like treason. The national party now has a monopoly of the con-
siderable patronage dispensed by the new state. In such circumstances
it is not surprising for virtually all opposition to the party to
disappear. Indeed a similar state of affairs occurred in the United
States after its national revolution (Lipset, 1979). In many newly
independent states ethnic and racial antagonisms constitute both a
serious threat to the continued integrity of the state and the natural
basis for any multi-party democratic system. In such circumstances
the single-party regime may be made a legal as well as a political fact.
The Soviet example serves as additional justification for such a move- particularly since communist regimes professed ‘anti-imperialist’
rhetoric that appealed to nationalist leaders fighting the imperial/
colonialist powers.
The reality of such one-party regimes has differed greatly. In
many – such as Nkrumah’s Ghana – Marxist rhetoric about the
importance of the party masked the reality of its virtual absorption by
the government machine (Dowse, 1969). In a few states – such as
Tanzania under Julius Nyerere – interesting experiments were
attempted to combine the legitimacy and strength of a single national
party with opportunities for popular participation and choice through
contested primary elections.
It is evident that the vast majority of states in the contemporary
world make some sort of constitutional claim to be ‘democratic’.
Hence the widespread use of elections in autocratic regimes – Golder
(2005) found that dictatorships were almost as likely to use elections
as democracies.
Military autocracy
The major undemocratic form of government in the modern world is
military government. Such is the power of the democratic myth that
most such regimes represent themselves as transitional – temporary
remedies for an unfortunate inadequacy in a preceding nominally
democratic regime. In parts of the globe, the smartest move for an
aspirant politician may well be to join the army (the navy or air force
are usually less politically involved and effective). However, this is
seldom openly acknowledged as a career motivation – even in areas
like Africa or (until recently) Latin America where, at any one time,
more heads of state may be soldiers than civilians.146 STATES