Ideocracy

Ideocracy (a portmanteau word combining "ideology" and kratos, Greek for "power") is "governance of a state according to the principles of a particular (political) ideology; a state or country governed in this way". It is government based on a monistic ideology—as distinct from an authoritarian state, which is characterized by strong central power and limited political freedoms. An ideocratic state can either be totalitarian—citizens being forced to follow an ideology—or populist (citizens voluntarily following an ideology). Every government has ideological bases from which assumptions and policies are drawn; ideocracies are governments wherein one dominant ideology has become deeply ingrained into politics and generally politics has become deeply ingrained into all or most aspects of society. The ideology of an ideocracy presents itself as an absolute, universal, and supreme system for understanding social life, much as a god in a monotheistic belief system. Sidney and Beatrice Webb used the term ideocracy in 1936, and it was given added currency by Nicholas Berdyaev in 1947. An ideocracy may take a totalitarian form, reliant on force, or a populist form, reliant on the voluntary support of true believers. The totalitarian form contains six components; 1) ideology, 2) a single party typically with one leader, 3) a terroristic police, 4) a monopoly of communications, 5) a monopoly of weaponry, 6) a centrally directed or planned economy. According to Piekalkiewicz and Penn, in addition, an ideocracy such as a strict Islamic state or Nazi Germany, will suppress scientific research and knowledge if it conflicts with the ideology, Piekalkiewicz and Penn, argue that every state is either organic (the organized expression of a community, within which all individuals are dependent and subsumed, as the fingers belong to the body), or mechanical/pragmatic (an artificial concept in which individuals have rights against the state and are co-equal). As Adlai Stevenson II has said, "Since the beginning of time governments have been engaged in kicking people around.