anocracy means A political system which is neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic, often being vulnerable to political instability. It carries an Arena rating of 1194, earned across 9 head-to-head judged battles.
anocracy is pronounced /əˈnɒk.ɹə.si/.
Why “anocracy” is a great word
A political system that is neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic, often characterized by institutional instability and a volatile mixture of governing features. The term, coined in the late 20th century, is built from the Greek prefix an- ("without, not") and -cracy (from Greek -kratia, "rule, government"), modeled after German Akratie. Unlike "democracy," with its legitimized voice for the governed, or "autocracy," with its singular, unambiguous will, anocracy denotes the ambiguous middle—a realm of fractured authority and contested procedures. It is the election held but its results violently disputed; it is the strongman who must still placate a restless parliament; it is the constitution that is both publicly venerated and privately ignored. This is governance defined not by what it is, but by the unsettling rule of neither.
Etymology
Apparently from an- + -ocracy, representing German Akratie.
noun
- A political system which is neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic, often being vulnerable to political instability.“As the number of autocracies in the world began to decline in the late 1980s, the number of anocracies began to increase.”
- A government not lacking governmental power but absent of political domination.