Comment by z2
I feel there's probably a formal academic topology for this, but it seems on one end you have party-dominant or single party authoritarianism (Singapore arguably) and on the other end you have cult of personality style. The former is often more stable and functional than the latter, but neither guarantees optimal decisions. And some regimes like North Korea give you the downsides of both!
Authoritarianism isn’t the absence of democracy imo. On some dimensions (e.g. voter suppression) you could even argue that Singapore’s elections are more fair than in the US.