tin-pot dictatorship

English

Etymology

tin-pot dictator +‎ -ship

Noun

tin-pot dictatorship (plural tin-pot dictatorships)

1. (idiomatic, derogatory) A country ruled by a tin-pot dictator; an autocracy, especially one ruled by someone with delusions of grandeur.
   • 1979, John Wainwright, Death of a Big Man, Berkley, →ISBN, page 37:

     And, if so, why not the arms-dealer who sells his products to some tin-pot dictatorship, knowing that they will be used to slaughter innocent women and kids?

   • 2007, John Hossein Ghazvinian, Untapped, Harcourt, →ISBN:

     Though venality rather than thuggery is the dominant characteristic of the Gabonese political system, to an outsider the distinction is not always clear and the country can look like a classic tin-pot dictatorship—a sort of banana republic (with the part of the bananas played by Cameroonian understudies)

   • 2017, Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy, Pan Macmillan, →ISBN:

     Speaking of the suspension of habeas corpus, and the curbs on the press, he warned that Mrs Gandhi was turning her country into a 'tin-pot dictatorship'.