Xiphiarchy

A form of government wherein the rulers control their domain via violence or the threat thereof. Military dictatorships and police states are both examples of
xiphiarchies. Modern-day Turkey could arguably be described as a xiphiarchic democracy, as the Turkish military reserves the right to reject both the current
government and any specific laws if it believes them to not uphold its vision of democracy.

I made up the word "xiphiarchy" when I was a teenager, in or near to 1976. I stumbled across the entry for "xiphi-" in a dictionary, and realized that it could be
combined with "-archy" to form a valid and useful word. (Thus proving that reading dictionaries is neither boring nor pointless!)