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anocracy

American  
[uh-nok-ruh-see] / əˈnɒk rə si /

noun

plural

anocracies
  1. government that is a hybrid of democracy and autocracy, often as a transitional phase when one of these forms of government takes on characteristics of the other.

    Political scientists noted significant democratic reforms in the traditionally authoritarian regime’s evolution to anocracy.

  2. a nation or state having such a form of government.

    Freedom of the press is one of the first pillars of democracy threatened in an anocracy’s slide toward totalitarianism.


Other Word Forms

  • anocratic adjective

Etymology

Origin of anocracy

First recorded in 1970–75; an- 1 ( def. ) + -o- ( def. ) + -cracy ( def. )

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The first was this variable called anocracy.

From Washington Post

And what scholars found was that this anocracy variable was really predictive of a risk for civil war.

From Washington Post

In How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them, the political science professor Barbara F Walter describes her country as an "anocracy", a mix between a democracy and an autocracy, and warns of further militia violence.

From BBC