totalitarianism
n. uncountablen. a system of government where one person or group has total control over everything. In this system, the government makes all the rules and people are not allowed to disagree or have their own opinions.
n. a form of government that permits no individual freedom and that seeks to subordinate the individual to the state. Characterised by the concentration of power in a single party or leader and the suppression of political and personal liberties.
The country moved toward totalitarianism after the new leader took power.
Historians often study the rise of totalitarianism in the twentieth century to understand how democracies can fail.
The novel explores the psychological toll of living under a totalitarianism that demands absolute conformity and punishes even the slightest deviation from state-mandated thought.
1938, from totalitarian + -ism, modeled after Italian totalitarismo (1923, by Giovanni Amendola) and German terms such as Totalstaat (1927, The Concept of the Political, by Carl Schmitt).