Framing the emergence of authoritarian states

An authoritarian state places political authority in the hands of one leader or a restricted ruling group. Meaningful public participation, political competition and civil liberties are sharply limited. Such states usually emerge from several conditions working together, rather than from one crisis alone.

The examples here are Portugal under António de Oliveira Salazar, the Dominican Republic under Rafael Trujillo and South Korea under Park Chung-hee. Drawn from three regions, they show different routes to authoritarian government. These are illustrative choices, not prescribed case studies.

Economic factors

Economic insecurity can weaken trust in an existing government, making promises of order more appealing. Portugal’s First Republic faced persistent financial instability and weak tax collection, while relying on foreign borrowing. Following the military coup of 28 May 1926, Salazar became finance minister in 1928. His reputation for balancing the budget helped him secure the post of prime minister in 1932.

In the Dominican Republic, long-term foreign indebtedness had contributed to United States occupation from 1916 to 1924. Although the occupation created a centralized national army, it left behind resentment, inequality and fragile civilian institutions. Trujillo had risen through that army and exploited these conditions during the political crisis of 1930.

South Korea remained poor after Japanese colonial rule, partition and the Korean War. During Syngman Rhee’s rule, corruption and inflation weakened confidence in civilian government. Limited development did the same. Park’s military supporters presented their 16 May 1961 coup as a path to disciplined modernization.

Social division

Authoritarian movements can gain support when social groups fear each other more than they trust democratic compromise. In Portugal, conservative landowners and business interests feared socialism and labour militancy. Sections of the Catholic hierarchy also opposed republican anticlericalism. Rural poverty and low literacy made sustained mass political participation harder.

Dominican society was split along lines of class, region and race. Much of the wealth remained under the control of a small elite, while the army gave men such as Trujillo a route to social advancement. Anti-Haitian prejudice could be mobilized as well, both to define Dominican identity and to redirect dissatisfaction towards an externalized minority.

South Korea was divided between workers and employers, as well as urban and rural communities. There was also conflict between supporters and opponents of uncompromising anti-communism. Because North Korea existed, military leaders could present political disagreement as a potential security threat.

Impact of war

War often militarizes society and makes coercion seem normal. It can also undermine civilian authority. Portugal’s involvement in the First World War worsened inflation, shortages and political conflict. A series of coups followed before the military takeover of 1926.

The United States occupation of the Dominican Republic wasn’t a conventional interstate war, but its military government changed the country’s balance of power. It created the constabulary from which Trujillo’s armed power developed.

For South Korea, the Korean War of 1950–53 was decisive. The war caused immense destruction, preserved national division and put security at the centre of politics. Park could therefore claim that military discipline was necessary for survival against the communist North.

Weakness of the political system

Portugal’s First Republic saw frequent changes of government and repeated military intervention. Popular confidence remained limited. The 1926 coup ended parliamentary rule and created the setting in which Salazar later built the Estado Novo.

Dominican institutions were vulnerable to pressure from military commanders and powerful local leaders. In 1930, Trujillo stayed officially neutral while his forces allowed Rafael Estrella Ureña’s revolt to advance. President Horacio Vásquez was removed. A controlled election then placed Trujillo in the presidency.

In South Korea, Rhee resigned after the April Revolution of 1960. The Second Republic, however, was divided and failed to establish authority quickly. Park’s military used this opening to seize power in 1961.

Persuasion and coercion

Persuasion wins consent through promises, ideology and political communication. Coercion uses threats, punishment or force to secure obedience. Most authoritarian leaders rely on both: persuasion expands support and makes repression less costly, while coercion prevents opponents from organizing.

Salazar portrayed himself as a restrained financial expert capable of restoring order after republican instability. Meanwhile, the military dictatorship restricted political parties and the press even before the Estado Novo was formally established. The 1933 constitution passed through a plebiscite, giving an institutional appearance to a system where political competition remained tightly controlled.

Trujillo paired an electoral façade with intimidation. In the 1930 campaign, his supporters used violence against opponents, particularly through the paramilitary group La 42. Rival candidates eventually withdrew, and Trujillo’s election turned his military supremacy into formal office.

After the 1961 coup, Park first governed through the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction. The junta dissolved the National Assembly and arrested political opponents. It also promised national renewal, anti-corruption and economic growth. Park then retired from the army and won the 1963 presidential election, using restricted constitutional politics to civilianize military rule.

Role of leaders

Leaders shaped coalitions and gave each authoritarian project a recognizable public face. Salazar drew authority from his expertise and administrative discipline, as well as his skill in balancing the army, Church, bureaucracy and conservative economic interests. In public, he appeared austere rather than theatrical.

Trujillo depended on personal control of the armed forces and a wide patronage network. Over time, loyalty to the state became almost impossible to separate from loyalty to Trujillo and his family.

Park’s military background reinforced his image of discipline and urgency. By connecting his leadership with rapid industrial development and national security, he gained conditional acceptance from groups that didn’t necessarily favour permanent dictatorship.

Ideology

Salazar’s Estado Novo promoted nationalism and Catholic social values, alongside hierarchy, corporatism and anti-communism. Corporatism placed employers and workers in state-regulated bodies while rejecting independent class-based politics.

Trujillo followed a less systematic ideology. He drew on nationalism, anti-Haitianism, order and economic modernization, supported by an extreme personality cult. Because the ideology was flexible, it could justify repression as well as personal enrichment.

Park used anti-communism, developmental nationalism and the language of national reconstruction. His regime presented economic progress as a patriotic duty and a defence against North Korea.

Force and propaganda

Force cleared immediate obstacles to power. Portugal’s authoritarian transition started with the 1926 military coup. Trujillo controlled the Dominican army, while Park led the 1961 seizure of government. Still, force by itself could not produce lasting legitimacy.

Propaganda cast each regime as the solution to national weakness. Salazar’s government used censorship, schools and official organizations to celebrate stability and traditional values. Trujillo saturated public life with his titles and portraits, along with carefully staged celebrations. Park’s government associated the leader with industrial projects, exports and anti-communist vigilance.

Legal methods

Authoritarian leaders often use the law to weaken the checks that could remove them. Their governments aren’t democratic as a result; legal forms can institutionalize unequal political power.

Portugal’s 1933 constitution created the Estado Novo, with Salazar serving as president of the Council of Ministers. The National Union became the permitted political organization. Censorship restricted public debate, while corporative institutions replaced competitive representation. Through emergency powers and administrative regulation, the regime made opposition difficult without abolishing every state institution.

Trujillo repeatedly relied on elections, constitutional amendments and compliant legislatures to regularize his control. He sometimes placed associates or relatives in the presidency, yet retained decisive authority as commander of the armed forces and leader of the Dominican Party. His formal officeholding therefore understated his personal power.

In 1963, Park shifted from junta government to the Third Republic. The 1972 Yushin Constitution later transformed the presidency. Indirect election, extensive emergency authority and weakened legislative restraints left fewer effective checks, allowing Park to remain in office.

Use of force

Even after power had been established, force remained available. Salazar’s political police—first PVDE and later PIDE—monitored, detained and interrogated opponents. Political prisoners could be held at facilities including Tarrafal in Cape Verde.

Trujillo’s security forces carried out surveillance, imprisonment, torture, disappearance and assassination. His authority rested heavily on personal control of the military, so coercion targeted organized opponents as well as insiders suspected of disloyalty.

Park used the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, created in 1961, alongside the police and emergency decrees. Opposition politicians, students, journalists and trade unionists could face detention or intimidation, especially after the Yushin system was imposed.

Charismatic leadership

Charismatic leadership depends on followers believing that a leader has exceptional qualities or a special national mission. Its importance differed considerably between regimes.

Trujillo built the clearest personality cult. Public titles, monuments and compulsory displays linked national progress directly to his person. Park’s appeal depended more on achievement, particularly discipline, industrial growth and national strength. Salazar chose to project sober competence and moral seriousness rather than mass charisma. Personal dictatorship, then, did not require the same leadership style everywhere.

Dissemination of propaganda

Schools, newspapers, radio, public ceremonies, youth bodies and state-approved organizations all spread propaganda. Censorship mattered just as much because it narrowed the information available to test official claims.

Salazar’s Secretariado de Propaganda Nacional promoted the Estado Novo’s vision of an orderly, rural and Catholic nation. Trujillo filled public space with praise of the leader and demanded visible demonstrations of loyalty. Park pointed to export growth, factories, highways and rural development as evidence that authoritarian rule provided effective government.

Propaganda was most effective when connected to an observable achievement or an existing fear. It worked less well when colonial warfare, corruption, inequality or political repression clashed with the official message.

Nature of opposition

Opposition never formed a single bloc. Democratic politicians, communists, students, workers and religious groups could all resist a regime, as could exiles, military officers or former insiders. How much they mattered depended on their organization, their access to institutions and whether the security forces were willing to repress them.

In Portugal, republicans, socialists, communists and dissident Catholics opposed the regime alongside students and sections of the military. General Humberto Delgado’s 1958 presidential campaign briefly brought these different critics together and exposed substantial discontent. The Portuguese Communist Party kept an underground structure operating, while colonial nationalist movements challenged Portuguese rule in Africa from 1961.

Trujillo faced political organizations in exile, underground activists, disaffected elites and conspirators in the armed forces. External opposition was visible in the failed Cayo Confites expedition of 1947 and the Luperón landing of 1949. After the failed anti-Trujillo expedition of June 1959, the 14th of June Movement emerged.

Park’s opponents included parliamentarians, students, journalists, workers and religious activists, as well as rival politicians. Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam became major civilian figures. Students were especially important because their protests could link constitutional grievances to wider public dissatisfaction.

Extent of opposition

Under authoritarian rule, the visible size of the opposition can be deceptive. Censorship and fear restrict open activity. Apparent conformity may simply reflect self-preservation rather than consent.

Police surveillance constrained Salazar’s opponents, who were also divided by ideology. Even so, Delgado’s campaign and the colonial wars showed that the Estado Novo had not eliminated resistance. Trujillo exercised more personalized and violent control, which left little room for legal opposition. Until divisions developed within the ruling elite, his opponents often had to work underground or from abroad.

South Korea allowed more organized social and political activity than the Dominican Republic. Elections and the National Assembly provided restricted spaces for dissent. At the same time, industrialization produced growing student and working-class constituencies capable of protest.

Treatment of opposition

Regimes applied different levels of pressure, from censorship, dismissal and electoral manipulation to exile, detention, torture and killing. Selective repression could work more efficiently than indiscriminate terror: it intimidated potential opponents without alienating every neutral group.

In Portugal, opponents faced censorship, bans, PIDE surveillance, imprisonment and exile. Agents connected to the regime murdered Delgado in Spain in 1965. In the Dominican Republic, the Mirabal sisters—Patria, Minerva and María Teresa—were murdered in November 1960 after taking part in resistance. Their deaths increased hostility towards Trujillo.

Park’s regime targeted dissent through emergency decrees, the KCIA and the National Security Law. Kim Dae-jung was abducted from Tokyo in 1973, but international pressure helped him survive. In 1979, the YH Trading Company dispute and Kim Young-sam’s expulsion from the National Assembly contributed to major unrest in Busan and Masan.

Opposition and regime breakdown

Opposition posed the greatest danger when popular protest coincided with divisions inside the state. On 30 May 1961, conspirators assassinated Trujillo after international isolation and elite disaffection had weakened his position. KCIA director Kim Jae-gyu assassinated Park on 26 October 1979 amid growing unrest. Salazar left office because of illness in 1968, although the system continued under Marcelo Caetano until the military-led Carnation Revolution of 1974.

How foreign policy affected power

Foreign policy helped authoritarian regimes hold power when it brought security, prestige, territory, aid or economic opportunity. When it failed, however, it could drain resources, leave the state isolated and split the governing coalition. Political impact rested both on what happened abroad and on how people understood it at home.

Salazar: security success and colonial failure

Portugal stayed neutral for most of the Second World War, though Salazar allowed the Allies to use bases in the Azores from 1943. This kept the regime safe from invasion, and it survived the war intact. Despite remaining a dictatorship, Portugal strengthened its international position by becoming a founding member of NATO in 1949.

Defending the Portuguese empire eventually placed a heavy burden on the regime. Armed conflict began in Angola in 1961, Portuguese Guinea in 1963 and Mozambique in 1964. These wars used up money and manpower while exposing Portugal to international criticism. They also fuelled dissatisfaction among younger military officers. Salazar’s commitment to empire rallied nationalists at first, but the long war weakened the system he had built and contributed to the military revolt of 1974.

Trujillo: international support and isolation

Trujillo benefited while outside powers placed a high value on stability and anti-communism. His workable relationship with the United States strengthened his security. At the same time, the settlement of Dominican customs and debt arrangements supported his claims that sovereignty had been restored.

Violence abroad damaged the regime. The massacre of Haitians near the border in 1937 drew international condemnation and forced a diplomatic settlement with Haiti. A more decisive blow came in June 1960, when Trujillo’s agents attempted to assassinate Venezuelan president Rómulo Betancourt. The Organization of American States imposed sanctions, while the United States distanced itself from Trujillo. Isolation from abroad encouraged Dominican opponents and showed insiders that his rule had become a liability.

Park: alliance and economic development

Park tied foreign policy closely to economic modernization. South Korea normalized relations with Japan in 1965, gaining grants, loans and investment despite intense domestic opposition rooted in the colonial experience. The agreement supplied resources for development, but it also showed that Park was prepared to override public protest.

Large numbers of South Korean troops were sent to support the United States in the Vietnam War. In return, South Korea received military assistance, contracts and access to American resources. These gains supported Park’s claim that authoritarian leadership could bring national strength and economic transformation.

Tensions with North Korea helped Park portray political control as necessary for security. Yet changes in United States policy, along with fears of a possible withdrawal, pushed South Korea towards greater self-reliance. The security challenge gave the regime a stronger justification for its rule, while also revealing its dependence on its principal ally.

Comparing political impact

Park gained most clearly from foreign-policy success because his alliance policy delivered measurable economic and security benefits. Salazar benefited from neutrality and NATO membership, but colonial war eventually became a burden. Trujillo’s aggressive intervention abroad transformed former international tolerance into diplomatic isolation.

Foreign policy alone rarely preserved or destroyed a regime. It became decisive when it changed military loyalty, access to economic resources or the behaviour of foreign supporters.

Economic policies

Authoritarian governments often chased several economic goals at the same time: growth and stability, greater independence, social discipline and political legitimacy. The gains were rarely shared evenly.

At first, Salazar focused on balanced budgets, a stable currency and limited public spending. Corporatist institutions curbed independent unions and strikes. Development plans and closer European economic integration encouraged industrial growth from the 1950s. Even so, Portugal remained poorer and more rural than much of western Europe, which prompted substantial emigration.

Trujillo expanded roads and public works, as well as parts of the agricultural economy. At the same time, he brought major enterprises under the control of himself, his relatives and close supporters. His regime reduced foreign debt and promoted an image of modernization, but economic power became highly concentrated. State development went hand in hand with personal enrichment.

Park followed a policy of export-led industrialization through Five-Year Economic Development Plans beginning in 1962. The state directed credit, backed large business groups and invested in infrastructure. South Korea was transformed by rapid growth and rising exports, though workers faced restricted unions, low wages and harsh conditions. Economic performance became Park’s strongest source of legitimacy.

Political policies

Politically, the main goal was to block effective challenges while keeping enough institutional order for the state to function.

Under Salazar, the 1933 constitution created a corporatist state, the National Union and a restricted National Assembly. Trujillo placed the Dominican Party, armed forces, bureaucracy and legislature under his personal rule. Park combined controlled elections with anti-communist legislation. In 1972, he replaced the Third Republic’s limited pluralism with the more openly authoritarian Yushin system.

These measures brought stability in the narrow sense that leaders remained in power. However, they weakened peaceful methods of succession. Men connected to the regime killed both Trujillo and Park, while Portugal’s unresolved colonial crisis eventually pushed the military towards revolt.

Cultural policies

Cultural policy set the boundaries of acceptable national identity. Salazar stressed Catholicism and family, along with rural tradition, obedience and imperial patriotism. The 1940 Concordat strengthened the Catholic Church’s public position, while censorship restricted literature, journalism and performance.

Trujillo built a leader-centred nationalism. Public symbols, education and official history linked Dominican independence, racial identity and modernization to his rule. Park’s message centred on anti-communism, discipline, sacrifice and national development. Schools and the media taught people to place national reconstruction above individual interests.

Social policies

For Salazar’s government, social order mattered more than rapid equality. Limited welfare measures and corporatist bodies aimed to contain class conflict, yet rural poverty persisted and access to education remained unequal.

Trujillo rewarded loyalty through public works, employment and patronage. Some people received real benefits, but access often relied on connections to the ruling network.

Park’s government broadened education, urban employment and infrastructure. Launched in 1970, the Saemaul Undong sought to modernize villages through local projects and state-supported self-help. It improved parts of rural infrastructure, but it also widened administrative supervision and promoted Park’s developmental message.

Overall impact

Authoritarian rule could last longer when domestic policy delivered order or material improvement. Yet growth didn’t end political conflict. Instead, it produced new educated, urban and industrial groups whose demands became harder to contain.

Women under Salazar

The Estado Novo placed the Catholic family at the centre of social order. Official culture cast women as wives and mothers, as well as guardians of morality. Schools and approved women’s organizations promoted these domestic expectations. At the same time, inequalities in law and employment restricted women’s independence.

Experiences differed according to class and location. Poor women still worked in agriculture, factories, domestic service and family businesses because their households depended on the income. Male emigration and the colonial wars added to their economic responsibilities. For many women, then, the regime’s domestic ideal bore little resemblance to daily life.

Women under Trujillo

Dominican women gained the vote in 1942. The regime used female political participation as proof of modernization, yet the Dominican Party controlled political activity. Formal voting rights therefore gave women no independent political power.

Regime organizations offered some women access to employment, education or higher status. Trujillo’s personal behaviour, however, revealed the limits of official promises about protection and respectability. Sexual coercion and women’s vulnerability to the ruler and his associates were part of a wider system of personal domination. Women were also significant agents of opposition, as the political activism and murder of the Mirabal sisters demonstrated.

Women under Park

Industrialization brought many young women into export factories, particularly in textiles and electronics. Paid work gave them wages and new experiences of urban life. Even so, female workers were usually confined to low-paid jobs under strict workplace discipline.

The state maintained a strongly patriarchal social order. Family law favoured male authority within the household, while official expectations tied women to family duty and national development. Despite these pressures, female workers took part in labour activism. In 1979, the dismissal and protest of women workers at the YH Trading Company became part of the wider crisis facing Park’s government.

Racial, ethnic and colonial minorities

Trujillo’s racial nationalism had devastating effects on Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian origin. In October 1937, Dominican forces killed thousands of people identified as Haitian near the border. This violence reinforced an exclusionary definition of Dominican identity and showed how dictatorship and state-building could use prejudice.

Portugal governed large African populations in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea. Its colonial policy claimed that assimilation could bring selected subjects into Portuguese culture, but deep political, legal and economic inequalities persisted. Reforms in 1961 ended some formal distinctions. However, the legacy of forced labour, restricted political rights and continued colonial domination helped drive armed resistance.

South Korea was comparatively ethnically homogeneous. Minority policy was therefore most visible in the treatment of political, regional and occupational groups rather than a large ethnic minority. Anti-communist legislation created intense suspicion of people linked to left-wing ideas. Strong grievances also emerged in the south-western Honam region over unequal political influence and development, although regional inequality cannot be explained as a single deliberate policy.

Uneven effects

Authoritarian policies didn’t affect every woman or minority group alike. Outcomes depended on class, occupation and location, as well as political loyalty and closeness to the ruling network. Formal gains—such as voting rights, employment or legal reform—could exist alongside coercion and entrenched discrimination.

Measuring control

Authoritarian control describes a regime’s capacity to limit political competition, enforce its decisions, shape public behaviour and survive challenges. Rare open opposition doesn’t necessarily prove absolute control. Fear differs from passive compliance, and both differ from genuine support.

Its reach can be assessed in several areas:

• control of the armed forces, police and intelligence services;
• control over elections, law and state institutions;
• influence on information, education and public culture;
• penetration of workplaces, local communities and private life;
• capacity to neutralize opposition and manage succession;
• reliance on elite cooperation or foreign support.

Portugal

At the centre, Salazar established durable control. He balanced the military, Church, bureaucracy and economic elites while restricting parties and censoring the media. PIDE targeted organized opponents. His rule from 1932 to 1968 shows substantial institutional endurance.

Even so, his control had limits. The underground Communist Party survived, Delgado attracted support in 1958, and students protested. After 1961, African nationalist movements opened multiple wars. The regime policed metropolitan politics more effectively than it settled the colonial question. Its survival after Salazar’s removal demonstrated institutional continuity, but the 1974 military revolt exposed its dependence on armed forces alienated by prolonged war.

Dominican Republic

Trujillo’s control reached deep into the state, economy and public sphere. He commanded the armed forces and dominated the ruling party. He also accumulated business interests and demanded visible expressions of loyalty. The personality cult made this control unusually personal.

Yet that breadth hid serious vulnerability. Institutions lacked autonomy, while succession relied on Trujillo’s continued authority. By 1961, international sanctions, hostility from the Catholic hierarchy, underground resistance and conspiracy among insiders had converged. His assassination showed that fear hadn’t eliminated opposition. Once key insiders defected, personal control weakened rapidly.

South Korea

After 1961, Park controlled the military government. He restricted opposition through the KCIA and anti-communist law, then strengthened presidential power under the Yushin Constitution. Economic planning and rapid growth increased state capacity and generated significant performance-based support.

South Korea still retained pockets of autonomy. Opposition politicians, churches, students, journalists and workers repeatedly challenged the regime. Restricted elections gave some indication of public dissatisfaction. Reliance on the United States also limited complete foreign-policy independence. The protests of 1979, followed by Park’s assassination by the head of the KCIA, exposed serious conflict within society and the coercive apparatus.

Comparison

None of the three achieved total control. Salazar created the most impersonal and durable institutional system. Trujillo’s domination was the most intensely personalized, while Park combined coercion with unusually strong developmental legitimacy. In every case, apparent stability relied on continued cooperation from soldiers, officials, economic elites and sections of society.