Ideocracies in Comparison

Uwe Backes is deputy director at the Hannah Arendt Institute on Totalitarianism Research and Professor of Political Science at the Technical University of Dresden. Steffen Kailitz is senior researcher at the Hannah Arendt Institute on Totalitarianism Research and teaches political science at the Technical University of Dresden.

Part I: Ideocracy: Term und 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 Present 6. Legitimation and Repression in the Soviet State (1917-1991) 7. Legitimation, Repression and Cooptation 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 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