Öncelikle, kendisince kaleme alınan köşe yazıları dışında, sözlükler ve internet siteleri gibi Türkçe kaynaklarda politokrat atfı ya da kavramın tanımı olmaması nedeniyle herhalde kimse yanlışını ortaya çıkarmamış.
Uluslararası politika bilimi literatüründe politokrasi kavramı, Mehmet Barlas’ın iddia ettiği anlamıyla kabul edilmiş ya da yer almış değil.
Mehmet Barlas, “politokrasi”nin “politikacı” ve “teknokrat” kavramlarının birliğinden doğduğunu iddia etmiş; ancak, “teknokrat”ın politokrasi kelimesi içinde bir yeri yoktur.
Politokrası, ingilizce yazılışı ile politocracy, monarşi, aristokrasi ve demokrasi gibi bir rejim türüdür. “krasi” eki demokrasi kelimesindekine benzer şekilde yönetim iktidar anlamı taşır. Demokrasi halkın iktidarı anlamına geldiği gibi politokrasi de politik elit sınıfın (kendi menfaati için) yönetimini işaret eder. Aristokrasi de aristokrat sınıfın yönetimini tarif ederse politokrasi de politik elit sınıfın yönetimini ifade eder.
Politokrasi ise Mehmet Barlas’ın iddia ettiği gibi teknokratların politikacılığı ya da politikacıların teknokratlığını kastetmez.
Politokrasi, demokraside halkın ön plana çıkmasının aksine, halk yerine politik partinin ön plana çıktığı sistemi tanımlar. Teknokrasi (technocracy) ise teknokratların yönetimini belirtir.
Konuya ilişkin İngilizce kaynaklardan bazı atıflar:
"a legal-political order which in fact embodies true democracy"
"politocracy defines a comprehensive politico-constitutional order: multispherical government by the citizens (politai) of every political community over the specific res publica - the commonwealth - of the relevant community."
"The concept of politocracy has been derived from the Classic Greek concept of polis - the city state."
A POLITOCRACY is a political form of government that emerges in multi-party systems where the politicians work for the party, not the electorate, the raison d’etre of such a system is to get the party elected by using more scientific methods to win elections. Typically there is a convergence towards the mid-point of the political spectrum, hence little difference in policy between the main parties. The political class become self-serving thus divorced from objective governance.
An article in Praxis International (a Marxist humanist journal) in 1989 by Bogdan Denitch (an expert in the political sociology of the former Yugoslavia) says, “I think the best way to describe these systems is as politocracies, that is systems in which the political elites, ruling through the single communist party, control the state and the economy and through those the society.”
An article in The Spectator in 1997 talks of the politocracy as “a new social class which puts conviviality above confrontation, sociability before socialism”. Alice Miles here was talking of Labour and Conservative activists who basically shared the same interests and thus were able to socialise together despite being in opposing camps.
Greek Reporter adlı internet sitesindeki bir haberden:
This phenomenon is commonly known as Politocracy or Kommatokratia in Greek. It means that a new political elite class has evolved out of the old school, whose loyalty is to their own political party and every action taken is in the best interest for the Komma (Party) and not necessarily for the people
The communist system created a “politocracy,” as power was the main instrument of allocating social rewards and political office was closely intertwined with social status, generating what Andrew Janos called a “modern version of the old tables of rank.”
Instead of rule by a few vs. rule by all, we have “rule by some politicians” or “polito-cracy” as the outcome. These newly empowered representatives inevitably form an elite institutionally separate from the electorate that has chosen them competitively or the selectorate that has chosen them for their reputation.
