anarchy

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun Absence of any form of political authority.
• noun Political disorder and confusion.
• noun Absence of any cohesive principle, such as a common standard or purpose.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun Absence or insufficiency of government; a state of society in which there is no capable supreme power, and in which the several functions of the state are performed badly or not at all; social and political confusion.
• noun Specifically A social theory which regards the union of order with the absence of all direct government of man by man as the political ideal; absolute individual liberty.
• noun Confusion in general.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun Absence of government; the state of society where there is no law or supreme power; a state of lawlessness; political confusion.
• noun Hence, confusion or disorder, in general.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun uncountable The state of a society being without authorities or a governing body.
• noun uncountable Anarchism; the political theory that a community is best organized by the voluntary cooperation of individuals, rather than by a government, which is regarded as being coercive by nature.
• noun countable A chaotic and confusing absence of any form of political authority or government.
• noun Confusion in general; disorder.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a state of lawlessness and disorder (usually resulting from a failure of government)