Description

Revolution and Dictatorship explores why dictatorships born of social revolutionsuch as those in China Cuba Iran the Soviet Union and Vietnamare extraordinarily durable even in the face of economic crisis largescale 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 statebuilding 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 and landowners and helps to inoculate revolutionary regimes against elite defection military coups and mass protestprincipal sources of authoritarian breakdown