Dictablanda

Template:Lang is a dictatorship in which civil liberties are allegedly preserved rather than destroyed, and authoritarian and democratic features are combined.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Template:Lang is a pun on Template:Lang ("dictatorship") replacing Template:Lang, which by itself is a Spanish word meaning "hard", with Template:Lang, meaning "soft".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The term was first used in 1930 during the second-last year of the Restoration (1874–1931) in Spain when Dámaso Berenguer replaced Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja as the head of the ruling dictatorial government, and attempted to reduce tensions in the country by repealing some of the harsher measures that Primo de Rivera had introduced. It was also used to refer to the later years of Francisco Franco's Spanish State,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and to the hegemonic 70-year rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Mexico.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

The same play on words can be seen in the example of the Portuguese Template:Lang or Template:Lang. In February 2009, the Brazilian newspaper Template:Lang ran a controversial editorial classifying the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964–1985) as a Template:Lang.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In Spanish, Template:Lang is contrasted with Template:Lang (a portmanteau of Template:Lang and Template:Lang), meaning an illiberal democracy – a system in which the government and its leaders are elected, but which is relatively deficient in civil liberties.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

See also

• Benevolent dictatorship – related political system
• Caudillo – type of personalist leader wielding political power
• Reign of Alfonso XIII – 1885–1931 period in Spanish history