Nov 10
Let's Talk: The Enduring Power of Communist Regimes
Just us for Let’s talk: The Enduring Power of Communist Regimes with Visiting Professor Chris Heurlin ‘02, author of “Responsive Authoritarianism in China: Land, Protests, and Policy Making” on Mon, Nov 10, 5 p.m., in Hasenstab 002.
Communist regimes like China, North Korea and Vietnam are the most durable dictatorships to emerge since World War 2. Yet when these regimes first came to power they were quite weak. How did fledgling communist rulers consolidate powerful authoritarian institutions? Existing theories focus on the origins of the communist parties in violent revolutions and conflicts. By contrast, this research points to the importance of the role of foreign aid. While foreign aid is commonly found to damper institution building and fuel patronage networks, evidence from communist archives suggests that communist aid played a pivotal role in building strong state institutions. Soviet advisors oversaw the construction of institutions, while economic aid built a state-owned industrial sector, allowing the extraction of tax revenues and domination of urban society. Cross-national data suggests that Soviet aid made communist regimes more durable, but made non-communist regimes more likely to collapse. While institutional similarities between the Soviet donor and communist aid recipients helped Soviet aid build durable authoritarianism in the communist world, in non-communist regimes aid alienated the military and sparked military coups.
Sponsored by Political Science/International Relations Department and the Public Policy Program