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A dictatorship is a government headed by a dictator or more generally any authoritarian or totalitarian government. It is considered to be the polar opposite of a democracy. A dictatorship is often seen as equivalent to a police state, but the term dictatorship refers to the way the leaders gain and hold power, not the watch kept on the citizens. Some dictators have been popular enough not to have to employ many very oppressive measures. The term generally has a pejorative meaning in reference to a government that does not allow a nation to determine its own political direction by popular election.[/b]