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/faʊ.tɒˈkreɪ.ʃə/ · also fautocracy (Anglicized)

Etymology

From Latin fautor (“patron, supporter, abettor; one who promotes or enables another’s advancement”) + Greek -cratia (“rule, power”), with a nod to French faux (“false”), reflecting the system’s deceptive democratic appearance. The compound encodes both mechanism and concealment: rule by patrons (fautores) disguised as rule by the people.

Definition

A political system that maintains the institutional forms and rituals of democracy — elections, campaigns, voting, transfer of power — while the selection of viable candidates is pre-constrained by wealthy patrons (fautores) through control of funding, media access, and party apparatus. Distinguished from oligarchy by its preservation of democratic aesthetics and the genuine belief among citizens that they exercise meaningful choice.

Characteristics

In a fautocratia:

• Elections occur freely and votes are counted accurately
• Multiple candidates and parties compete
• Outcomes on issues where elite interests diverge (cultural, social) reflect genuine public input
• Outcomes on issues affecting elite interests remain largely invariant regardless of electoral results
• Filtering of candidates occurs prior to public participation through funding requirements, media gatekeeping, and party endorsement structures
• Citizens experience the system as democratic and attribute policy failures to the opposing party rather than to structural constraints

Relation to United States political system

The United States exhibits fautocratic characteristics particularly following Citizens United v. FEC (2010), which removed limits on political expenditure by corporations and individuals, accelerating the centrality of patron financing to electoral viability.

Fautocratic structures operate through sequential filters:

1. Money primary: Candidates must secure tens of millions in funding before achieving media recognition as “viable,” requiring accommodation to donor interests
2. Party gatekeeping: National party organizations direct resources toward candidates acceptable to major donors
3. Media framing: Proposals threatening concentrated wealth are marginalized as “radical” or “impractical” by outlets dependent on corporate advertising or owned by billionaires
4. Legislative capture: Successful candidates face lobbying infrastructure, committee structures, and procedural barriers that constrain deviation from patron-acceptable policy

The result is a choice architecture in which voters select between candidates whose positions on wealth-affecting policy have been pre-harmonized within an acceptable range. Substantive disagreement is permitted and often inflamed on issues orthogonal to patron interests.

Distinction from related terms

• Oligarchy: Rule by the wealthy, openly acknowledged. Fautocratia specifically denotes the concealment of oligarchic power behind democratic forms
• Plutocracy: Emphasizes rule by wealth; fautocratia emphasizes the mechanism of patronage and the falseness of apparent choice
• Managed democracy: Describes top-down control, often by state apparatus. Fautocratia locates control in private fautores operating through, not against, democratic institutions
• Inverted totalitarianism (Wolin): Related concept emphasizing corporate capture of democracy; fautocratia is more specific about the candidate-filtering mechanism

Usage

“The American voter is not disenfranchised; she is pre-franchised. She may choose any candidate, provided the fautores have first chosen him for her. This is the essence of fautocratia: not the absence of elections, but their structural capture by patronage disguised as pluralism.”

Derived forms

• fautocratic (adj.): of or relating to fautocratia; exhibiting its characteristics
• fautocrat (n.): one who operates within or benefits from fautocratic structures; ambiguously applicable to both patrons and their promoted candidates