The 2000s

Starting a new century seems like a good time to reconsider the categories we were using for the 20th Century.

By 1999, strict monarchy and strict communism had become rare enough that we can probably drop them as categories. For that matter, strict single party states (where the constitution actually enshrines one party as the only legitimate outlet for political activity) have largely disappeared as well. In fact, we've lost much of the variety of political systems that characterized the 20th century.

Most governments in the 21st Century are structured as democracies on paper; it's only in practice that so many fall short. With that in mind, we probably only need two categories - free and not free - and within those, we only need to concern ourselves with the degrees of oppression and not the form it takes.