Week 4 Flashcards
What defines an authoritarian regime? (Linz)
- Limited pluralism
- Absence of an elaborate ideology used to guide regime
- Absence of political mobilization
Characteristics of a totalitarian regime
- Ambition to CHANGE HUMANS
- Totalitarian organization of all aspects
- Ideological indoctrination through organizations THOUGHT CONTROL
- Personality cult
What distinguishes the Brzezinski regime from older autocracies?
- Totalitarian ideology
- Single party committed to regime usually led by one man
- Fully developed secret police and the three kinds of monopolies
What are the three Brzezinski monopolies?
- Mass communication
- Operational weapons
- All organizations, including economic ones
François Furet on totalitarian regimes
Individuals deprived of political ties and subjected to the total power of an ideological party and its leader
What are the main differences among autocracies?
PluRiLeadLegTeSu
- Extent of pluralism
- Civil rights and rule of law
- Nature, homogeneity, and discretion of leadership
- Legitimization principle (tradition, religion, ideology, etc)
- Use of repression/terror or clientelism
- Popular support and mobilization
Why does authoritarian regimes keep institutions? (Gandhi)
- Information gathering
- Co-optation of critical sections of society
- Credible commitment to the interest of asset-holders (e.g. protect investments)
- Signaling
- Conflict resolution
- Turn de facto power into de cure power
- Dispersed responsibility
How to know who is threatening a dictator?
- A subset of society which actually support its authority
- Society as a whole -> can have mobilization
Three (Weberian) ways of legitimizing power
- Tradition
- Charisma
- Bureaucracy and reason
Legitimacy for authoritarian regimes
- Leaders NEED IT Legitimization and subordination OR Repression and terror OR Redistribution and clientelism
Do authoritarian regimes lead to less redistribution, fewer public goods, and depress economic growth?
- Weaker enforcement of property rights
- Dictators as rent-maximizers
- “stationary bandit”
“Stationary bandit”
Whenever a self-interested actor with coercive power has a stable interest, is led to act in ways consistent with society’s interest
Huntington’s definition of revolution
Rapid, fundamental, and violent domestic change in dominant values and myths of a society (with its institutions and various parties)
Acemoglu on revolutions
Change on institutions to ensure future conditions
Class conflict as reason for revolution (approaches)
- Depending on type of land property and capital distribution
- (Skocpol) International uneven spread of capitalist economic development
- Multi-class or religious coalition (failure of US-backed dictatorships)
