Books about Autocracy from Amazon.com

The rise of China as a great power is one of the most important developments in the twenty-first century But despite dramatic economic progress, China’s prospects remain uncertain In a book sure to provoke debate, Minxin Pei examines the sustainability of the Chinese Communist Party’s reform strategy—pursuing pro-market economic policies under one-party rule.

Pei casts doubt on three central explanations for why China’s strategy works: sustained economic development will lead to political liberalization and democratization; gradualist economic transition is a strategy superior to the “shock therapy” prescribed for the former Soviet Union; and a neo-authoritarian developmental state is essential to economic take-off. Pei argues that because the Communist Party must retain significant economic control to ensure its political survival, gradualism will ultimately fail.

The lack of democratic reforms in China has led to pervasive corruption and a breakdown in political accountability. What has emerged is a decentralized predatory state in which local party bosses have effectively privatized the state’s authority. Collusive corruption is widespread and governance is deteriorating. Instead of evolving toward a full market economy, China is trapped in partial economic and political reforms.

Combining powerful insights with empirical research, China’s Trapped Transition offers a provocative assessment of China’s future as a great power.

(20070101).
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Here is the story of how the criminal elite hijacked science and transformed it into a weapon against the masses. This examination includes: (1.) The occult Origins of Darwinism. (2.) Nominalism and radical empiricism as instruments of epistemological manipulation. (3.) Eugenics and population control. (4.) Scientistic cults and religious engineering. (5.) Echelon, PROMIS software, and other technologies of the Panopticon Singularity. (6.) Neoconservativism as a continuation of Technocracy and Jacobinism. (7.) Transhumanism, Singularitarianism, and other futurist variants of the elite's occult religion. (8.) The unfolding endgame between scientific dictatorships..
Price: $23.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This book provides a theory of the logic of survival of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), one of the most resilient autocratic regimes in the twentieth century. An autocratic regime hid behind the facade of elections that were held with clockwise precision. Although their outcome was totally predictable, elections were not hollow rituals. The PRI made millions of ordinary citizens vest their interests in the survival of the autocratic regime. Voters could not simply throw the "rascals out of office" because their choices were constrained by a series of strategic dilemmas that compelled them to support the autocrats. The book also explores the factors that led to the demise of the PRI. The theory sheds light on the logic of "electoral autocracies," among the most common type of autocracy today, and the factors that lead to the transformation of autocratic elections into democratic ones. This book is the only systematic treatment in the literature today dealing with this form of autocracy..
Price: $18.23 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Russia has undergone more seismic changes over the last 100 years than almost any other country The 1917 Revolution, the rapid industrialization of the 1930s, the following devastation of World War II, and the return to Capitalism has seen the deep impoverishment of the entire population. The key questions which this work addresses are how to understand these changes, and how to Characterize the complex process of reform, revolution and counter revolution. In a country with such a turbulent and violent political history, what path should development take, and what lies ahead? Looking in detail at the nature of Russian society and politics since 1990, this work offers an introductory political analysis of the major political and economic developments that have taken place under President Yeltsin, and the legacy bequeathed so unexpectedly to his successor Putin..
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Modern Russian history began with the "Great Reforms" of 1861-4 which emancipated the serfs and introduced public self-government to assist the state in managing rural administration and change. In this capacity, peasant and zemstvo self-government, established partly on the basis of Western administrative theory, was important to the solvency of the entire state, autocracy's political evolution, and the fate of the rural gentry, peasants, and townspeople. This book is the first full-scale account of the development of rural self-government from the "Great Reforms" to its bureaucratization in the counterreforms of 1889-90 and their implementation during the following decade. Drawing on a wide range of archival material in Moscow and Leningrad, Pearson pinpoints the concrete problems that Russian officials experienced in introducing rural self-government, and shows that the land captain and zemstvo counterreforms, like the earlier "Great Reforms," resulted from practical statist considerations..
Price: $34.91 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Russia 1855-1964 explores all the key aspects of this extremely important period in Russian history. Stephen J. Lee examines and compares the ideologies of Tsarist autocracy and Soviet Communism and the opposition to these regimes. The 1917 revolution, the use of repression and terror by these regimes and the impact of the First and Second World War on Russia are also analyzed. A major feature of the book is the guidance provided for students preparing for the synoptic module of A2 exams..
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