Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Authoritarian Governments


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. Salvio Let's talk about it! 16:11, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

List of Authoritarian Governments

 * – ( View AfD View log )

"Authoritarian" is fairly vague and subjective. The list is completely unreferenced. I can imagine sources disagreeing with that label for many countries on this list. Have mörser, will travel (talk) 13:02, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment I was about to send this to AfD myself but was beaten to it. What I would have said, though, is that the topic is controversial, as outlined at Authoritarianism. It is currently unreferenced and, with the difficulties in finding several reliable sources that don't conflict with each other, this will be difficult to amend. We need to consider whether, in having such a contentious list, WP might be seen as endorsing a particular version. In other words, we need to consider whether WP should even have such a list.  Claret Ash  13:24, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * There is also a matter of dating. This list is titled "Governments", but the list is actually one of countries. Of course, the Nazi government was authoritarian, but it's not in this list. (Never mind the "top 10 most corrupt nations" howler at the bottom.) So it seems unsalvageable. If someone can come up with a criteria that would satisfy WP:LIST, by all means write a list on this topic, but this attempt is just too untenable for mainspace as is. Have mörser, will travel (talk) 13:29, 22 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment. I see we have a good article/list on Democracy Index, which makes this crude attempt redundant, unless this list is actually based on some source not yet presented. There is also a List of freedom indices, which is a list of lists pointing to other articles like Freedom in the World and Polity data series (this last one w/o actual data in Wikipedia though). At the bottom it has some indices side-by-side: List of freedom indices. I don't think it possible to produce an aggregate list/index without massive WP:OR. Have mörser, will travel (talk) 13:39, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * And as an aside, if we had a List of flawed democracies with France, Italy etc. in it, which can actually be sourced from Democracy Index, I'm sure many people would object to that presented as "Wikipedia's authoritative list". (N.b. these two countries are listed as "free" in Freedom in the World.) Have mörser, will travel (talk) 13:51, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Democracy Index seems a sensible way to go. The only question remains over whether the current article should be deleted prior to recreation as a redirect.  Claret Ash  14:07, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Given that this article has the wrong capitalization in title, we can create a redirect from the more plausible spelling anyway: List of authoritarian governments. Have mörser, will travel (talk) 14:17, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed.  Claret Ash  02:55, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Redirecting to a partisan list would be just as great a violation of WP:NPOV as a separate article, as it would imply that Democracy Index is the only authorative source for a list of authoritarian governments. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:20, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete - Undefined and inherently undefinable list criteria. Lessee, the United States of America has among the highest rates of incarceration of its population, has executed over 1250 of its citizens since 1976, tortures captives in illegal military operations in contradiction of international law, spends more money on the military than any country in the globe by an enormous margin, maintains an elaborate spy apparatus spending tens of billions of dollars annually on scores of agencies, engages in the use of informers in opposition political movements, and has a political system exclusively dominated by two immensely well funded political parties with close ties to big business. Sounds pretty authoritarian to me... Oh, wait, it's not?!?! My bad. Carrite (talk) 14:39, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, if you ask a libertarian, then probably most governments belong on this list. Have mörser, will travel (talk) 14:50, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * And anarchists would go further.  Claret Ash  02:55, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 16:10, 22 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete Governments are, by their intrinsic nature, authoritarian. This is therefore just a POV fork of List of sovereign states. Warden (talk) 14:51, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete as intrinsically violating WP:NPOV. Redirecting to one organisation that produces a subjective list would be even worse than keeping, as it would imply that Wikipedia endorses that organisation. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:20, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete as Phil Bridger has raised a valid point. I hadn't considered that there'd be other systems of ranking.  Claret Ash  00:59, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.