Word.ws English Dictionary

contractocracy

contractocracy noun: the routine use of contractors to perform the functions of government rather than regular government employees, often with the implication that the contractors are ineffective and simply enriching themselves due to government corruption.

Noun

contractocracy (plural contractocracies)

  1. (pejorative, usually) The routine use of contractors to perform the functions of government rather than regular government employees, often with the implication that the contractors are ineffective and simply enriching themselves due to government corruption.
    • There are several dissimilarities, however, between classical Underdevelopment Theory and some of the leading theoreticians of the contractocracy school in Nigeria.1986, Peter R. Lawrence, World Recession and the Food Crisis in Africa, →ISBN, page 43
    • The contract syndrome became so prevalent that the then Governor of Kaduna State, Balarabe Musa, felt compelled to characterise the Nigerian polity in terms of a "contractocracy" : "Instead of a democracy -in which you have in operation government for the people, you have a contractocracy in which...1992, Thomas A. Imobighe, The politics of the Second Republic, page 150

Forms of contractocracy

pluralcontractocracies

Origin of contractocracy

From contract + -ocracy.

Questions about contractocracy

What does contractocracy mean?
Contractocracy means the routine use of contractors to perform the functions of government rather than regular government employees, often with the implication that the contractors are ineffective and simply enriching themselves due to government corruption.
What part of speech is contractocracy?
Contractocracy is a noun.
What is the plural of contractocracy?
The plural of contractocracy is contractocracies.

Words near contractocracy in the dictionary

  1. contractless
  2. contractnik
  3. contractniki
  4. contractniks
  5. contractocracies
  6. contractocracy
  7. contractor
  8. contractor combatant
  9. contractor combatants
  10. contractor's saw
  11. contractorization

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: contractocracy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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