Elites Crises And The Origins Of Regimes

Most political regimes, whether authoritarian or democratic, are born in abrupt, brutal, and momentous crises. In this volume, a group of prominent scholars explores how these seminal events affect elites and shape regimes. Combining theoretical and case study chapters, the authors draw from a wide range of historical and contemporary examples to challenge mainstream developmental explanations of political change, which emphasize incremental changes and evolutions stretching over generations.

This provocative and groundbreaking book challenges accepted wisdom about the role of elites in both maintaining and undermining democracy in an increasingly authoritarian world. John Higley traces patterns of elite political behavior and the political orientations of non-elite populations throughout modern history to show what is and is not possible in contemporary politics. He situates these patterns and orientations in a range of regimes, showing how they have played out in revolutions, populist nationalism, Arab Spring failures to democratize, the conflation of ultimate and instrumental values in today’s liberal democracies, and American political thinkers’ misguided assumption that non-elites are the principal determinants of politics. Critiquing the optimistic outlooks prevalent among educated Westerners, Higley considers them out of touch with reality because of spreading employment insecurity, demoralization, and millennial pursuits in their societies. Attacks by domestic and foreign terrorists, effects of climate change, mass migrations from countries outside the West, and disease pandemics exacerbate insecurity and further highlight the flaws in the belief that democracy can thrive and spread worldwide. Higley concludes that these threats to the well-being of Western societies are here to stay. They leave elites with no realistic alternative to a holding operation until at least mid-century that husbands the power and political practices of Western societies. Drawing on decades of research, Higley’s analysis is historically and comparatively informed, bold, and in some places dark—and will be sure to foster debate.

This text focuses on the interpenetration between various types of elites: politicians, owners of capital, corporate managers, higher state administrators, directors of public enterprises, controllers of media, military officers and the civic-cultural establishment.

Provides an innovative theory of regime transitions and outcomes, and tests it using extensive evidence between 1800 and today.

The last quarter of the twentieth century was marked by two dramatic political trends that altered many of the world's regimes: the global resurgence of democracy and the collapse of communism. Was the process that brought down communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union fundamentally different from the process that gave birth to new democracies in other regions of the world? Were the transitions away from communism mostly like or mostly unlike the transitions away from authoritarianism that took place elsewhere? Is the challenge of building and consolidating democracy under postcommunist conditions unique, or can one apply lessons learned from other new democracies? The essays collected in this volume explore these questions, while tracing how the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have fared in the decade following the fall of communism. Contributors: Anders Åslund, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C.; Leszek Balcerowicz, Warsaw School of Economics; Archie Brown, Oxford University and St. Antony's College; Zbigniew Brzezinski, Johns Hopkins University, a former U.S. national security advisor; Valerie Bunce, Cornell University; Nadia Diuk, National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C.; M. Steven Fish, University of California–Berkeley; Charles H. Fairbanks Jr., the Johns Hopkins University; Bronislaw Geremek, former foreign minister of Poland; John Higley, University of Texas at Austin; Judith Kullberg, University of Michigan–Ann Arbor; Mart Laar, prime minister of Estonia; Michael McFaul, Stanford University; Ghia Nodia, Tbilisi State University; Jan Pakulski, University of Tasmania in Australia; Richard Rose, University of Strathclyde in Glasgow; Jacques Rupnik, College of Europe in Bruges; Lilia Shevtsova, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C.; Aleksander Smolar, Stefan Batory Foundation in Warsaw and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris; G.M. Tamás formerly of Georgetown University; Vladimir Tismaneanu, University of Maryland at College Park; Grigory Yavlinsky, member of the Russian State Duma (parliament).

Based on a detailed study of 35 cases in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and post-communist Eurasia, this book explores the fate of competitive authoritarian regimes between 1990 and 2008. It finds that where social, economic, and technocratic ties to the West were extensive, as in Eastern Europe and the Americas, the external cost of abuse led incumbents to cede power rather than crack down, which led to democratization. Where ties to the West were limited, external democratizing pressure was weaker and countries rarely democratized. In these cases, regime outcomes hinged on the character of state and ruling party organizations. Where incumbents possessed developed and cohesive coercive party structures, they could thwart opposition challenges, and competitive authoritarian regimes survived; where incumbents lacked such organizational tools, regimes were unstable but rarely democratized.

"In the 20th and 21st century revolutions have become more urban, often less violent, but also more frequent and more transformative of the international order. Whether it is the revolutions against Communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR; the "color revolutions" across Asia, Europe and North Africa; or the religious revolutions in Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria; today's revolutions are quite different from those of the past. Modern theories of revolution have therefore replaced the older class-based theories with more varied, dynamic, and contingent models of social and political change. This new edition updates the history of revolutions, from Classical Greece and Rome to the Revolution of Dignity in the Ukraine, with attention to the changing types and outcomes of revolutionary struggles. It also presents the latest advances in the theory of revolutions, including the issues of revolutionary waves, revolutionary leadership, international influences, and the likelihood of revolutions to come. This volume provides a brief but comprehensive introduction to the nature of revolutions and their role in global history"--

This book examines the structure of political power amongst elites inside Saudi Arabia and how they might cope with the very serious challenge posed by succession. Presenting a new and refreshing theoretical approach that links elite integration with regime stability, the author shows that the kingdom's royal elite is far more integrated than it has generally been given credit for. Based on extensive field work inside Saudi Arabia, the book offers a detailed, up-to-date survey and assessment of all the key sectors of the elites in the country. The author examines how the succession process has been used in highly different circumstances - including deposition, assassination, and death by old age - and demonstrates how regime stability in Saudi Arabia rests on the royal family's ability to unite and to solve the challenge of succession. He offers a strong analysis of intra-ruling family mechanisms and dynamics in this notoriously private royal family, and addresses the question of whether, as the number of royals rapidly grows, the elite is able to remain integrated. Providing a rare insight into the issues facing the royal family and ruling elite in Saudi Arabia, this book will be of great interest to scholars and students of Middle Eastern politics, and Saudi Arabia in particular.