Dictatorship refers to an extraordinary form of rule that operates outside the ordinary bounds of law. The original form of dictatorship was a constitutional office in Rome that conferred exceptional but temporary powers on an individual who was appointed to deal with a perceived threat to the survival of the republic. The ideal of Roman dictatorship has played an important role in the history of political thought by helping to establish the primacy of the executive in times of emergency. Republican political thinkers including Niccolò Machiavelli, Algernon Sidney, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau have looked to Roman dictatorship as a constitutional expedient that obviates the need to resort to unconstitutional measures during an emergency. In the modern era, dictatorship has come to refer to almost any despotic or authoritarian form of government that exercises power with little or no regard for legal restrictions or civil liberties.
