"Dictatorship without a dictator" is a phrase which has been used (sometimes misleadingly) to describe:
- China under the Hu–Wen Administration
- Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser
- France after the death of Maximilian Robespierre
- Greece between 1924 and 1935, when there was no monarch
- Modern-day Iraq
- Italy after Benito Mussolini was dismissed by Victor Emmanuel III
- Japan in the 1930s and '40s, as Hirohito along with the civilian governments (of which there were many) are often portrayed as having very limited influence, with the military making most of the important decisions
- Poland from 1935 to 1939 after the death of Józef Piłsudski
- Portugal under Óscar Carmona
- Russia under Boris Yeltsin
- The Soviet Union after Vladimir Lenin suffered a series of debilitating strokes, after Joseph Stalin died, or after Nikita Khrushchev was removed from power
- Spain after the Second Republic was proclaimed, or after the death of Francisco Franco
- Sri Lanka under Maithripala Sirisena
- Syria under Bashar al-Assad
- Türkiye under İsmet İnönü
- The United States of America
- Weimar Germany under the governance of Paul von Hindenburg, Heinrich Brüning, and Wilhelm Groener
- Yugoslavia after the assassination of Alexander I, or after the death of Josip Broz Tito