Ideocracies, or ideological dictatorships, such as the "Third Reich", the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China have, much more than any other kinds of autocracy, characterized the history of the 20th century. Despite their undeniable loss of significance, ideocracies have not disappeared from the world in the 21st century. This book explores the functioning of ideocracies and analyses the typical interplay of legitimation, co-optation and repression which autocratic elites use in an attempt to stabilize their rule. In the first part of the book, the contributors discuss the conceptual history of the ideocracy notion. The second part offers case studies pertaining to the Soviet State, Italy, the National Socialist Regime, the German Democratic Republic, the People’s Republic of China, North Korea and Cuba. Finally, the third part compares various ideocracies and draws together key themes. Uniting the perspectives of history, philosophy and political science through the use of case studies and systematic comparisons, this book offers a unique examination of ideocracies both past and present which will be of interest to students and scholars researching political regimes, political history and comparative politics, as well as other disciplines.
Author(s): Uwe Backes, Steffen Kailitz
Series: Routledge Studies In Extremism And Democracy
Edition: 1
Publisher: Routledge | Taylor & Francis Group
Year: 2016
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 419
Tags: Totalitarianism; Authoritarianism; Legitimacy Of Governments; Political Persecution; Comparative Government
Cover
Half title
Series title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of tables
Notes on contributors
List of abbreviations
Introduction
Part I | Ideocracy: Term and concept
1 | “Ideocracy”: A sketch of the history of a concept
2 | Ideocracy, or the birth of violence out of detrivialized morale
3 | Ideological self-limitation in ideocracies
4 | Legitimation, co-optation, and repression in ideocracies: A rational choice perspective
5 | Do ideocracies constitute a distinct subtype of autocratic regimes?
Part II | Ideocratic regimes in history and the present day
6 | Legitimation and repression in the Soviet state (1917–91)
7 | Legitimation, co-optation, and repression in Fascist Italy
8 | Legitimation, co-optation, and repression in the National Socialist regime
9 | Legitimation, repression, and co-optation in the German Democratic Republic
10 | Fine-tuning legitimation, co-optation, and repression in the People’s Republic of China
11 | Ideocratic legitimation in North Korea: Its history and challenges
12 | Political rule in revolutionary Cuba between legitimation, co-optation, and repression
Part III | Ideocracies in comparison
13 | The legitimizing role of palingenetic myth in ideocracies
14 | Legitimation through performance? Output legitimacy in autocratic regimes
15 | Characteristics of the integration of elites and citizens in ideocracies
16 | National Socialist and Communist violence compared: A contribution to the research on repression and oppression in ideocracies
17 | Results
Index
