BREAKDOWN OF DICTATORSHIPS
Andrew Arato
Sociology
CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY

This series of lectures will consider the variety of ways that modern dictatorships have entered into crisis and were dissolved. Beginning with the concept and typology of dictatorships, we will consider several abstract models through which they have been internally weakened and abolished. Next we will consider in detail some case studies, focusing above all on the ending of dictatorships in Southern Europe, Latin America and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

Required Readings:

1. Collier The New Authoritarianism in Latin America
2. Markus et.al. Dictatorship over Needs
3. Habermas Legitimation Crisis
4. Tilly From Mobilization to Revolution
5. O'Donnell-Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule 4v.
6. Przeworski Market and Democracy
7. Stepan ed. Democratizing Brazil
8. Banac The Revolution in Eastern Europe
9. Kaminski The Collapse of State Socialism
10. Kornai Contradictions and Dilemmas
11. Bialer ed. Inside Gorbachev's Russia
12. Lewin The Gorbachev Phenomenon
13. T. Bauer two essays, to be distributed
14. S. Eckstein Power and Popular Protest

Schedule of Lectures and Readings

1.Introduction to Course

PART I. Concepts and Models

2-3. What are Dictatorships?
Session A. Theory and Typology
Required Readings:
Linz-Stepan Democratic Transitions and Consolidation Chapter one
Recommended:
Carl Schmitt Die Diktatur; Ernst Fraenkel The Dual State
Session B. Contemporary Types
Required:
O'Donnell, Cardoso, Collier and Hirschman in Collier The New Authoritarianism in Latin America;
Arato "Critical Sociology and Authoritarian State Socialism" in Habermas. Critical Debates; Markus et.al. Dictatorship over Needs parts one and two
Recommended:
Kornai Contradictions and Dilemmas

4. The Concept of Crisis
Required:
Habermas Legitimation Crisis

5. The Concept of Revolution
Required:
Tilly From Mobilization to Revolution
Recommended:
Skocpol: States and Social; Revolutions
Furet Interpreting the French Revolution


PART II. Case studies

6-8. The Case of Bureaucratic Authoritarianism
session A. The Model of War and Collapse
Required:
essays on Greece and Argentina in O'Donnell-Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule
session B. Civil society and decompression
Required:
Spain, Brazil and v.IV in O'Donnell-Schmitter; Garreton, Eckstein, Walton in Eckstein Power and Popular Protest
Recommended:
Stepan ed. Democratizing Brazil; Garreton The Chilean Political Process
session C. Inter elite conflict and pacted transitions
Required:
O'Donnell-Schmitter Transitions from Authoritarian Rule v.IV and Stepan in v. III; Przeworski Market and Democracy

9-13. The Case of Soviet type societies
session A. Was there a crisis?
Required:
T. Bauer "From Cycles to Crisis"
Recommended:
Kis Politics in Hungary (selections) ; Bialer in Feher-Arato Gorbachev. the Debate; Chirot, Jowitt, and Rostow in Chirot The Crisis of Leninism and he Decline of the Left
session B. The Polish Case: from civil to political society
Required:
Kaminski The Collapse of State Socialism; D. Ost Solidarity and the Politics of Anti-politics;
Recommended:
Smolar in Arato and Feher Crisis and Reform; Garton-Ash The Magic Lantern (selections);
Gros in Banaced. Eastern Europe in Revolution
session C: The Hungarian Case: reform and crisis
Required:
Kornai "The Hungarian Reform Process" in Arato and Feher Crisis and Reform; L. Bruszt- D. Stark in Banac
Recommended:
selected essays and documents
session D: The Soviet Case: Stagnation, Reform and Collapse
Required:
Bialer ed. Inside Gorbachev's Russia; Lewin The Gorbachev Phenomenon
Recommended:
Feher-Arato eds. Gorbachev. the Debate; Sedaitis ed. Perestroika from Below;



Digitized version prepared by the Curriculum Resource Center (CRC)
CEU Budapest, Hungary
Revised: April 1996

Ara-Breakdo.S94.PS.v3



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