necrocracy

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 […]

Other activities became increasingly pressing, the Fellowship was flourishing and had plenty of younger members ready and able to take over from their elders; and I have seen too many cases of vigorous organisations gradually turning into gerontocracies and finally into necrocracies to wish ever to hold on to power myself.

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 dead president. What would be the right term for this? A necrocracy? A thanatocracy? A mortocracy? A mausolocracy?

The last king of Wanga Mukulu, Nabongo Rapando Lutomia, died in 1936; and the kingdom remained a necrocracy for seventy-three years until 2009 when his son, Prince Japheth William Wambani Rapando (1921–2012), was formally crowned nabongo.

A government ruled by the undead.