The red flag is flying, the red flag of the Korean War. Well, hi everyone, and welcome to the coronavirus edition of Intro to Comparative Politics. As you probably already know, we have now been moved into online learning for the foreseeable future. And what better topics to discuss amid global biological pandemic, market crashing, and the inevitable march towards the last gasps of democracy in the next eight months?
months in this country than by looking at theories of authoritarianism. You know, I always thought that this section of class was going to look at, you know, countries far removed from the United States, but, you know, this is becoming more and more sort of the here and the now. I kind of jest a little bit, but wait until we get to our section on populism.
So, you know, in any event, you know, I think that this is going to help out a number of you because the lectures that I'm giving are what I would normally. have delivered in class, but because they're now up online, you can access them whenever you want and how many times you want. You can also pause, reverse, listen to them in bits.
You have the notes right in front of you. So that basically means that, you know, in the time that we are doing this remotely, the material should be even more accessible to you than, you know, just two 75-minute periods every Monday and Wednesday. So I expect no slacking off.
In fact, I expect a number of you to actually pick up your game from here on out and within these lectures, I'm going to be providing you a number of short writing assignments which will go towards your participation. Of course, the discussion forums on Blackboard are also a part of that mixture. So, you know, without further ado, you know, let's not lose any more time here, but listening to these lectures in the comfort of your home, your dorm room, wherever it happens to be, should give you a little bit more of a relaxed setting. You know, pour yourself, you know, a cup of coffee or whatever else to keep yourself actively attentive, and let's go. Now, I have to also say, this is my more favorite section in comparative politics.
I always love talking about theories of authoritarianism because these are the interesting countries, right? These are the the bad boys around the world you know we've had enough of these little goody two-shoes democracies where you know social welfare is taken into account for all of its citizens you know these are the countries that are run by you know tyrants or you know organized criminal syndicates um orwellian ideologies um you know these are the countries that um still make um you know front page news in international um affairs especially when we look at the middle east and east asia and you And, you know, if the picture in front of you is any indication, yes. We are finally going to be talking about North Korea, which of course, as we know, is, was, and always will be best Korea. Okay, so this lecture is going to be looking at a couple of variations on classic forms of authoritarianism.
There's going to be a few of them throughout the week here, but this one is really covering the reading in Lins and Step-On. So I want you to have that done, and I want you to make certain that you are familiar with all of the different isms. that make up authoritarianism. And, you know, popular conceptions of authoritarianism, you know, require you not to really think too deeply, right?
When you think of authoritarian states, you think of regimes with, you know, little to no civil rights, very limited, if not outwardly stifled political debate, and unrestrained leadership at the top that kind of governs. rules almost with impunity and without any real checks or balances. And of course, in authoritarian states, there is almost always the presence of a top-heavy executive. If there are legislative and judicial branches, they tend to be just, you know, rubber stamp envelopes for, you know, rubber stamp organizations. I'm sorry.
for the top-heavy executive. More interesting is the presence of an overt state-sponsored historical memory, which, with the exception of maybe one of you that had me about a year and a half ago, I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's a very, ago for politics and culture, historical memory, just very briefly described here, is a type of state-sponsored political culture that projects a particular way of... of understanding the past and also understanding one's collective identity.
So it's a type of reading of history that the state promotes as a correct or official reading of history. Now, every country has state-sponsored historical memory. The United States has state-sponsored historical memory.
Germany, India, Great Britain, whatever. But when we look at authoritarian states, the historical memory that is projected is not only... hegemonic, but it is much more enforced and imposed on its citizens. So I think a good example of this is, of course, North Korea, where the official state understanding of history, particularly the Korean War, and North Korea's relationship with Japan, China, the United States, Russia, and others, is a specific pushed you know, sanitized understanding of the past that all North Korean citizens absolutely must adhere to. Even if they don't believe it, they have to, you know, certainly follow it.
And, of course, one way of ensuring this type of compliance is the pervasive presence of an internal security apparatus. So within authoritarian states, you know, you've got, you know, your KGBs and your Gestapos and your Stasi's. You know, there's the normal cops on the street that are usually corrupt, poor schlubs.
And then you've gotten, you know, then you got those, you know, those black shirts, those, the secret police, the ones that, you know, knock on your door at four o'clock in the morning to drag you to an interrogation room or whatever it is, right? And, you know, by and large, whatever type of ideology that we're talking about, an authoritarian state is almost always militarized, right? There is this overt investment within the military, the dictator.
Dictatorships, you know, oftentimes ally themselves with the military as a form of patriotism, as a form of security. But, you know, beyond just simply military worship, you know, society is militarized as well, right? There's a type of mass mobilization that either will channel you into the military or into some form of militarized civil service, right? So, you know, there's no country in particular that I'm thinking.
of, but if we were to start our understanding of authoritarian states at large, these are the types of traits... and behaviors that you know we would find and you know within the classic notion of authoritarianism and here i'm deliberately being vague and very broad based here okay um you know we've we talked about really two things here limited pluralism and this type of state-sponsored ideology let me just get a little bit more specific here when we talk about limited pluralism we are talking about within robert doll's model, very limited contestation, right? There is really no room for an opposition party, except if the opposition party is some kind of loyal opposition party that kind of enables the one in power. But regardless of that, limited pluralism denotes that there is one single political party that runs the show. And in some earlier cases, it is the only legally sanctioned political party, right?
The National Socialist Party of Nazi Germany, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party of China, you know, you sort of, you get the idea in this sense. Plural and social and economic pluralism can still exist in some of these cases. In fact, if you remember from our discussion of Bismarck's Germany, you would note that, you know, comparatively speaking, you know, imperial Germany was, you know, more authoritarian than democratic. But even within authoritarian states, outside of political monopolization, there can be some type of social or economic pluralism, even more so economic pluralism. And, you know, one thing that we will note is that capitalism functions quite well within authoritarian states.
So, you know, if there is any type of pluralism, any type of I would even say symbolic opposition. It can only exist in marginalized or very, very, very small intellectual circles. You know, the totalitarian states of history try to stamp out any and all opposition.
Authoritarian states from, let's say, the 60s onwards might have some room for opposition, but as long as they are small and innocuous and just kind of, you know, relegate themselves, to a few grumbling intellectuals that gather in coffee shops, the state will be okay in that sense. And even so, within state-sponsored ideology, the more totalitarian Orwellian states in the past are definitely interested in indoctrination. I mean, North Korea is certainly part of that still today.
By and large, a lot of authoritarian states in the present period, they do push a particular ideology, but it's... non-doctrinal. In other words, the state will be happy if you buy into the political culture, but if you don't, just keep quiet and keep your head down and don't get in my way. The state is okay if you haven't signed on to it, but if you're not actively challenging it, they're okay with that. And, you know, mobilization in that sense, you know, can only come through official state channels.
So, you know, if you're not happy with the system, you're kind of hamstrung because you cannot advance within that society. You want to be an angry citizen, go ahead. But access to the best jobs, access to wealth and privilege will largely be cut off to you.
Right. So, you know, this is a system in which politics, meritocracy, money influence. authority, all work through the official party channels.
And so any alternative movements are going to, you know, either be just demobilized to the point of being ineffective, or if they end up do becoming somewhat problematic, they will be monitored. But, you know, in many respects here, what we what we're talking about in the authoritarian model is that the road to power and advancement and mobility is through accepting the system. If you choose to reject it, you know, in the olden days, you might find yourself in a gulag. But in today's world, as long as you just remain an atomized, you know, directionless citizen, the state will basically allow you to go on and live your, you know, somewhat miserable, depressing life.
And I think that that's also because authoritarian states in the past have had a number of cases where they have cooperated with democratic states. We tend to forget that democracies, at least as far as their foreign policy is concerned, find alliances, find partnerships with authoritarian states to be quite lucrative. The United States looks at China as its primary trading partner. Germany and Russia get along quite well when it comes to economics.
So when money is on the table, when strategic partnership is an issue, and even better, when there's a common enemy, enemy of my enemy. enemy is my friend, you'd be surprised. You would be surprised how, no, I bet you you wouldn't be surprised in this day and age.
This is 2020. You would not be surprised at how quickly democratic states can extend the hand of partnership to these authoritarian states. And this is great for authoritarian regimes because, you know, look, if they can get a selfie with Trump or Merkel or Obama or Biden or McCain, McCain and Biden, I think we're having this unannounced contest of how many tyrants and in the world they could have on their own speed dial, you know. But you can get an alliance, you can get a great partnership with Washington or Berlin or London, you're good.
Like, you are good. You know, you've got the support of the outside world that will kind of blunt any internal grumblings that might befall you. All right, so, you know, that is a whole bunch of stuff to just get your mind interested into the world of authoritarianism. But we need to now sort of take these things, sort them out. out and kind of figure out what goes where and what conditions apply to certain states and regimes.
And so, you know, therefore I think that a better term that I use within political science is non-democracies. So I know that I've been talking about authoritarianisms, but I like the synonym non-democracy better, and I'll tell you why. Because there are various forms of authoritarianism that exist in the world today, right?
And yes, there are still the big brother Orwellian states like North Korea. But there's also a bunch of corrupt tin pot kleptocracies that, you know, are probably 60% authoritarian, 40% democratic. And just like... we mentioned in the beginning of class that there are no two democracies are the same, and some countries are more democratic than others. Well, we have to extend that observation to non-democratic states, right?
Some countries are. are more authoritarian than others. Some authoritarian states are more democratic than others, right? So not every authoritarian state is the same.
If I, you know, gave you an ultimatum and I said, I'm going to, you know, send you on a one-way trip to Cuba or North Korea, which one would you want to go to, right? Now, mind you, I'm pretty certain that I'm not the only one in the room that has some fascinating interest in seeing North Korea, but you're going to have a better chance. chance of coming back if you go to Cuba, right? And at the end of the day, Cuba's got a better health care plan than North Korea does.
So is it fair enough to say that Cuba is less authoritarian than North Korea? Yes, absolutely. Is it fair enough to say that Singapore is less authoritarian than China? Yes, also, right?
Singapore is one of those city-state countries that a lot of analysts in the Western world look to as kind of like the ideal model of what an enlightened semi-authoritarian regime happens to be. Singapore does have a significantly high standard of living. They are very, very business friendly. And in many respects, social services are paid for through taxation.
But let's be perfectly honest here. Singapore is run by one family, and it's basically an electoral dynasty. Not only that, but Singapore is really not a great model to look to seeing as how it is a city-state, but it's one that is certainly better and more functional than China is. And how about this one?
This might be even the toughest one. Which one do you think is more authoritarian? Syria or Saudi Arabia?
Now, mind you, when I first, you know, came up with these notes, this was before the Syrian civil war, and I would actually say if I had a choice, if someone said to me, Rossi, you have to go to one of these two countries for six months. I would say, and it's Syria or Saudi Arabia, I'd say, give me Syria. I will go to Syria.
Assad regime notwithstanding, Syria is a secular state. It is multi-religious. It does have a greater degree of political rights and civil liberties for its citizens than Saudi Arabia does. But obviously at this point, Saudi Arabia is much more, I hate to say this, stable and certainly richer in that sense.
But look, Cuba, North Korea, Singapore, China, Syria, Saudi Arabia, these are all authoritarian states. These are all non-democracies. But it's clear to say that within this either or, one is more preferable to live in than the other.
And that's not including the states that practice some form of procedural democracy. There are countries that have legitimate democracy as structure within their countries. Turkey.
Venezuela, Albania, Nigeria. But democracy as practice is largely absent. Probably the best example of this today is Turkey, which has routine elections. It has multiple political parties. But the Law and Justice Party, no, I'm sorry, the Justice Party of Turkey, the AKP of Recep Erdogan, basically runs the show.
I mean, it just runs the show, wins elections. hands out and you know if it looks like he's struggling in one voting district you know we'll manipulate elections here or there now that's something to think about in our next discussion when we look at hybrid regimes all right so with all of that said you know it should be clear that there are multiple types of non-democratic regimes in the world and what we're going to be doing for the remainder of this lecture is examining the three at the top here totalitarianism post-totalitarianism and sultanism fascism is going to get its own lecture because fascism is really elaborate to describe, even though we constantly use that word, you know, to describe any government that we don't want today. And then our final lecture for the week will focus on hybrid regimes.
Those are the real fun ones. That's actually the more recent ones, recent being, I don't know, 25, 30 years. But, you know, one by one here, we will be looking at them in turn, right? So for at least the remainder of this... lecture, I'm taking the discussion of the three isms, totalitarianism, post-totalitarianism, and sultanism, from Lins and Stepan.
So it is absolutely imperative that you do the reading and you understand the differences between them. them and as a way of showing the differences within these, right? There are not just synonyms. They're not just ways of trying to, uh, you know, make our job more academically interesting, but there is sort of, um, degrees of non-democratic governments that we need to point out. So this chart that I, uh, you know, created a number of years ago is kind of a modified version of Robert Dahl's chart between, uh, contestation on the Y axis.
and participation on the X. So, you know, from the bottom part here, right, the closed hegemonies that Dahl was always talking about, this here is your totalitarian systems. And the one where there is inclusive hegemonies, high degrees of participation, of course, that we're, you know, we're talking about mass political movement here, but with very little competition, that's fascism.
So, you know, right off the bat here, it's often conflated. you know, the two, right? We oftentimes conflate totalitarianism with fascism. And I want to state for the record here that the two have a lot of things in common, but there are notable differences between a totalitarian government and a fascist government that necessitates them being differentiated.
And yes, the terms here are color-coded to correspond with Freedom House, right? If you remember our discussion of Freedom House in the beginning of the semester, we talked about how countries are categorized into three general groupings. Not free, partly free, and free.
So the free countries are the ones here in green. Your liberal democracies and, of course, your mythical polyarchies. We're done talking about them.
We're not talking about them at all. But we're going to be looking at the ones in red. The not free countries first.
And then. when we move over into hybrid regimes, into some type of thing here, right, these are your B minus C plus countries, right? Partially democratic, partially authoritarian, but certainly not fully democratic. All right, one step at a time, let's get to the first one, totalitarianism.
And this is probably the easiest and most straightforward of all of the isms, simply because of its extremities. In a totalitarian system, there is absolute no political, no economic, no social, or no cultural pluralism at all. This is the typical 1984 Orwellian Big Brother state.
And what is even more so about a totalitarian system is that the absolute lack of political, economic, social, or cultural pluralism is constantly monitored by a direct and deliberate imposition of a unified, articulated, and guiding ideology. And this is very, very important to understand here, because beyond just simply being systemically oppressive, a totalitarian state is indoctrinated. In other words, the oppressiveness comes with a constant barrage of state-sponsored...
sponsored ideology that forces conformity, right, demands loyalty, and expects, you know, peak performance from all of its, I put citizen in quotes here, but you know, its citizens. So there is, you know, a clear sign of extensive top-down socio-political mobilization. I think I spelled mobilization there wrong, but you know, pardon me, I'll have to fix that.
The first time I saw that, that's what happens when I... do this from home. An extensive top-down socio-political mobilization, right?
Cradle to grave indoctrination, mass political involvement, right? Youth movements, workers movements, party movements, the fusion of civilian and military life together, all under this charismatic leadership with undefined limits and restrictions, right? So there is no concept of tur- term limits. There's no confidence.
concept of checks or balances. There's no, you know, even a remote contemplation that the people in power or a guiding leader is limited in any sense, right? So it's a type of messianic.
leadership in which, you know, there is a big brother that is guiding you, but also watching you at the same time, right? So we are talking about the most oppressive and the most... most authoritative model that we can find out there, right? Some examples of this.
And the best part about these examples is that they're by and large historical, right? The Soviet Union under Stalin is probably one of the best examples of this and one that Orwell took a lot of ideas from when he was writing 1984. But to that, we also have to add North Korea under Kim Il-sung, right? Now, I want you to just take note here.
This is not just North Korea across the board. This is North Korea under its founding leader, Kim Il-sung. And there's a difference between Kim Il-sung and his son and then grandson afterwards, which we'll get to in due time. The same can be said for China under Mao Zedong.
So this type of Orwellian model, right, that we constantly can equate with, you know, the big brother state, you know, permeated. I would say mid- to early, you know, to, you know, mid-20th century, you know, governments. Unfortunately, they were all this type of single-party, you know, Marxist dictatorship. It doesn't say anything about Marxism in general, but it's the type of Leninism that goes into Marxism, which denotes the, you know, the need for this over-the-top, mobilized state to kind of speed train an otherwise listless agreement.
agrarian, rural society into industrial capability within 15 to 20 years or so. Now, the good thing about totalitarian countries is that by and large, they are historical, and it is very, very difficult to keep them going. In fact, more often than not, a totalitarian system ends when its visionary leader dies, and it is...
is very, very rare that this type of top-heavy state-managed oppression continues into new leadership. Now, that doesn't mean that authoritarianism somehow subsides, but what it does show us is that totalitarianism is very expensive to maintain, and more often than not, something gives whenever its charismatic leader dies. And so it kind of of devolves into two different tracks, if you can kind of visualize in your head, a totalitarian system.
There are two types of diminutive authoritarian governments that come out of this. Sultanism is one option, and then this type of post-totalitarianism is another. I want to focus on sultanism first, because this is probably a term that you have not heard. heard of. And, you know, before we, you know, move any forward here, sultanism does not mean the rule of a sultan, okay?
It's not really the case there. But it's a type of metaphor to denote that what is lost in a totalitarian state is a type of pervasive guiding ideology. The leadership remains absolutely unassailable, but without any kind of guiding ideology.
to link the leadership with the people. So a sultanistic state is one in which personal power is still unrestrained, right? So this is very similar in scope to a totalitarian system. However, the difference is that whereas a totalitarian system is guided by some overarching messianic ideology that even the Big Brother follows in a...
a sultanistic state, the state now becomes the property of a ruling family or clique. In other words, the ruling family, the political elites that run the country, they become the ideology themselves. Now, you might think that this is worse than totalitarianism, and in some cases, it might actually be, because in a totalitarian system, there still has to be an ethos that if the leadership and power does not follow. runs the risk of being removed.
It doesn't happen often, but there's always that little small fail-safe. In a sultanistic state, the leaders rule with total impunity, right? There is absolutely nothing stopping them from running a country as if it was their own personal property. And like a totalitarian system, right? There was no distinction between public and private, right?
Private life is still for the most part, you know, systemically eradicated, right? Your life belongs to a larger purpose, a larger goal. But again, the difference here is that your career in a sultanistic state is now largely seen as a personal service to the leader or as in a totalitarian state it was to some overarching guiding ideology right so you know a good way of understanding a sultanistic state is that it's a totalitarian state where the you know the state apparatus is still there the secret police is still there that you know the Big Brother is still watching you you in a sense, but the utopian ideology that at least rhetorically is sold to the public as the thing that we're all marching towards, right, is no longer there, right?
The utopian ideology is no longer an end goal, but it's kind of the personal whim of the leader and even more so the leader's internal ruling party and, you know, the internal ruling family in that sense. So if the leader decides that it's going to be this one day then you're working to that and if the leader decides i'm going to be that another day you're changing your tactics and doing something completely different right so leadership is also very much important here because leadership becomes this you know degenerative corrupt family enterprise right a cult of personality still exists within a sultanistic state but whereas a totalitarian state sees that personality as connected to an ideology in a sultanistic state, the personality is the leader and the leader's family itself, right? So we're not using the leader as someone to guide us towards communism or fascism or whatever it happens to be, right?
But we are just simply worshiping the leader itself, okay? And therefore, the leader is the rule of law, right? I mean, you want to talk about, you know, a modern day embodiment of l'état c'est moi, right?
I am the state. that is a sultanistic enterprise, where the rule of law is whatever the leader wants that day. And any kind of economic activity is going to be monopolized by that leading faction with ties to the family, right?
And so the closer you are to the family, the more your personal wealth is guaranteed. So, you know, think of it in a way as the closest thing that we have in a political world to a mafia state, where the ruling family runs the country as if it was its own territory right and so you've got you know capos and you've got bosses and under bosses and you've got soldiers and all of them are kind of working for the local don well the don is the one that runs the state and so the more you have personal loyalties to that person to that family the more connections that you know the more likely you will be able to advance the ladder okay and you know one other thing that we need to take take into account here is that, again, there's a lot of similarities between sultanism and totalitarianism. And another thing that is still existing is the retention of a security apparatus.
But here's another difference. In a totalitarian state, the security apparatus, whether it's the, you know, the KGB or whatever you want, arrests people and, you know, enacts punitive, you know, punishments on individuals who violate the ideology of the state. In a sultanistic state, the security apparatus becomes the personal security network of the ruling family. So it might have existed beforehand as some separate entity, but it now becomes an extension of the ruling family. So we can kind of look at, let's say, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, the Fedayeen, which might have at one point been sort of a militarized police.
for the Ba'ath party, becomes now just simply an appendage for Saddam and, even worse, his two sons to use in, you know, targeting enemies and rivals to them personally. The same could be said in Iran under the Shah, you know, prior to the Iranian revolution of 79. The secret Police Savak became a personal extension of power of Shah Reza Pakhlevi. Romania, under Nicolae Ceausescu, and this is probably the best example of a communist sultanistic state, The security police, the sekuretats, which were, I think, on par with the Stasi, to be probably the most feared and the most violent secret police of any communist. I mean, these guys were pretty much on par with the Gestapo as well.
But the Sakuratat swore personal oaths of loyalty, not only to Nikolai Ceausescu, but also his hated, hated, hated wife, Elena, who towards the end of their rule just gave orders to the Sakuratat with random impunity saying, you know, punk these people, target those people, assassinate those people, you know, left and right. We find the same thing continuing today. in Syria under the Assad family. In fact, Syria is probably the best example of a sultanistic regime that has survived for the last 50 or so years. First under Hafez al-Assad, who founded the modern Syrian regime of the Ba'ath Party, and today under his son Bashar al-Assad.
And of course, the Syrian civil war seems to be winding down and government forces are clearly, you know, about to, you know, take control of the entire country. Don't be surprised if the Assad family uses the secret police to root out and, you know, eliminate as many political rivals as possible. I would put North Korea today as a sultanistic regime. The major change in North Korea from totalitarianism to sultanism came with the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994. Kim Il-sung was a larger-than-life leader of the country, but he still was someone that did not use his power for his own personal charisma, right? That cult of personality worship was really orchestrated by his son, Kim Jong-il, and then turned into a personal religion for him, by him, after he came to power in 1994, and I think it's still used.
today for Kim Jong-un, right? Today, North Korea is still one of the most repressive states in the world, but that repression revolves entirely on retaining the Kim family at the top. You know, the Korean Workers'Party is now a, you know, a party that just simply keeps them afloat.
And, you know, the need for an heir, the need for a successor within the family, you know, gives you all the, you know, reason that you need to be. that you need to believe that North Korea is a sultanistic state. And then historically speaking, right, you don't have to look, you know, just in the contemporary thing, but let's go back historically here, we can look at Haiti, under Papa Doc Duvalier, which, you know, implies that sultanism can sort of come and go in countries, it doesn't continue as a family run enterprise, but it can kind of exist in a truncated sense under one particular leader. So that implies also, right, you know, Iraq, Romania, Haiti, it implies that sultanism can be overthrown, right?
It can be, it can change. But when you're going to overthrow a sultanistic state, you target the family that runs the country. You don't necessarily target the government per se. All right, now the other route that a state can take after totalitarianism just kind of subsides is, and you know, political scientists, we're really not the most creative people out there.
when it comes to designating things, but Linz and Stepan use the term post-totalitarianism. I like to say bureaucratic authoritarianism. It's kind of one in the same here.
You know, Linz and Stepan say that, you know, if you're going to use this maybe in your papers or whatever, just kind of say that post-totalitarianism and bureaucratic authoritarianism are kind of synonymous in this sense. Now, these are equally interesting. not the most exciting countries to study, right? Sultanistic states are exciting just because of the, you know, the utter depravity of the people who are in power.
But a bureaucratic authoritarian state is kind of like the opposite of sultanism, you know, whereas there is this unassailable leader in a sultanistic state, but ideology has declined. A bureaucratic authoritarian state is one in which ideology is still rhetorically there. but unassailable Leadership has certainly been removed.
So of all of this examples that we have been looking at thus far, a bureaucratic authoritarian state offers some. and I emphasize some, form of institutional pluralism that is either officially acknowledged, but, you know, it's safe to say that, you know, they're small, innocuous, and there's no really no threat to the system. Or they operate as some type of activist alternative culture that the regime cannot really and entirely stamp out. And within the Cold War period, and here I'm really talking about, let's say, late 60s to mid 80s, let's say 68 to 88, 89. There were a bunch of these small dissident intellectual movements within Poland and Czechoslovakia. and Hungary and you know Yugoslavia to a lesser extent that work you know that was collectively called samizdat right samizdat literature it what it means really is underground literature or alternative literature right it's the stuff that is passed through unofficial channels right word of mouth you know small little you know secret meetings between academics who talk about topics that are you know still relatively taboo to the state, you know, smuggling in, you know, magazine articles or newspapers from the West, you know, real spy network type of stuff here.
And that's because censorship still exists, right? You know, the state is still pervasive in its sense in maintaining at least the illusion of conformity and uniformity. But, you know, dissidents might be jailed. failed but only if they are really seen as nuisances.
You know, the thing to understand about a bureaucratic authoritarian state is that the state no longer monopolizes historical memory. There is no pervasive telescreen ideology that every citizen needs to adhere to, right? You get this still in a sultanistic regime.
In a bureaucratic authoritarian regime, you know, just kind of think that, you know, a good way of looking at this, I'm talking to this audience. Think about living in a country that was run by LIU's enrollment services, you know, or the registrar or the financial aid office or the DMV or whatever it is, right? Like, you know, a post-totalitarian state is one in which you are still oppressed, but you're repressed by paperwork.
You're repressed by bureaucracy. Remember that example that I had given a few weeks ago where if you realize... that you have to go to some state office, you realize that you're gonna be online all day, remember that one with the three windows, one's perpetually closed, the other one has got somebody sitting there reading a newspaper and has been on break for eight hours, and then the third one has got that one person that's dealing with people on his or her time, well congratulations, you're in a bureaucratic authoritarian state, right? So there's no like overt oppression of the people.
The people could kind of realize, you know, how far they can go and the state is really not interested in rocking the boat per se um so in that regard you know a post-totalitarian system is one in which the state is kind of it's willing to make a deal with its people by saying, really, don't rock the boat. You know, don't speak out of line. Know your place, and we'll just kind of let you go and live your, you know, miserable humdrum life, right? You know, a bureaucratic authoritarian state is, you know, one that often marks really the beginning of the end of authoritarian state.
That's actually one of the easiest to transform. And why is that? Because there is still the... pervasive illusion of monopolization, right?
There is still one official party. There is still very little toleration of open political pluralism, but there is really no ideological hegemony or charismatic leadership that runs the country, right? You know, there's a number of examples that we can look here, probably the best example, and I'm pretty certain none of you know about this, but just take it, you know, take my word for it.
the long-time leadership, the 20-year leadership of Czechoslovakia under Dr. Gustav Husak from 1968-69 to his death resignation in 1988-89 was probably the best example of a post-war Totalitarian system and who suck was this old paper pusher. He had no major agenda. He had no ideological zeal. He was a yes ma'am who took his marching orders from the Soviet Union.
And you know, his goal was really not so much ideological fervor. He just wanted quiet. He wanted stability. And that's about it, right? He's, you know, people don't remember him fondly because people don't remember him really at all.
You know, it's like every other person in Czechoslovakia probably wouldn't even even know what he looked like. He could have gotten on a local train, a local tram, and people would have been like, oh, who the hell is this guy, right? He looks nice in a suit, some old dude, right? And that's Hussak. It's kind of the same thing in Cuba, under Raul Castro.
You know, there was a major, major, major shift when Fidel, you know, handed power over to his brother, who, you know, has no charismatic following, has no real ideological zeal. And, you know, Castro, he's still alive today. He's still... kind of the, you know, the one linchpin that keeps the Castro family around.
But Raul is not a sultanistic leader, right? Raul just kind of was more of like a caretaker president until he himself sort of retired and handed power over to someone else. I don't even know who the person that's running Cuba is today.
But Raul is probably a great example of, you know, turning Cuba really into a bureaucratic authoritarian state. It's not totalitarian, and it's certainly not sultanistic anymore. And I think that China... since Deng Xiaoping, like since, let's say, 1997, has really gone the route of a post-totalitarian state, right? When we look at leaders who have succeeded Deng Xiaoping, there is Zhang Zemin, there is Hu Jintao, and now today there is Xi Jinping.
You know, we'll get to this in more specifics when we look at China in a few weeks. But the point to take here is that the people who run China are less ideological leaders as they are corporate heads, right? They're really CEOs of probably one of the largest corporations in the world, the Chinese Communist Party. And, you know, the idea in China today is, you know, keep your head down. Don't question the monopoly of the CCP.
You know, work hard, make money, follow orders, you know, bribe a little bit here, a little bit there, you know, nothing's ever going to change. And if you're happy with that, we will not bother you in life. You know, you don't bother us. We'll let you do whatever it is that you want, right?
You know, the other thing to note about that is that, you know, economic mobility is still constrained. And in some countries, it's pretty clear. You want to advance up the financial ladder.
You buy into the system. You become a member of the party. You join the, you know, you join the club. But if you don't want to do that, you know, there's a robust black market that can certainly...
exist. And the state may even know about this black market and allows it to run because it's just extra money that is thrown into the crowd. And it's also a great way of keeping the public happy, right? If the public knows that they can get a few bootleg, you know, CDs or a few things here or there that's not legal, but it's not like illegal at the same time, it's a great safety valve, right, that it keeps the people happy, and the state kind of remains in power in that sense.
So, you know, when we talk about a post-totalitarian, bureaucratic, authoritarian state here, you know, leadership is very uninspiring. I mean, we're not exactly talking about the most charismatic people out there, you know, and along with Hussak, you know, as far as the Soviet Union is concerned, you know, Leonid Brezhnev was probably the best example of that, you know, he was some old dude who, you know, by the way, by the time it was his turn to become party secretary, I mean, the man was in his 70s. So he's not exactly talking about somebody who's going to think dynamically or mobilize the population, right? You know what they, you know what he wants? He just wants stability.
He just wants to just keep this thing going until he retires. Same thing in East Germany, Erich Honecker, who ran the country a hell of a lot longer than Brezhnev ever did. But, you know, when people talk about East Germany, when they talk about Honecker, who kind of ran the show, from, let's say, the 50s until the late 80s.
You know, there's no speeches by him, right? You don't think of Huneker in the same way that you think of Hitler or Stalin or Saddam Hussein or Mao Zedong or Kim Jong-il or whatever it is. You know, Erich Huneker was, again, another bureaucratic paper pusher who took his marching orders from Moscow, right? So there's a weakened sense of ideology, an ideology that's still official, but what... in which people just rhetorically, you know, I'll give their lip service to whatever, whatever, whatever.
So, you know, we're talking about weak legitimacy, a routinization of day to day life, a bureaucracy that is corrupt. No one denies this. And an ideology that. that people just, you know, half-ass it with, you know. The only thing that keeps the state going is, you know, a strong retention of control of state security and organization, right?
So bureaucratic authoritarian states exist. exist largely on complacency, right? The state kind of makes a deal with the public. And the deal is you allow us to be the single political monopoly in your country.
You don't challenge that rule. And, you know, we'll look the other way for, you know, mild transgressions, you know, that the prisons are shut. There's no gulags anymore.
There's no knocking on the door at 4 a.m. in the morning, dragging you out of bed to interrogate you for 48 hours. That stuff just doesn't exist anymore.
But it's just, you know, accept your lot in life. It's pretty shitty, but it could get a lot worse. All right.
So that kind of leads us to our discussion of fascism, which I want to have in a separate lecture here. This is, you know, sort of the basics for understanding our comparative analysis of authoritarianism. And what I would like for you to do, since we do not. not have class and you're going to need some participation points, is I would like for you to send me an email. And within that email, I want you to describe in your own words what you understand totalitarianism, sultanism, and post-totalitarianism to be.
You can use things that you took notes with as you were listening to this lecture. You can also use elements from Linz and Stepan, but this is real. really an exercise to see, A, did you listen to the lecture?
And B, did you make it this far in the lecture? So, you know, there's no slacking off. I want to make absolutely certain that you are all with me as we are, you know, working through this coronavirus, because I'm going to be honest with you folks, we're out for two weeks. We could have this extended until the end of the semester.
So you cannot afford to slack off because your grades are still going to be counted as if we met twice a week. So once again, again, shoot me an email and just simply explain to me in your own words what you think a totalitarian state is, a post-totalitarian, and a sultanistic regime happen to be. And then we will move over into our discussion of fascism, which should get really interesting, but also kind of depressing because of the parallels that you might find.
All right, folks, stay tuned, and I will see you in part two.