This book presents a new theory for why political regimes emerge, and why they subsequently survive or break down. It then analyzes the emergence, survival and fall of democracies and dictatorships in Latin America since 1900. Scott Mainwaring and Anibal Perez-Linan argue for a theoretical approach situated between long-term structural and cultural explanations and short-term explanations that look at the decisions of specific leaders. They focus on the political preferences of powerful actors - the degree to which they embrace democracy as an intrinsically desirable end and their policy radicalism - to explain regime outcomes. They also demonstrate that transnational forces and influences are crucial to understand regional waves of democratization. Based on extensive research into the political histories of all twenty Latin American countries, this book offers the first extended analysis of regime emergence, survival and failure for all of Latin America over a long period of time.

This volume brings together a distinguished group of scholars working to address the puzzling durability of communist autocracies in Eastern Europe and Asia, which are the longest-lasting type of non-democratic regime to emerge after World War I. The volume conceptualizes the communist universe as consisting of the ten regimes in Eastern Europe and Mongolia that eventually collapsed in 1989-91, and the five regimes that survived the fall of the Berlin Wall: China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea and Cuba. The essays offer a theoretical argument that emphasizes the importance of institutional adaptations as a foundation of communist resilience. In particular, the contributors focus on four adaptations: of the economy, of ideology, of the mechanisms for inclusion of potential rivals, and of the institutions of vertical and horizontal accountability. The volume argues that when regimes are no longer able to implement adaptive change, contingent leadership choices and contagion dynamics make collapse more likely.

This volume brings together a distinguished group of scholars working to address the puzzling durability of communist autocracies in Eastern Europe and Asia, which are the longest-lasting type of non-democratic regime to emerge after World War I. The volume conceptualizes the communist universe as consisting of the ten regimes in Eastern Europe and Mongolia that eventually collapsed in 1989-91, and the five regimes that survived the fall of the Berlin Wall: China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea and Cuba. The essays offer a theoretical argument that emphasizes the importance of institutional adaptations as a foundation of communist resilience. In particular, the contributors focus on four adaptations: of the economy, of ideology, of the mechanisms for inclusion of potential rivals, and of the institutions of vertical and horizontal accountability. The volume argues that when regimes are no longer able to implement adaptive change, contingent leadership choices and contagion dynamics make collapse more likely.

This is the first comprehensive exploration of ancient and modern tyranny in the history of political thought. Waller R. Newell argues that modern tyranny and statecraft differ fundamentally from the classical understanding. Newell demonstrates a historical shift in emphasis from the classical thinkers' stress on the virtuous character of rulers and the need for civic education to the modern emphasis on impersonal institutions and cold-blooded political method. By diagnosing the varieties of tyranny from erotic voluptuaries like Nero, the steely determination of reforming conquerors like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar and modernizing despots such as Napoleon and Ataturk to the collectivist revolutions of the Jacobins, Bolsheviks, Nazis and Khmer Rouge, Newell shows how tyranny is every bit as dangerous to free democratic societies today as it was in the past.

Scholar and journalist Kim Hakjoon's latest book on North Korea is a timely analysis of the rise of the Kim Il Sung family dynasty and the politics of leadership succession in Pyongyang. It includes coverage of the death of Kim Jong Il and the advent of his young son Kim Jong Eun as the new supreme leader.

Drawing on official North Korean statements and leaked confidential documents, journalistic accounts, defector reports, and the observations of foreigners, the book synthesizes virtually all that is known about the history of the secretive family and how it operates within a bizarre governing system. Particularly valuable for a Western audience is the author's extensive use of South Korean studies of the Kim family, many of which have never been translated into English. "Dynasty" is insightful reading for officials, journalists, scholars, and students interested in the Korean Peninsula and its prospects.

Visualizing Fascism argues that fascism was not merely a domestic menace in a few European nations, but arose as a genuinely global phenomenon in the early twentieth century. Contributors use visual materials to explore fascism's populist appeal in settings around the world, including China, Japan, South Africa, Slovakia, and Spain. This visual strategy allows readers to see the transnational rise of the right as it fed off the agitated energies of modernity and mobilized shared political and aesthetic tropes. This volume also considers the postwar aftermath as antifascist art forms were depoliticized and repurposed in the West. More commonly, analyses of fascism focus on Italy and Germany alone and on institutions like fascist parties, but that approach truncates our understanding of the way fascism was indebted to colonialism and internationalism with all their attendant grievances and aspirations. Using photography, graphic arts, architecture, monuments, and film-rather than written documents alone-produces a portable concept of fascism, useful for grappling with the upsurge of the global right a century ago-and today. Contributors. Nadya Bair, Paul D. Barclay, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Maggie Clinton, Geoff Eley, Lutz Koepnick, Ethan Mark, Bertrand Metton, Lorena Rizzo, Julia Adeney Thomas, Claire Zimmerman

For decades scholars have pored over Hitler's autobiographical journey/political treatise, debating if Mein Kampf has genocidal overtones and arguably led to the Holocaust. For the first time, Hitler's Mein Kampf and the Holocaust sees celebrated international scholars analyse the book from various angles to demonstrate how it laid the groundwork for the Shoah through Hitler's venomous attack on the Jews in his text. Split into three main sections which focus on 'contexts', 'eugenics' and 'religion', the book reflects carefully on the point at which the Fuhrer's actions and policies turn genocidal during the Third Reich and whether Mein Kampf presaged Nazi Germany's descent into genocide. There are contributions from leading academics from across the United States and Germany, including Magnus Brechtken, Susannah Heschel and Nathan Stoltzfus, along with totally new insights into the source material in light of the 2016 German critical edition of Mein Kampf. Hitler's views on Marxism, violence, and leadership, as well as his anti-Semitic rhetoric are examined in detail as you are taken down the disturbing path from a hateful book to the Holocaust.

European Dictatorships 1918-1945 surveys the extraordinary circumstances leading to, and arising from, the transformation of over half of Europe's states to dictatorships between the first and the second world wars. From the notorious dictatorships of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin to less well-known states and leaders, Stephen J. Lee scrutinizes the experiences of Russia, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Central and Eastern European states. This fourth edition has been fully revised and updated throughout. New material for this edition includes: the most recent research on individual dictatorships a new chapter on the experiences of Europe's democracies at the hands of Germany, Italy and Russia an expanded chapter on Spain a new section on dictatorships beyond Europe, exploring the European and indigenous roots of dictatorships in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Extensively illustrated with images, maps, tables and a comparative timeline, and supported by a companion website providing further resources for study (www.routledge.com/cw/lee), European Dictatorships 1918-1945 is a clear, detailed and highly accessible analysis of the tumultuous events of early twentieth-century Europe.

Based on a detailed study of 35 cases in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and post-communist Eurasia, this book explores the fate of competitive authoritarian regimes between 1990 and 2008. It finds that where social, economic, and technocratic ties to the West were extensive, as in Eastern Europe and the Americas, the external cost of abuse led incumbents to cede power rather than crack down, which led to democratization. Where ties to the West were limited, external democratizing pressure was weaker and countries rarely democratized. In these cases, regime outcomes hinged on the character of state and ruling party organizations. Where incumbents possessed developed and cohesive coercive party structures, they could thwart opposition challenges, and competitive authoritarian regimes survived; where incumbents lacked such organizational tools, regimes were unstable but rarely democratized.

Often dismissed as window dressing, nominally democratic institutions, such as legislatures and political parties, play an important role in non-democratic regimes. In a comprehensive cross-national study of all non-democratic states from 1946 to 2002 that examines the political uses of these institutions by dictators, Jennifer Gandhi finds that legislative and partisan institutions are an important component in the operation and survival of authoritarian regimes. She examines how and why these institutions are useful to dictatorships in maintaining power. In their efforts to neutralize threats to their power and to solicit cooperation from society, autocratic leaders use these institutions to organize concessions to potential opposition. The use of legislatures and parties to co-opt opposition results in significant institutional effects on policies and outcomes under dictatorship.

What does the head of the Kremlin think about? What are his hopes and aims for the lands bordering Russia, for Europe, and even the world? In January 2014, the Kremlin sent its senior civil servants, governors and party bigwigs a special New Year's present: philosophy books, by 19th and 20th century Russian thinkers. This reading list is not optional: the president himself has cited these authors in landmark speeches, and they need to understand what he means. The most persistent of the bunch will find these great works strangely familiar, full of the national leader's role in an 'authentic' democracy, the importance of being conservative, the urgency of rooting morality in religion, and the historic struggle of the Russian people against the timeless hostility of the West. President Putin is the man who manages and manipulates these existential anxieties. And since the annexation of Crimea, the need to decrypt his vision for the nation-propelled by the Kremlin's Eurasian neo-imperialists and prophets of `Russian-way' conservatism-has become more pressing than ever. In this revealing and engrossing book, Michel Eltchaninoff invites us inside the psyche of the Russian president for a better understanding of his doctrine and geopolitical vision. He offers answers to an urgent question for our 21st century world: what is Vladimir Putin thinking?

Often dismissed as window-dressing, nominally democratic institutions, such as legislatures and political parties, play an important role in non-democratic regimes. In a comprehensive cross-national study of all non-democratic states from 1946 to 2002 that examines the political uses of these institutions by dictators, Gandhi finds that legislative and partisan institutions are an important component in the operation and survival of authoritarian regimes. She examines how and why these institutions are useful to dictatorships in maintaining power, analyzing the way dictators utilize institutions as a forum in which to organize political concessions to potential opposition in an effort to neutralize threats to their power and to solicit cooperation from groups outside of the ruling elite. The use of legislatures and parties to co-opt opposition results in significant institutional effects on policies and outcomes under dictatorship.

A groundbreaking history of Europe's "new lefts," from the antifascist 1920s to the anti-establishment 1960s In the 1960s, the radical youth of Western Europe's New Left rebelled against the democratic welfare state and their parents' antiquated politics of reform. It was not the first time an upstart leftist movement was built on the ruins of the old. This book traces the history of neoleftism from its antifascist roots in the first half of the twentieth century, to its postwar reconstruction in the 1950s, to its explosive reinvention by the 1960s counterculture. Terence Renaud demonstrates why the left in Europe underwent a series of internal revolts against the organizational forms of established parties and unions. He describes how small groups of militant youth such as New Beginning in Germany tried to sustain grassroots movements without reproducing the bureaucratic, hierarchical, and supposedly obsolete structures of Social Democracy and Communism. Neoleftist militants experimented with alternative modes of organization such as councils, assemblies, and action committees. However, Renaud reveals that these same militants, decades later, often came to defend the very institutions they had opposed in their youth. Providing vital historical perspective on the challenges confronting leftists today, this book tells the story of generations of antifascists, left socialists, and anti-authoritarians who tried to build radical democratic alternatives to capitalism and kindle hope in reactionary times.

Dissonant Lives is not a standard 'history of Germany' in the twentieth century, or even of the German dictatorships. It is concerned with the ways in which Germans of different ages and life stages lived through the violent eruptions of the two world wars, and through the dictatorships of Nazism and then Communism that succeeded them. Mary Fulbrook explores the experiences and perceptions of selected individuals, analysing the ways in which major historical events, and changing structures of constraint and opportunity, affected the course of their lives and their outlooks.
How did those who lived through this terrible period in German history interpret, confront, and respond to the multiple challenges of their times? How were they affected by the major economic, social, and political crises they lived through? How did living through Germany's 'second dictatorship', the German Democratic Republic, dominated by the communist power against whom the Germans had fought, affect behaviour patterns and social identities? And what implications did these experiences have for interpretations of the Nazi past?
Dissonant Lives explores these important questions, seeking to view the dictatorial regimes of twentieth-century Germany 'from within'. Taking a deeper look at the life stories of individual Germans from a range of periods and backgrounds, it provides a new understanding of the ways in which not only the character of the German state, economy, and social structure changed over the century, but also the very character of people themselves.

This book develops a framework for analyzing the creation and consolidation of democracy. Different social groups prefer different political institutions because of the way they allocate political power and resources. Thus democracy is preferred by the majority of citizens, but opposed by elites. Dictatorship nevertheless is not stable when citizens can threaten social disorder and revolution. In response, when the costs of repression are sufficiently high and promises of concessions are not credible, elites may be forced to create democracy. By democratizing, elites credibly transfer political power to the citizens, ensuring social stability. Democracy consolidates when elites do not have strong incentive to overthrow it. These processes depend on (1) the strength of civil society, (2) the structure of political institutions, (3) the nature of political and economic crises, (4) the level of economic inequality, (5) the structure of the economy, and (6) the form and extent of globalization.

Bringing together the work of historians and political theorists to examine the complex relationships among nineteenth century democracy, nationalism, and authoritarianism, this study pays special attention to the careers of Napoleon I and III, and of Bismarck. An important contribution is consideration of not only the momentous episodes of coup d'etat, revolution, and imperial foundation which the Napoleonic era heralded, but also the contested political language with which these events were described and assessed. Political thinkers were faced with a battery of new terms--"Bonapartism," "Caesarism," and "Imperialism" etc...--with which to define their era.

Since the end of Suharto's long authoritarian rule in 1998, there has been a dramatic increase in the rise of ethnic and religious conflict in Indonesia. Jacques Bertrand argues that these conflicts were the result of the constraints imposed by Suharto's regime, which left the country unprepared for political and social change. Consequently, the very definition of the Indonesian nation and what it means to be Indonesian has come under scrutiny. The book is a major contribution to the understanding of religious and ethnic conflict in a complex and often misunderstood arena.

Spanish Fascist Writing presents the first collection of Spanish fascist texts in English translation and offers an intellectual and political history of fascist writing in Spain, a history that resituates the country within the larger unfolding of right-wing extremism worldwide from the early twentieth century to the present. The manifestos, newspaper articles, essays, letters, and pieces of prose fiction gathered in this volume demonstrate why the Spanish case proves essential to a comprehensive understanding of fascism in general. These Spanish fascist texts also highlight the need for comparative analysis in order to better grasp the transnational character of fascism, fascism's profound roots in colonialism, fascism's multiple temporalities, and the rise in recent years of right-wing extremism throughout the world. In short, Spanish Fascist Writing takes Spain from the margins to the forefront of fascist studies.

It is widely believed that autocratic regimes cannot limit their power through institutions of their own making. This book presents a surprising challenge to this view. It demonstrates that the Chilean armed forces were constrained by institutions of their own design. Based on extensive documentation of military decision-making, much of it long classified and unavailable, this book reconstructs the politics of institutions within the recent Chilean dictatorship (1973-1990).

Spain Transformed addresses the sweeping social and cultural changes that characterized the late Franco regime. This wide-ranging collection reassesses the dictatorship's latter years by drawing on a wealth of new material and ideas, using an interdisciplinary approach.

The gripping story of an explosive turning point in the history of modern India On the night of June 25, 1975, Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in India, suspending constitutional rights and rounding up her political opponents in midnight raids across the country. In the twenty-one harrowing months that followed, her regime unleashed a brutal campaign of coercion and intimidation, arresting and torturing people by the tens of thousands, razing slums, and imposing compulsory sterilization on the poor. Emergency Chronicles provides the first comprehensive account of this understudied episode in India's modern history. Gyan Prakash strips away the comfortable myth that the Emergency was an isolated event brought on solely by Gandhi's desire to cling to power, arguing that it was as much the product of Indian democracy's troubled relationship with popular politics. Drawing on archival records, private papers and letters, published sources, film and literary materials, and interviews with victims and perpetrators, Prakash traces the Emergency's origins to the moment of India's independence in 1947, revealing how the unfulfilled promise of democratic transformation upset the fine balance between state power and civil rights. He vividly depicts the unfolding of a political crisis that culminated in widespread popular unrest, which Gandhi sought to crush by paradoxically using the law to suspend lawful rights. Her failure to preserve the existing political order had lasting and unforeseen repercussions, opening the door for caste politics and Hindu nationalism. Placing the Emergency within the broader global history of democracy, this gripping book offers invaluable lessons for us today as the world once again confronts the dangers of rising authoritarianism and populist nationalism.

Although much of the world still lives today, as always, under dictatorship, the behaviour of these regimes and of their leaders often appears irrational and mysterious. In The Political Economy of Dictatorship, Ronald Wintrobe uses rational choice theory to model dictatorships: their strategies for accumulating power, the constraints on their behavior, and why they are often more popular than is commonly accepted. The book explores both the politics and the economics of dictatorships, and the interaction between them. The questions addressed include: What determines the repressiveness of a regime? Can political authoritarianism be 'good' for the economy? After the fall, who should be held responsible for crimes against human rights? The book contains many applications, including chapters on Nazi Germany, Soviet Communism, South Africa under apartheid, the ancient Roman Empire and Pinochet's Chile. It also provides a guide to the policies which should be followed by the democracies towards dictatorships.

In this distinctive new history of the origins of the Spanish Civil War, James Simpson and Juan Carmona tackle the highly-debated issue of why it was that Spain's democratic Second Republic failed. They explore the interconnections between economic growth, state capacity, rural social mobility and the creation of mass competitive political parties, and how these limited the effectiveness of the new republican governments, and especially their attempts to tackle economic and social problems within the agricultural sector. They show how political change during the Republic had a major economic impact on the different groups in village society, leading to social conflicts that turned to polarization and finally, with the civil war, to violence and brutality. The democratic Republic failed not so much because of the opposition from the landed elites, but rather because small farmers had been unable to exploit more effectively their newly found political voice.

Understanding Europe's past became an urgent matter with the events of August 1991 in Moscow, in the former Soviet Union. The invasion of Moscow's streets by Russian people rejecting an attempted coup d'etat was the culmination of a process that had been initiated years before and raised crucial questions: To what extent can these events be considered the end of an era stretching from World War I to the 1980s, when Europe experienced many forms of dictatorship? To what extent can the various forms of dictatorship Europe experienced in the twentieth century be grouped together? Can any sort of affinity be established between them?
The new introduction to the paperback edition of this volume in the Memory and Narrative series, Leydesdorff and Crownshaw underline the fundamental importance of the struggle for memory and its meaning. "Memory and Totalitarianism" explores the remembered experiences of individuals living under different totalitarian regimes, and examines the construction of memory in the aftermath of those regimes' collapse. It attempts to situate the findings of oral history in the context of contemporary memory. It wrestles with the most painful memories that Europeans have of this century at the end of the Cold War. These memories compare with oral history's research into such experiences as racist attitudes against blacks in the South, or the cultural and psychological effects of apartheid in South Africa, or the Aborigines' claim to their own history and to a new idea of history in Australia.
Totalitarianisms are products of the twentieth century that go far beyond earlier manifestations of absolutism and autocracy in their effort to completely control political, social, and intellectual life. They were made possible by modern industrialism and technology. Therefore the theme of the book expands to include many other experiences that relate to totalitarian mentalities.
Luisa Passerini is professor of cultural history at the University of Torino and external professor at the European University Institute, Florence. Her present trends of research are: European identity; the historical relationships between the discourse on Europe and the discourse on love; gender and generation as historical categories; memory and subjectivity. Among her recent publications are "Europe in Love, Love in Europe: Imagination and Politics Between the Wars Il mito d'Europa. Radici antiche per nuovi simboli."
Selma Leydesdorff is professor of oral history at the University of Amsterdam. Her publications include "We Lived with Dignity" and (with Kim Lacy Rogers) "Trauma: Life Stories of Survivors."
Richard Crownshaw is a lecturer in the Department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University (UK), where his teaching includes 19th- and 20th-century American literature and representations of the Holocaust. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London.

An internationally distinguished team of historians of Nazism and Stalinism provide a summary of the most up-to-date research and offer new perspectives on issues linking the two most terrible dictatorships of modernity. Three selected themes are explored: the leadership cults of Hitler and Stalin; the "war machines" engaged in the deadly clash of 1941 to 1945; and the ways in which interpretations of the past have shifted in Germany and Russia since the demise of the dictatorships.