Revolution & Dictatorship cover art and title with book launch date

Book Launch: Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism

November 18, 2022 | 5:00PM - 6:30PM
Munk School, Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (CERES)

This event is over

This event was held in-person in the Boardroom at the Observatory, Munk School, 315 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario.
 
On November 18, author Lucan Way was joined by Randall Hansen, Lynne Viola, Joe Wong, Ed Schatz, and Peter Loewen for the launch of his new book, Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism.
 
About the book
Revolution and Dictatorship explores why dictatorships born of social revolution—such as those in China, Cuba, Iran, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam—are extraordinarily durable, even in the face of economic crisis, large-scale 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 state-building 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, monarchies, and landowners, and helps to inoculate revolutionary regimes against elite defection, military coups, and mass protest—three principal sources of authoritarian breakdown.
 
Looking at a range of revolutionary and nonrevolutionary regimes from across the globe, Revolution and Dictatorship shows why governments that emerge from violent conflict endure.
 
This event was sponsored by the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, the Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, Munk School, the Department of Political Science.
 
Munk School, Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (CERES)

Speakers

Headshot of Lucan Way
Lucan Way

Co-Director, Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine
Professor, Department of Political Science

Headshot of Randall Hansen
Randall Hansen

Professor, Department of Political Science
Professor, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Headshot of Lynne Viola
Lynne Viola

Professor, Department of History, University of Toronto

Headshot Joe Wong
Joe Wong

Vice-President, International
Roz and Ralph Halbert Professor of Innovation, Munk School
Professor, Department of Political Science

Headshot of Edward Schatz
Ed Schatz

Director, Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies
Professor, Department of Political Science

headshot of Peter Loewen
Peter Loewen

Director, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy