noun
definition
A government run by only a few, often the wealthy.
definition
Those who make up an oligarchic government.
definition
A state ruled by such a government.
Examples of oligarchy in a Sentence
This governing oligarchy was known as " the patricians."
The regal government was at a later time exchanged for an oligarchy or a democracy.
He was hated and feared by most of the oligarchy.
A more important result of Athenian intervention was the substitution of the democratic government for the oligarchy which had succeeded the early monarchy; at any rate forty years later we find that Argos possessed complete democratic institutions.
The municipal boroughs (246 in England and Wales in 1832) were governed by mayor, aldermen, councillors and a close body of burgesses or freemen, a narrow oligarchy.
Until 1916 the country was ruled by an oligarchy of landowners who operated a parliament on a restricted suffrage.
The liberal leadership simply joined the ranks of the existing landed oligarchy.
So long as the island retained its independence the government was an oligarchy.
A refuge of Italian pauperism in the time of the Gracchi, after the triumph of the oligarchy the Narbonnaise became a field for shameless exploitation, besides providing, under the proconsulate of Caesar, an excellent point of observation whence to watch the intestine quarrels between the different nations of Gaul.
It will remain literally an oligarchy, a committee of 25 ministers making laws in secret for 450 million people.
Only in this way can the plans of the financial oligarchy be blocked.
There is, here, the real risk of a self-perpetuating oligarchy.
The, expansion of commerce which resulted from the Fourth Crusade soon made itself evident in the city by a rapid development in its architecture and by a decided strengthening of the commercial aristocracy, which eventually led to the great constitutional reform - the closing of the Maggior Consiglio in 1296, whereby Venice became a rigid oligarchy.
Caesar at once approached both Pompey and Crassus, who alike detested the existing system of government but were personally at variance, and succeeded in persuading them to forget their quarrel and join him in a coalition which should put an end to the rule of the oligarchy.
The government of the town was vested in the patrician families, who, contrary to the usual course of events in the free towns, succeeded in permanently excluding the civic gilds from all share of municipal power, although in 1347 there was a sharp rising against this oligarchy.
In the early part of the 4th century it fell again under Persian influence, and was administered by an oligarchy.
Three years later the Spartan garrison was expelled, and a democratic constitution definitely set up in place of the traditional oligarchy.
Here the object of the insurgents was in most cases to break down the local oligarchy, who engrossed all municipal office and oppressed the meaner citizens; but in less numerous instances their end was to win charters from lords (almost always ecclesiastical lords) who had hitherto refused to grant them.
England has always chafed against a family oligarchy, however well it may do its work.
Nevertheless, the remedy was worse than the disease, for it would have established a close oligarchy, bound sooner or later to come into conflict with the will of the nation, and only to be overthrown by a violent alteration of the constitution.
That system placed the government of the country in the hands of a territorial oligarchy, composed of a few families of large possessions, fairly enlightened principles, and shrewd political sense.
He took a leading part in establishing the oligarchy of the Four Hundred at Athens in 411 B.C., and was assassinated in the same year (Thucydides viii.).
The plains, also, were suited to the breeding of horses, and consequently the force in which the Thessalian nation was strong was cavalry, a kind of troops which has usually been associated with oligarchy.
Moreover, she had no share in the expansion of Greek commerce and Greek culture; and, though she bore the reputation of hating tyrants and putting them down where possible, there can be little doubt that this was done in the interests of oligarchy rather than of liberty.
Everywhere democracy was replaced by a philo-Laconian oligarchy, usually consisting of ten men under a harmost or governor pledged to Spartan Empire.
Choiseul did not hesitate to attack through lits de justice or by exile a judiciary oligarchy which doubtless rested its pretensions merely on wealth, high birth, or that e!icroaching spirit that was the only counteracting agency to the monarchy.
Having fought the oligarchy of privilege, the monarchy next tried to rally it to its side, and all the springs of the old rgime were strained to the breaking-point.
He deposed the governing oligarchy, changed the constitution of the town, forbade all alliances and laid the foundations of a castle.
While paying lip-service to democracy they perpetuate an unhealthy oligarchy.
If people went around saying we had an electoral oligarchy you would get a blank look from most.
At length the exiles, becoming numerous, returned, and, engaging and defeating the people, established the oligarchy.
It is easy to denounce the dominant Magyar classes as a selfish oligarchy, and to criticize the methods by which they have sought to maintain their power.
In these circumstances the administration of public affairs fell into the hands of an oligarchy, who governed the country to suit their own convenience.
In the interval of twenty years between the death of Timoleon and the rise of Agathocles to power another revolution at Syracuse transferred the government to an oligarchy of 600 leading citizens.
His ideal was a return to a 6th century constitution, which his contemporaries could equally regard as a moderate oligarchy or a restricted democracy.
Marat had seen that England was at this time being ruled by an oligarchy using the forms of liberty, which, while pretending to represent the country, was really being gradually mastered by the royal power.
Marius, however, unlike Caesar, did not attempt to overturn the oligarchy by means of the army; he used rather such expedients as the constitution seemed to allow, though they had to be backed up by riot and violence.
It is probable, again, that party interest was a leading motive in Cleophon's mind, since a peace would have meant the return of the oligarchic exiles and the establishment of a moderate oligarchy.
For supporting the criminal oligarchy in Venezuela, and for its historic interference in the internal affairs of peoples.
Responsible for this situation is a small oligarchy of visible and invisible persons who want to impose their agenda for global domination.
It has been argued that the war was ultimately a struggle between the principles of oligarchy and democracy.
These poorer people - who were not, however, "poor whites" - developed an abiding hostility towards the oligarchy.
The electoral body is therefore small, and is under the control of a political oligarchy which practically rules the country, no matter which party is in power.
Nevertheless, we cannot regard Catiline as an honest enemy of the oligarchy, or as a disinterested champion of the provincials.
They swayed backwards and forwards between the power of the people and the power of the few; but democracy and oligarchy passed sooner or later into the hands of a master who veiled his lordship under various titles, and generally at last into the hands of a family.
It seems certain that the drafters of the charter were honest in their intentions, and did not purpose to set up a feudal oligarchy in the place of a royal autocracy.
Behind these structures anonymous monetary aces of the international financial oligarchy hide.
Like most of the new Russian oligarchy there have been some rather murky chapters in Mr Abramovich's past.
How secure was the Whig oligarchy that came to power at the death of Queen Anne in 1714?
Salazar's economic policies greatly enhanced the wealth of the ruling oligarchy.