Nearly 17 years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall there is still no shortage of dictators casting their shadows across the world. This special issue takes a look at 10 current despots.

"Dictator" has not always been a dirty word. In 458 BC Cincinnatus abandoned his plough to assume absolute power in Rome, briskly saved the city from invasion, and relinquished his position after three months. More recently, the office has fallen into disrepute. Since Stalin, Hitler and Mao it has competed with "terrorist" as the west's worst political insult, and as the removal of Saddam Hussein showed, its definition is often as opportunistic.

This special report looks at the phenomenon of dictatorship in a democratising world, from the bankrupt North Korean military machine to the booming Gulf state of Dubai. Our top ten is a selection of men - there are currently no women dictators - who combine a high level of personal power with repressive practices, ranging from press censorship to fixing elections and, in the case of Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema, allegedly cannibalising political opponents. There is plenty of kitsch excess - bouffant hairstyles, super-sized yachts and a fondness for khaki - and also plenty of suffering: despite a global fear of dictators running amok, the only people they tend to harm are their own.

Their misdemeanours, however, are often ignored. While North Korea's Kim Jong-il, possibly the world's cruellest autocrat, remains beyond the diplomatic pale, the west has long-standing marriages of convenience with undemocratic rulers such as Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Oil, money and information, as these leaders know, are enough to gloss over human-rights violations - even Turkmenistan's personality cult leader Saparmurat Niyazov has found European friends with the promise of cheap gas. But even without these sweeteners, the anti-dictator tide may be turning. With the results of democracy in both the Palestinian territories and Iraq proving increasingly unpalatable to western powers, "friendly" dictators can safely anticipate a welcome in from the political cold.

To read the nominated worst despots visit our dictators survey at www.newstatesman.com/dictators

The Western Favourite
Dictators: Islam's man of action
Ziauddin Sardar on Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan
www.newstatesman.com/200609040030

The Dictator on Europe's Doorstep
Dictators: Dreaming of the USSR
Andrey Kurkov on Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus
www.newstatesman.com/200609040031

The Religious Authority
Dictators: Reform and the mullahs
Ali M Ansari on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran
www.newstatesman.com/200609040032

The Nuclear Threat
Dictators: The depths of evil
Jasper Becker on Kim Jong-il of North Korea
www.newstatesman.com/200609040033

The Personality Cult Leader
Dictators: Central Asia's new idol
Lucy Ash on Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan
www.newstatesman.com/200609040034

The Mandarin
Dictators: Between the Party and the markets
Xiao Jia Gu on Hu Jintao of China
www.newstatesman.com/200609040035

The Oil Profiteer
Dictators: Africa's brutal secret
Hector Rodrigues on Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea
www.newstatesman.com/200609040036

The Absolute Monarch
Dictators: Oil, torture and the west
Damian Quinn on Abdullah Ibn Abdul Aziz al-Saud of Saudi Arabia
www.newstatesman.com/200609040037

The Modernising Sheik
Dictators: Meet the CEO, Dubai Inc
William Wallis on Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai
www.newstatesman.com/200609040038

The Last Latin Autocrat
Dictators: Goodbye to all that
Ben Davies on Alfredo Stroessner, former leader of Paraguay
www.newstatesman.com/200609040039

To read the nominated worst despots visit our dictators survey at www.newstatesman.com/dictators

Worst for freedom of speech
1 Kim Jong-il, North Korea
2 Isaias Afewerki, Eritrea
3 Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan
4 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran
5 Senior General Than Shwe, Burma
Source: Reporters Without Borders' press freedom index 2005

Most corrupt
1 Yoweri Museveni, Uganda
2 Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan
3 Hu Jintao, China
4 Raul/Fidel Castro, Cuba
=5 Laurent Gbagbo, Ivory Coast
=5 José Eduardo dos Santos, Angola
Source: Transparency International annual report 2004. This is not a list of the most personally corrupt dictators, but a list of how much each country's population perceives corruption in government

Largest armies (active troops)
1 China 2,255,000
2 North Korea 1,106,000
3 Pakistan 619,000
4 Iran 420,000
5 Burma 375,000
Sources: Centre for Strategic and International Studies and International Institute for Strategic Studies

Military spending as percentage of GDP
1 Eritrea - 17.7
2 North Korea - 12.5 (estimate)
3 Jordan - 11.4
4 Oman - 11.4
5 Qatar - 10
Source: CIA World Factbook. GDP figures for North Korea are estimates

Longest in power (in years):
1 Cuba: Fidel Castro - 47
2 Libya: Muammar al-Gaddafi - 37
3 Gabon: Omar Bongo - 31
4 Equatorial Guinea: Teodoro Obiang Nguema - 27
5 Angola: José Eduardo dos Santos - 27

research by Daniel Trilling and Karolin Schaps

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