Comparative Politics: Autocracy, Political Economy, and Communism

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering autocracy, military rule, illiberal democracy, capitalist political economy, and Marxist-Leninist communist and post-communist regimes.

Autocracy

A regime type in which political power is vested in a single leader or a small group, institutional constraints on the executive are weak, elections lack viable opposition, and political rights are absent or inconsistently enforced.

The Autocrat's Bargain

A governance tradeoff where citizens accept reduced political freedoms and civil liberties in exchange for order, social stability, and state protection against chaos or crime.

Monarchy (Autocracy)

An autocratic system where executive rulership is passed down via dynastic succession, deriving political legitimacy primarily from traditional or religious authority (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Swaziland, Morocco).

Single-Party Rule

An autocratic regime where a single political party monopolizes power, the state and the party apparatus are fused together, and genuine political opposition is legally or practically restricted (e.g., Russia under United Russia, Zimbabwe).

Military Rule

A form of non-democratic governance characterized by direct rule by state security forces, typically originating via a coup d'état and possessing little coherent overarching ideology (e.g., Chile under Pinochet from 1973 to 1990, Zaire from 1965 to 1997).

Totalitarianism

An extreme variant of autocracy driven by an all-encompassing ideology that seeks total control over society, culture, and the economy through a strong centralized state and severe violent coercion (e.g., the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Islamic State).

Totalitarian Ideology (Gessen)

An insular intellectual framework described by Masha Gessen that purports to explain the entire world and everything within it, leaving no conceptual gap between ideological doctrine and experienced reality.

Coercion (Autocratic Strategy)

An autocratic survival method that maintains compliance through threatened punishment, surveillance, denunciation, and state-sanctioned violence such as show trials, purges, or death squads.

Co-optation (Autocratic Strategy)

The autocratic strategy of ensuring political loyalty through the selective distribution of economic patronage, financial handouts, and state-sanctioned corporatist bodies (e.g., Mobutu's 'musical chairs' in Zaire or Saudi King Abdullah's $37 billion handout package in 2011).

Cult of Personality

A regime strategy that builds political legitimacy around the mythologized, often patriarchal 'greatness' of the paramount leader through pervasive public imagery and state media (e.g., Syria, North Korea, Russia).

Symbolic Politics (Wedeen)

An autocratic technique where regimes demand that citizens outwardly perform compliance and act as if they believe official propaganda, transforming public complicity into internalized social control.

Coup d'État

A sudden, non-constitutional seizure of political power, most frequently carried out by military factions or security forces due to governance crises, factional military rivalries, or external intervention.

Constitutional Liberalism

A political tradition that emphasizes checks and balances on executive authority, strict adherence to the rule of law, and institutional guarantees protecting individual freedoms and minority rights.

Illiberal Democracy

A regime featuring popular elections but lacking constitutional liberalism, resulting in unchecked executive authority, eroded judicial independence, and weakened protections for civil liberties and minority rights.

Path to Illiberal Democracy

A three-stage political trajectory beginning when an illiberal leader wins elections, proceeds to dismantle institutional checks and balances (by stacking courts, harassing opposition, and capturing media), and finishes with the structural entrenchment of the illiberal regime.

Problem of Sequencing (Zakaria)

Fareed Zakaria's argument that Western democracies flourished because constitutional liberalism preceded mass democracy, whereas contemporary illiberal democracies hold competitive elections before establishing the rule of law and minority protections.

Property Rights

The formal rules and institutional frameworks enforced by the state that legally establish who owns economic resources and how those assets can be utilized or exchanged.

Dead Capital (de Soto)

Hernando de Soto's concept from 'The Mystery of Capital' identifying assets held without legally recognized, enforceable property titles, rendering them unusable as collateral or capital for wealth accumulation.

Public Goods

Non-excludable services and benefits provided directly by the state that are accessible to all citizens, financed through government revenues such as taxation, natural resources, or foreign aid.

Basic Public Goods

Foundational state-provided services required for societal function, including domestic police protection, military defense, public roadways, and primary education.

Advanced Public Goods

High-level welfare provisions characteristic of robust social safety nets, encompassing universal healthcare, publicly funded higher education, and subsidized childcare.

Economic Regulation

The direct intervention of the state into the market mechanism, including antitrust laws, tariffs, sanctions, environmental and labor mandates, and product bans.

(Neo)-Liberalism

An economic model that emerged in the 18th century emphasizing strong private property rights, free trade, low taxation, weak state regulation, and a minimalist 'night watchman' role for government.

Social Democracy

A 19th-century European political-economic model ('capitalism with guardrails') that retains private property while implementing strong market regulations, a comprehensive welfare state, advanced public goods, and progressive wealth redistribution.

Base and Superstructure (Marxism)

The structural Marxist framework wherein the economic base (property rights and class relations) directly dictates and is reinforced by the cultural and political superstructure (government, legal systems, family, education, and religion).

False Consciousness

A Marxist sociological condition in which the proletariat fails to recognize its own systemic exploitation because the cultural, legal, and religious superstructure masks the reality of capitalist class dominance.

Dialectical Materialism

Marx's philosophy of historical development asserting that society evolves through cyclical conflicts grounded in changing material and economic conditions, predicting that capitalism must ultimately give way to proletarian revolution.

Communist Utopia

The theoretical final stage of communist development wherein the state, private property, money, borders, police, and legal systems wither away completely, leaving an egalitarian, self-governing society.

Vanguard Party

A tightly organized political organization of dedicated revolutionaries described in Marxism-Leninism as necessary to lead, educate, and coordinate the working class in establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Democratic Centralism

The Leninist decision-making framework combining open internal debate on policy until a binding vote is cast, after which all members must demonstrate strict obedience and execute the decision hierarchically.

Nomenklatura

The patronage system in the Soviet Union comprising lists of elite state and economic posts that could only be filled with individuals pre-approved by the Communist Party apparatus.

The Long March (1934-1935)

A strategic military retreat by the Chinese Communist Party Red Army escaping encirclement by Nationalist (KMT) forces, an event that solidified Mao Zedong's ideological and political preeminence.

Great Leap Forward (1958-1962)

A massive economic and social mobilization launched by Mao Zedong to rapidly transform China from an agrarian economy into an industrialized communist society through forced collectivized farming and rural industrial quotas.

Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)

A socio-political campaign launched by Mao Zedong to purge capitalist and traditional remnants from Chinese society, eliminate political rivals within the party, and enforce ideological adherence to Maoism.

Glasnost and Perestroika

The dual reform programs introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the late Soviet Union: 'glasnost' expanded political openness and free speech, while 'perestroika' attempted economic restructuring and decentralization.

Shock Therapy (Economics)

The abrupt transition strategy employed in post-Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe that dismantled central planning overnight via sudden price deregulation, mass privatization of state assets, and withdrawal of subsidies.