tin-pot dictatorship

plural tin-pot dictatorships

1. derogatoryidiomaticA country ruled by a tin-pot dictator; an autocracy, especially one ruled by someone with delusions of grandeur.

   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'.

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

   2 more examples

   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?

   1979, John Wainwright, Death of a Big Man, Berkley, →ISBN, page 37

   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)

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