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Oligarchy Definition:
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A form of government in which a few persons rule and govern by assuming all legislative and administrative authority.
Related Terms:
Monarchy,
Democracy
John Bouvier's description of an oligarchy is of power usurped by a few citizens alone which ought to otherwise belong to the people.
James Ballentine's offering is shorter but fails to mention any characteristic of lawfullness or constitutionality of the oligarchy:
"Oligarchy: a government which is administered by a few persons."
McLean and McMillan wrote:
"Aristotle distinguished between rulers who govern in the general interest ... and those who govern in their own interest (oligarchy)."
On several occasions in the history of Rome, law-making and administrative powers was taken over by force by a few people, (e.g. a triumvirate) who then proceeded to govern as a multi-headed monarchy.
In an article he wrote in the Columbia Law Review in 1960, Michigan State University history professor Robert Brown used these words:
"If oligarchy means simply government by a few men, then any elective government becomes an oligarchy. If oligarchy implies rule by men who were not subject to popular approval, a connotation that the word seems to carry in popular thinking...."
REFERENCES:
- •Ballentine, James, Ballentine's Law Dictionary (Rochester: Lawyers Co-op. Publishing Co., 1969), page 884.
- Brown, Robert, 60 Colum. L. Rev. 1203 (1960)
- McLean, I., and McMillan, A., Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)
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