The phrase "dictatorship without a dictator" has been used (sometimes misleadingly) to refer to:
- China under the Hu–Wen Administration
- Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser
- France under the Jacobins (especially after the death of Maximilian Robespierre)
- Modern-day Iraq
- Japan in the 1930s and '40s
- Poland after the death of Józef Piłsudski
- Portugal under Óscar Carmona
- Russia under Boris Yeltsin
- The Soviet Union after the death of Joseph Stalin, or after the removal of Nikita Khrushchev from power
- Spain after the death of Francisco Franco
- Sri Lanka under Maithripala Sirisena
- Syria under Bashar al-Assad
- The United States of America
- Weimar Germany under the governance of Paul von Hindenburg, Heinrich Brüning, and Wilhelm Groener
- Yugoslavia under Paul Karađorđević, or after the death of Josip Broz Tito