TY - JOUR AU - Ryszard Ficek PY - 2022/12/30 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Authoritarianism as a ‘Wicked Problem’ in Contemporary International Relations JF - Studia Polityczne JA - sp VL - 50 IS - 3 SE - Systemy polityczne DO - 10.35757/STP.2022.50.3.05 UR - http://czasopisma.isppan.waw.pl/index.php/sp/article/view/2057 AB - This study explores the concept of authoritarianism. The author defines this concept as a form of a political system in which the power and material resources of the state have been centralised, appropriated and put at the disposal of either an individual or an elitist group in power. In this way, the possibilities of integrating the authoritarian state with global international relations are limited, and the vital administrative institutions of the state have been manipulated and appropriated. The applied research method allows for interpreting the discussed issues in a complex – albeit specific – systemic form, characteristic of not only politically fragile or declining countries and regions but also of politically stable and economically developed ones. The author’s analysis presents and reinterprets the issue of contemporary authoritarian regimes in the context of international relations in terms that not only define but often legitimise some of the most despotic, autocratic and hegemonic forms of political systems in modern times. ER -