Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism - Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/615959 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism Author: Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way Narrator: Joe Barrett Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 17 hours 16 minutes Release date: December 13, 2022 Genres: Current Affairs, Law, & Politics Publisher's Summary: 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, and landowners, and helps to inoculate revolutionary regimes against elite defection, military coups, and mass protest—principal sources of authoritarian breakdown.