Total domination alone among governments rules out peaceful coexistence

Evidence

Decisive in our context is that totalitarian government is different from dictatorships and tyrannies; the ability to distinguish between them is by no means an academic issue which could be safely left to the “theoreticians,” for total domination is the only form of government with which coexistence is not possible. Hence, we have every reason to use the word “totalitarian” sparingly and prudently. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 40

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core definitional move: totalitarian government is categorically distinct from ordinary dictatorship/tyranny, and the distinction carries practical diplomatic consequences.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that total domination is the ‘only form of government with which coexistence is not possible’ is a dense normative-and-descriptive assertion about what makes this regime type qualitatively different — worth sitting with as a foundation of the theory.
• XREF: connects to: A regime controlling the security forces can still cede power peacefully in transition — Johan Brosché and Hanne Fjelde and Kristine Höglund, Electoral violence and the legacy of…, 86