Revolution and Dictatorship

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Why the world’s most resilient dictatorships are products of violent revolutionRevolution and Dictatorship explores why dictatorships born of social revolution—such as those in China, Cuba, Iran, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam—are extraordinarily durable, even in the face of economic crisis, large-scale policy failure, mass discontent, and intense external pressure. Few other modern autocracies have survived in the face of such extreme challenges. Drawing on comparative historical analysis, Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way argue that radical efforts to transform the social and geopolitical order trigger intense counterrevolutionary conflict, which initially threatens regime survival, but ultimately fosters the unity and state-building that supports authoritarianism.
Although most revolutionary governments begin weak, they challenge powerful domestic and foreign actors, often bringing about civil or external wars. These counterrevolutionary wars pose a threat that can destroy new regimes, as in the cases of Afghanistan and Cambodia. Among regimes that survive, however, prolonged conflicts give rise to a cohesive ruling elite and a powerful and loyal coercive apparatus. This leads to the downfall of rival organizations and alternative centers of power, such as armies, churches, monarchies, and landowners, and helps to inoculate revolutionary regimes against elite defection, military coups, and mass protest—three principal sources of authoritarian breakdown.
Looking at a range of revolutionary and nonrevolutionary regimes from across the globe, Revolution and Dictatorship shows why governments that emerge from violent conflict endure.

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Steven Levitsky is the David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies, professor of government, and director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. His books include How Democracies Die and Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America. Lucan Way is professor of political science at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Pluralism by Default. Levitsky and Way are the coauthors of Competitive Authoritarianism.

“Levitsky and Way have done it again! In Revolution and Dictatorship, they give us a clear, logical, and analytically sophisticated argument about the durability of postrevolution regimes. They assess this argument through fascinating historical narratives of many of the most important political events in modern world history. I couldn’t stop reading this exciting book.”—James Mahoney, Northwestern University

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