for the most part. Which if the founder was great it can be ok, but it's rather inflexible, and tends to intrude more into people's personal lives.

Absolute Monarchy could potentially be ok, but you never knew if a little Joffrey Baratheon might come along and ruin everything, it being a bloodline makes it very chancey.

That leaves Military Dictatorship, where at least the Military tends to be more meritocratic, is capable of flexibility, and usually focuses on order and defense while being more compromising on economic and social issues.

[Goldwater]

Theocracy is the worse, since there could theoretically be a benevolent dictatorship or monarchy that still respects the individual freedom of it's people, while a theocracy by nature would restrict the freedom of it's people with religious based laws.  I'm not sure whether military dictatorship or absolute monarchy is least bad, but I want with dictatorship>monarchy>theocracy.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The military is normally the worst, as historically they're hardest to get rid of and typically more brutal. Absolute monarchies inevitably get handed to thickos with no inclination to rule, and can be easily wrested from power. Theocracy is very vague of course, so defies classification.

[ingemann]

Absolute monarchies as they functioned in Europe was the best model. Many people bring the Joffrey issue up. But here's the thing through several centuries of geniuses and imbeciles we really didn't see Jeffrey types, because in a absolute monarchy there's informal check and balances, a insane or incompetent king are simply sidelined by his bureaucracy, and if he's too big a problem he's either imprisoned or poisoned. Absolutism only work through a large bureaucracy, which limits the kings ability to really do really stupid thing. It's why we don't see mad kings under absolutism make complete insane laws.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Theocracy, but only if it was a SJW Christian theocracy.

[ElectionsGuy]

1. Monarchy
2. Theocracy
3. Dictatorship

(I/O)

[OSR stands with Israel]

In general: Monarchy > Dictatorship > Theocracy (R).

But there's also some truth in this...

The right theocracy is the better than the restother options in this poll, the wrong theocracy is the worst.

[Mr. Smith]

1. Theocracy
2. Monarchy
3. Dictatorship

[angus]

It all depends on how benevolent the person/people in charge are.  What excuse the authoritarians use to maintain control is MUCH less important than how heavily they bang the hammer on anybody that dares step out of line.

That is only true if you can assure that the successor to the current regime will honor the status quo.

I'm not for any of them, but given only these choices I went with the penultimate option (thinking in terms of the order of likely successful revolt.)

[Blue3]

Huh. Right now, at 27 votes, we have:

(D) Best
Monarchy: 4
Dictatorship: 2
Theocracy: 2

(D) Worst
Theocracy: 4
Dictatorship: 4
Monarchy: 0

(D) Middle
Dictatorship: 2
Monarchy: 4
Theocracy: 2

(R) Best
Monarchy: 6
Dictatorship: 2
Theocracy: 1

(R) Worst
Theocracy: 5
Dictatorship: 3
Monarchy: 1

(R) Middle
Dictatorship: 4
Monarchy: 2
Theocracy: 3

(I/O) Best
Monarchy: 5
Dictatorship: 1
Theocracy: 4

(I/O) Worst
Theocracy: 4
Dictatorship: 6
Monarchy: 0

(I/O) Middle
Dictatorship: 3
Monarchy: 5
Theocracy: 2



All Best
Monarchy: 15
Dictatorship: 5
Theocracy: 7

All Worst
Theocracy: 13
Dictatorship:13
Monarchy: 1

All Middle
Dictatorship: 9
Monarchy: 11
Theocracy: 7






Independents/Others like Theocracy, and everybody loved Monarchy

[DC Al Fine]

Monarchy's your best bet.

There's a decent chance you'll get some guy who just wants to party and leaves the actual governing of the country to a bunch of boring moderate technocrats.

[Clark Kent]

Depends on the religion for the theocracy. Assuming that it's either Christianity or Islam...I'd rather go with the military dictatorship or the monarchy. I'd be fine with a Christian theocracy (as much as I could be "fine" with any theocracy), but I'd rather not take the chance that it's anything else.

[Zuza]

The military is normally the worst, as historically they're hardest to get rid of

Most of the military juntas of the 20th century didn't last for more than a decade or two and usually transformed peacefully or relatively peacefully into democracies, while absolute monarchies like Saudi Arabia, Oman or Qatar exist for generations and there is no chance of any significant political reforms in these countries in the foreseeable future...

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

It's very hard without putting names to the labels.

Contempary absolute monarchies' flaws centre around their depravity and duplicity. The people of Swaziland starve and are stricken by disease, while the tyrant Mswati dances with underage girls as his daughter makes terribly produced rap praising his name. The same can be said of the huge gaggle of Saudi entitled princes each grabbing a piece of the oil pie. In these cases, the sovereign rulers have betrayed their own people's devotion to tradition for their own ends. I find that a particularly shocking and cynical move. Even though it is easy to defend absolute monarchy as "the best" of the three options, because non-monarchical administrators tend to have the true power behind the playboy with the crown; I find that even more disturbing. It's like how in Thailand the military junta can use lese majeste laws to cover their own backs: a pretty grim attack on the Thai peoples' devotion and trust

Hiding behind the divine. It is hard to really get a cohesive idea of a theocratic state. Too often they are also combined with absolute monarchy (the Holy See, Tibet) or a military dictatorship. I suppose the best true contempary examples of theocratic rulers are Khomeni, Baghdadi and Omar, although the regimes they controll(ed) also could be described as military dictatorships. Other terrible regimes have theocratic elements: a dictator would be stupid not to buddy up to sympathetic elements of the religious hierarchy.

In fact the divide becomes even more unclear when you start defining other states. Take the dPRK for instance, a state which is quasi-monarchical, theocratic AND run entirely for the benefit of the military. To some extent all dictatorships of any kind have to be "militarised" - you can't run a country without support in the armed forces, and if you don't you'd better either start a rival militarised group (for example, Erdogan's militarisation of the police) or change your own policies to fit the demands of the military (see: Night of The Long Knives).

I do stand by my description of military dictatorships as the worst of the three listed, despite the vagueness of the term . Just look at the death tolls of Amin, Papa Doc, Pinochet, Gadaffi, Mubarak (and Tantawi/Sisi), Bokassa, Jammeh and countless others. Look at the endless series of coups in Turkey and Thailand etc. to see how hard a particularly arrogant military is to dislodge. (At least monarchies have the decency to normally stay dead)

[Bigby]

1. Military 2. Monarchy 3. Theocracy.

[Simfan34]

A mixture of all three! (Well, perhaps with the last being more mild)