How remittances-money sent by workers back to their home countries-support democratic expansion In the growing body of work on democracy, little attention has been paid to its links with migration. Migration and Democracy focuses on the effects of worker remittances-money sent by migrants back to their home countries-and how these resources shape political action in the Global South. Remittances are not only the largest source of foreign income in most autocratic countries, but also, in contrast to foreign aid or international investment, flow directly to citizens. As a result, they provide resources that make political opposition possible, and they decrease government dependency, undermining the patronage strategies underpinning authoritarianism. The authors discuss how international migration produces a decentralized flow of income that generally circumvents governments to reach citizens who act as democratizing agents. Documenting why dictatorships fall and how this process has changed in the last three decades, the authors show that remittances increase the likelihood of protest and reduce electoral support for authoritarian incumbents. Combining global macroanalysis with microdata and case studies of Senegal and Cambodia, Migration and Democracy demonstrates how remittances-and the movement of people from authoritarian nations to higher-income countries-foster democracy and its expansion.

This volume explores the effects of transitional justice measures on trust-building and democratization across twelve countries in Central and Eastern Europe and parts of the Former Soviet Union over the period 19892012. The author argues that transitional justice measures have a differentiated impact on political and social trust-building, supporting some aspects of political trust and undermining other aspects of social trust. Moreover, the structure, scope, timing, and implementation of transitional justice measures condition outcomes. More expansive and compulsory institutional change mechanisms register the largest effects, with limited and voluntary change mechanisms having a diminished effect, and more informal and largely symbolic measures having the most attenuated effect. These differentiated and conditional effects are also evident with respect to transition goals like supporting democratic consolidation and reducing corruption, since these goals respond differently to the mixtures of institutional and symbolic reforms found in transitional justice programs. The author develops an original transitional justice typology in order to test hypotheses linking trust-building and transitional justice across twelve cases in the post-communist region. The resulting new datasets allow for a quantitative examination of the relationship between different types of transitional justice programs and a range of possible state building and societal reconciliation goals, including political trust-building, social trust-building, democratization, the strengthening of civil society, the promotion of government effectiveness, and the reduction of corruption. Comparative case studies of four transitional justice programs-Hungary, Romania, Poland, and Bulgariadraw on field work, primary and historical documents, and interview materials to explicate trust-building dynamics, with particular attention to regime complicity challenges, historical memory issues, and communist legacies. Oxford Studies in Democratization is a series for scholars and students of comparative politics and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on the comparative study of the democratization process that accompanied the decline and termination of the cold war. The geographical focus of the series is primarily Latin America, the Caribbean, Southern and Eastern Europe, and relevant experiences in Africa and Asia. The series editor is Laurence Whitehead, Senior Research Fellow, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.

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.

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.

The victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 election left specialists of American politics perplexed and concerned about the future of US democracy. Because no populist leader had occupied the White House in 150 years, there were many questions about what to expect. Marshaling the long-standing expertise of leading specialists of populism elsewhere in the world, this book provides the first systematic, comparative analysis of the prospects for US democracy under Trump, considering the two regions - Europe and Latin America - that have had the most ample recent experiences with populist chief executives. Chapters analyze the conditions under which populism slides into illiberal or authoritarian rule and in so doing derive well-grounded insights and scenarios for the US case, as well as a more general cross-national framework. The book makes an original argument about the likely resilience of US democracy and its institutions.

Hitler's tyranny is still difficult to understand today. In this book, Ralf Georg Reuth examines ten aspects of this catastrophe. Among other things, he asks: Was anti-Semitism more pronounced in Germany than elsewhere? Was Versailles responsible for Hitler's rise, and why did the Germans follow a racial fanatic like him? How did his war differ from all others before it? The disturbing answers provide an overall picture that shows: Hitler was not just the consequence of German history, but the result of chance, deception, and seduction. This thought-provoking new study takes aim at several of the 'sacred cows' of Hitler scholarship from the past forty years. Reuth interrogates and challenges a range of orthodox views on such topics as how mainstream politicians facilitated Hitler's rise to power, the Fuhrer's infamous pact with Stalin, and the complicity of ordinary Germans in his genocidal tyranny. Eschewing a conventional chronological approach in favour of a forensic analysis of Adolf Hitler's mainsprings of action both as chancellor and military commander, Reuth portrays Hitler as the apotheosis of a specifically German strain of militarism and imperialism, shifting the focus firmly back on to the mindset and modus operandi of Hitler himself. The portrait that emerges is one of a murderous fantasist and political opportunist driven by an all-embracing ideology of racial superiority. Reuth's account courts controversy on a few points but offers a fascinating counterpoint to much recent scholarship.

The most secretive, repressive state in Africa is haemorrhaging its citizens. In some months as many Eritreans as Syrians arrive on European shores, yet the country is not convulsed by civil war. Young men and women risk all to escape. Many do not survive - their bones littering the Sahara; their bodies floating in the Mediterranean. Still they flee, to avoid permanent military service and a future without hope. As the United Nations reported: "Thousands of conscripts are subjected to forced labour that effectively abuses, exploits and enslaves them for years." Eritreans fought for their freedom from Ethiopia for thirty years, only to have their revered leader turn on his own people. Independent since 1993, the country has no constitution and no parliament. No budget has ever been published. Elections have never been held and opponents languish in jail. International organisations find it next to impossible to work in the country. Nor is it just a domestic issue. By supporting armed insurrection in neighbouring states it has destabilised the Horn of Africa. Eritrea is involved in the Yemeni civil war, while the regime backs rebel movements in Somalia, Ethiopia and Djibouti.This book tells the untold story of how this tiny nation became a world pariah.

This book uses the case studies of Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chavez in order to introduce the concept of revolutionary totalitarian personality, and to show that this type of personality is decisive in choosing a totalitarian regime-building project and in shaping the ensuing totalitarian process.

The term coup d'etat-French for stroke of the state-brings to mind coups staged by power-hungry generals who overthrow the existing regime, not to democratize, but to concentrate power in their own hands as dictators. We assume all coups look the same, smell the same, and present the same threats to democracy. It's a powerful, concise, and self-reinforcing idea. It's also wrong. In The Democratic Coup d'Etat, Ozan Varol advances a simple, yet controversial, argument: Sometimes, a democracy is established through a military coup. Covering events from the Athenian Navy's stance in 411 B.C. against a tyrannical home government, to coups in the American colonies that ousted corrupt British governors, to twentieth-century coups that toppled dictators and established democracy in countries as diverse as Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, and Colombia, the book takes the reader on a gripping journey. Connecting the dots between these neglected events, Varol weaves a balanced narrative that challenges everything we thought we knew about military coups. In so doing, he tackles several baffling questions: How can an event as undemocratic as a military coup lead to democracy? Why would imposing generals-armed with tanks and guns and all-voluntarily surrender power to civilian politicians? What distinguishes militaries that help build democracies from those that destroy them? Varol's arguments made headlines across the globe in major media outlets and were cited critically in a public speech by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Written for a general audience, this book will entertain, challenge, and provoke, but more importantly, serve as a reminder of the imperative to question the standard narratives about our world and engage with all ideas, no matter how controversial.

Ever since the shocking revelations of the fascist ties of Martin Heidegger and Paul de Man, postmodernism has been haunted by the specter of a compromised past. In this intellectual genealogy of the postmodern spirit, Richard Wolin shows that postmodernism's infatuation with fascism has been extensive and widespread. He questions postmodernism's claim to have inherited the mantle of the Left, suggesting instead that it has long been enamored with the opposite end of the political spectrum. Wolin reveals how, during in the 1930s, C. G. Jung, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Georges Bataille, and Maurice Blanchot were seduced by fascism's promise of political regeneration and how this misapprehension affected the intellectual core of their work. The result is a compelling and unsettling reinterpretation of the history of modern thought. In a new preface, Wolin revisits this illiberal intellectual lineage in light of the contemporary resurgence of political authoritarianism.

Populist Authoritarianism focuses on the Chinese Communist Party, which governs the world's largest population in a single-party authoritarian state. Wenfang Tang attempts to explain the seemingly contradictory trends of the increasing number of protests on the one hand, and the results of public opinion surveys that consistently show strong government support on the other hand. The book points to the continuity from the CCP's revolutionary experiences to its current governing style, even though China has changed in many ways on the surface in the post-Mao era. The book proposes a theoretical framework of Populist Authoritarianism with six key elements, including the Mass Line ideology, accumulation of social capital, public political activism and contentious politics, a government that is responsive to hype, weak political and civil institutions, and a high level of regime trust. These traits of Populist Authoritarianism are supported by empirical evidence drawn from multiple public opinion surveys conducted from 1987 to 2014. Although the CCP currently enjoys strong public support, such a system is inherently vulnerable due to its institutional deficiency. Public opinion can swing violently due to policy failure and the up and down of a leader or an elite faction. The drastic change of public opinion cannot be filtered through political institutions such as elections and the rule of law, creating system-wide political earthquakes.

From Richard Seymour, one of the UK's leading public intellectuals, comes a characteristic blend of forensic insight and analysis, personal journey, and a vivid respect for the natural world. A planetary fever-dream. An environmental awakening that is also a sleep-walking, unsteadily weaving between history, earth science, psychoanalysis, evolution, biology, art and politics. A search for transcendence, beyond the illusory eternal present. These essays chronicle the kindling of ecological consciousness in a confessed ignoramus. They track the first enchantment of the author, his striving to comprehend the coming catastrophe, and his attempt to formulate a new global sensibility in which we value anew what unconditionally matters.

Following Stalin's death in 1953, association football clubs, as well as the informal supporter groups and communities which developed around them, were an important way for the diverse citizens of the multinational Soviet Union to express, negotiate and develop their identities, both on individual and collective levels. Manfred Zeller draws on extensive original research in Russian and Ukrainian archives, as well as interviews with spectators, 'hardcore ultras' and hooligans from the Caucasus to Central Asia, to shed new light onto this phenomenon covering the period from the height of Stalin's terror (the 1930s) to the Soviet Union's collapse (1991). Across events as diverse as the Soviet Union's footballing triumph over the German world champions in 1955 and the Luzhniki stadium disaster in 1982, Zeller explores the ways in which people, against the backdrop of totalitarianism, articulated feelings of alienation and fostered a sense of community through sport. In the process, he provides a unique 'bottom-up' reappraisal of Soviet history, culture and politics, as seen through the eyes of supporters and spectators. This is an important contribution to research on Soviet culture after Stalin, the history of sport and contemporary debates on antagonism in the post-Soviet world.

As Hitler's dreams of a Thousand Year Reich crumbled in the face of overwhelming assaults from both East and West in the first months of 1945 the heavily out numbered German armed forces were still capable of fighting with a tenacity and professionalism at odds with the desperate circumstances. While Hitler fantasized about deploying divisions and armies that had long since ceased to exist, boys of fifteen, officer cadets, sailors and veterans of the Great War joined the survivors of shattered formations on the front line. Leading historian Tony Le Tissier gives a German perspective to the mayhem and bloodshed of the last months of the Second World War in Europe. Teenaged Flak auxiliaries recount their experiences alongside veteran Panzergrenadiers attempting to break out of Soviet encirclement. Struggles between the military, industry and the Nazi Party for influence over the defenders of Berlin contrast with a key participant's account of Goebbel's abortive attempt to conclude a cease-fire with the Soviets. This is fascinating reading for anybody interested in the ordinary soldier's experience of the culminating battles in central Europe in 1945.

In this ground-breaking work, Gerasimos Tsourapas examines how migration and political power are inextricably linked, and enhances our understanding of how authoritarian regimes rely on labour emigration across the Middle East and the Global South. Dr Tsourapas identifies how autocracies develop strategies to tie cross-border mobility to their own survival, highlighting domestic political struggles and the shifting regional and international landscape. In Egypt, the ruling elite has long shaped labour emigration policy in accordance with internal and external tactics aimed at regime survival. Dr Tsourapas draws on a wealth of previously-unavailable archival sources in Arabic and English, as well as extensive original interviews with Egyptian elites and policy-makers in order to produce a novel account of authoritarian politics in the Arab world. The book offers a new insight into the evolution and political rationale behind regime strategies towards migration, from Gamal Abdel Nasser's 1952 Revolution to the 2011 Arab Uprisings.

Robert Gellately challenges the belief that the German people knew little about the Nazi terror, and the tendency of historians to distance ordinary Germans from its excesses. He reveals for the first time the social consensus behind the regime and the extent to which German men and women were involved in the persecution of social outsiders and 'race enemies'.

In most non-democratic countries, today governing forty-four percent of the world population, the power of the regime rests upon a ruling party. Contrasting with conventional notions that authoritarian regime parties serve to contain elite conflict and manipulate electoral-legislative processes, this book presents the case of China and shows that rank and-file members of the Communist Party allow the state to penetrate local communities. Subnational comparative analysis demonstrates that in 'red areas' with high party saturation, the state is most effectively enforcing policy and collecting taxes. Because party membership patterns are extremely enduring, they must be explained by events prior to the Communist takeover in 1949. Frontlines during the anti-colonial Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) continue to shape China's political map even today. Newly available evidence from the Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) shows how a strong local party basis sustained the regime in times of existential crisis.

The revival of authoritarianism is one of the most important forces reshaping world politics today. However, not all authoritarians are the same. To examine both resurgence and variation in authoritarian rule, Karrie J. Koesel, Valerie J. Bunce, and Jessica Chen Weiss gather a leading cast of scholars to compare the most powerful autocracies in global politics today: Russia and China. The essays in Citizens and the State in Authoritarian Regimes focus on three issues that currently animate debates about these two countries and, more generally, authoritarian political systems. First, how do authoritarian regimes differ from one another, and how do these differences affect regime-society relations? Second, what do citizens think about the authoritarian governments that rule them, and what do they want from their governments? Third, what strategies do authoritarian leaders use to keep citizens and public officials in line and how successful are those strategies in sustaining both the regime and the leader's hold on power? Integrating the most important findings from a now-immense body of research into a coherent comparative analysis of Russia and China, this book will be essential for anyone studying the foundations of contemporary authoritarianism.

Although much of the world still lives today, as always, under dictatorship, the behavior of these regimes and of their leaders often appears irrational and mysterious. This book uses rational choice theory to understand dictators: How do "successful" dictatorships stay in power? What determines the repressiveness of a regime? How do their economies work? The book contains many applications, including chapters on Nazi Germany, Soviet Communism, South Africa under apartheid, and Pinochet's Chile. It also provides a guide to the policies that should be followed by the democracies towards dictatorships.

In From Media Systems to Media Cultures: Understanding Socialist Television, Sabina Mihelj and Simon Huxtable delve into the fascinating world of television under communism, using it to test a new framework for comparative media analysis. To understand the societal consequences of mass communication, the authors argue that we need to move beyond the analysis of media systems, and instead focus on the role of the media in shaping cultural ideals and narratives, everyday practices and routines. Drawing on a wealth of original data derived from archival sources, programme and schedule analysis, and oral history interviews, the authors show how communist authorities managed to harness the power of television to shape new habits and rituals, yet failed to inspire a deeper belief in communist ideals. This book and their analysis contains important implications for the understanding of mass communication in non-democratic settings, and provides tools for the analysis of media cultures globally.

With the removal of not only Saddam Hussein but also Jean-Betrand Aristide, as well as the ongoing civil war in against Charles Taylor in Liberia, much has changed in the world of dictators since the first publication of this work less than a year ago. With his colleagues in diplomacy and politics shying away from bold solutions to this ever-present problem, Ambassador Mark Palmer has once again set out to persuade everyone that the only way to achieve global peace is through the removal of dictators with democracy as their replacements. Drawing on his 25 years of extensive diplomatic experience, Ambassador Palmer asks us to embrace a bold vision of a world made safe by democracy. This is the story of the remaining dictators, the strategy and tactics to oust them, and the need to empower the people of every nation to control their own destinies. We know that these dictators are at the root of terrorism and war. Under their leadership and instruction, millions have gone to their deaths, a great many more have been forced to become refugees across the planet, and nations have been driven into poverty, famine, and despair. With all of this, Ambassador Palmer has led a passionate fight to end this Axis of Evil in the not too distant future. For if dictatorships are allowed to continue, the world will never be safe for democracy.

In 2015, Nigeria's voters cast out the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). Here, A. Carl LeVan traces the political vulnerability of Africa's largest party in the face of elite bargains that facilitated a democratic transition in 1999. These 'pacts' enabled electoral competition but ultimately undermined the party's coherence. LeVan also crucially examines the four critical barriers to Nigeria's democratic consolidation: the terrorism of Boko Haram in the northeast, threats of Igbo secession in the southeast, lingering ethnic resentments and rebellions in the Niger Delta, and farmer-pastoralist conflicts. While the PDP unsuccessfully stoked fears about the opposition's ability to stop Boko Haram's terrorism, the opposition built a winning electoral coalition on economic growth, anti-corruption, and electoral integrity. Drawing on extensive interviews with a number of politicians and generals and civilians and voters, he argues that electoral accountability is essential but insufficient for resolving the representational, distributional, and cultural components of these challenges.

For the last century, the Western world has regarded Turkey as a pivotal case of the 'clash of civilisations' between Islam and the West. Why Turkey is Authoritarian offers a radical challenge to this conventional narrative. Halil Karaveli highlights the danger in viewing events in Turkey as a war between a 'westernising' state and the popular masses defending their culture and religion, arguing instead for a class analysis that is largely ignored in the Turkish context. This book goes beyond cultural categories that overshadow more complex realities when thinking about the 'Muslim world', while highlighting the ways in which these cultural prejudices have informed ideological positions. Karaveli argues that Turkey's culture and identity have disabled the Left, which has largely been unable to transcend these divisions. This book asks the crucial question: why does democracy continue to elude Turkey? Ultimately, Karaveli argues that Turkish history is instructive for a left that faces the global challenge of a rising populist right, which succeeds in mobilising culture and identity to its own purposes. Published in partnership with the Left Book Club.

Between 1970 and 1975 Jon Swain, the English journalist portrayed in David Puttnam's film, The Killing Fields, lived in the lands of the Mekong river. This is his account of those years, and the way in which the tumultuous events affected his perceptions of life and death as Europe never could. He also describes the beauty of the Mekong landscape - the villages along its banks, surrounded by mangoes, bananas and coconuts, and the exquisite women, the odours of opium, and the region's other face - that of violence and corruption.

Almost three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, today more often than ever, global media and intellectuals rely on the concept of homo sovieticus to explain Russia's authoritarian ills. Homo sovieticus - or the Soviet man - is understood to be a double-thinking, suspicious and fearful conformist with no morality, an innate obedience to authority and no public demands; they have been forged in the fires of the totalitarian conditions in which they find themselves. But where did this concept come from? What analytical and ideological pillars does it stand on? What is at stake in using this term today? The Afterlife of the 'Soviet Man' addresses all these questions and even explains why - at least in its contemporary usage - this concept should be abandoned altogether.