necrocracies

Noun

necrocracy (countable and uncountable, plural necrocracies)

1. A form of government imposed by those who have since died.
   • What we call democracy, therefore, is to a considerable extent necrocracy, or a form of government by the graveyards. Old precepts and phrases are handed down from one generation to another; they become part of a nation's heritage […]1928, William Bennett Munro, The Invisible Government: The Jacob H. Schiff Foundation Lectures Delivered at Cornell University, 1926, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan Co., →OCLC, page 2
2. A form of government where a dead person is recognised as its head; usually a deceased former leader.
   • Kim Jong Il, incidentally, has been made head of the party and of the army, but the office of the presidency is still "eternally" held by his adored and departed dad, who died on July 8, 1994, at 82. (The Kim is dead. Long live the Kim.) This makes North Korea the only state in the world with a...2001 January, Christopher Hitchens, “Visit to a small planet”, in Vanity Fair, archived from the original on 04 Jul 2011

   Synonyms:

   thanatocracy

3. A government ruled by the undead.