cryptarchy means A secret government or rulership. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 91 out of 100.
cryptarchy is pronounced /ˈkɹɪp.tɑː.ki/.
Why “cryptarchy” is a great word
CRYPTARCHY — [Noun] A system of rulership where the true governing power operates in secret, unknown to or unrecognized by the populace. From the Greek krypt- ("secret, hidden") and -arkhia ("rule, government"). Earliest attested use from 1798 in the writing of William Taylor. Unlike "plutarchy" (which specifies rule by the wealthy) or "autocracy" (which denotes absolute power that may be brazenly overt), cryptarchy is defined by the profound and intentional shadow in which it operates. It is the faceless committee that never meets in daylight, the unsigned decree that shifts the course of a nation, and the whispered consensus in a soundproofed room that becomes, for all public purposes, the invisible hand of history—a chilling architecture of power where the most potent authority is the one that denies its own existence.
Etymology
From crypt- (“secret”) + -archy (“government”).
noun
- A secret government or rulership.“Yet these “ubiquitary nullibists,” (to borrow the jargon of Henry More,) this cosmopolitan cryptarchy, is co-extensive with the habitable world; and while with one hand it is preparing for Paris and Marseilles the desertion and desolation of […]”