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Political religion is a concept that gained prominence around the middle of the twentieth century, being associated for many with the idea of a totalitarian regime. Political religion was seen as a secular ideology whose followers took it up with the enthusiasm and commitment normally associated with adherence to religion. Comprising liturgy, ritual and the sacralization of politics, it created a community of believers, and usually had a transcendental leadership and a millennial vision of a promised future. This paper will explore the utility of this concept for understanding leader cults in authoritarian regimes. Such cults have been prominent features of authoritarian regimes but there is little agreement at the conceptual level about how they should be understood. One of the most powerful of such cults was that of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1953. This paper analyses this cult in terms of liturgy and ritual and concludes that despite some aspects that are common between the cult and religion, most ritualistic aspects of religion find no direct counterpart in the cult.

This book is a study of the relationship between revolution and terror. Graeme Gill uses a detailed analysis of the French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions to show that in order to understand that relationship, it is necessary to distinguish between different types of terror: revolutionary, transformational, and inverted.

Intro -- Preface -- Contents -- List of Tables -- Chapter 1 Introduction: The Study of Soviet Leadership -- The Institutional Basis of Elite Politics -- References -- Chapter 2 Oligarchy with a Predominant Leader, 1917-22 -- Institutional Fluidity -- Dynamics of Conflict Within the Collective -- The Shape of Elite Consensus -- Personalized Politics -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 3 Rule by Pure Oligarchy, 1923-29 -- Strategies of Factional Conflict -- Appeal to Authority -- Role of Policy -- Mobilization of Institutions -- On Factions -- The Dynamics of Opposition -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 4 From the Predominant to the Dominant Leader, 1930-53 -- Oligarchy with a Predominant Leader, 1930-34 -- Institutional Context -- The Norms of Leadership Politics -- The Leader Dominant and Involved, 1935-41 -- The Institutional Arena -- Norms of Leadership Politics -- Dominant Leader Within the Collective, 1941-45 -- Dominant, but Distant, 1945-53 -- Institutional Contours -- The Norms of Leadership Politics -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 5 The Limits of the Predominant Leader, 1953-64 -- The Elite Consensus -- The Post-Stalin Elite -- Undermining Collectivism -- The Achilles Heel of Leadership Predominance -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 6 Predominant Leader Within the Collective, 1964-82 -- Development of a Brezhnev Faction? -- Norms of Elite Politics -- Institutional Contours of Elite Politics -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 7 Collectivism Collapses, 1982-91 -- The Interregnum: Andropov and Chernenko -- Gorbachev and the Collapse of Collective Leadership -- A Gorbachev Faction? -- The Strategy of the Predominant Leader -- Mode of Opposing the Predominant Leader -- Destruction of the Institutions of Collective Leadership -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 8 Conclusion -- Formal Norms -- Informal Norms.

Cover -- Contents -- List of Figures and Tables -- Preface -- 1 The Modern State -- What is the state? -- State capacity -- State power -- 2 The Origins of State Capacity -- City-states -- Empires -- The ancient state -- Conclusion: Lessons from antiquity -- 3 Building Capacity, East and West -- The Chinese Empire -- Byzantium -- West European feudalism -- Central power and its projection -- A patrimonial variant -- Governmental coherence: Absolutism and constitutionalism -- Institutional interdependence? -- Conclusion: Lessons of the feudal and early modern period -- 4 The State, Capitalism and Industrialization -- The state and industrialism -- The 'late developers' -- Industrialization and the development of state infrastructure -- The social embedding of the state -- Enhanced interdependence -- Asian backwardness? -- Conclusion: The state and industrialization -- 5 States and International Systems -- The European international system -- The East Asian international system -- A world system? -- An imperial world system? -- Conclusion: The state and the international system -- 6 The State Embedded: Twentieth-Century Alternatives? -- Welfare capitalism -- East Asian welfarism -- Communist totalism -- Capitalist success, communist failure? -- No third way -- Conclusion: State capacity in the twentieth century -- 7 State Capacity and Governance in a Globalized World -- Economic globalization -- Political globalization -- Cultural/ideological globalization -- The limits of globalization -- The state and globalization -- Conclusion: State power in the twenty-first century -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index.

The author assesses the main theories developed to account for and explain why and how authoritarian regimes give way to democratic ones. The book takes issue with the predominantly élite-centred focus of much of the literature, and illustrates how an understanding of democratization can be gained only if the role of civil society is taken into account

The fall of the Communist regime in the USSR and Russia's search for a democratic and prosperous market-based future is one of the most compelling episodes of the end of the twentieth century. A central part in this drama is being played by political elites. These essays, written by some of the leading scholars in the field, analyse various aspects of the role being played by elites and leaders in Russian politics. Among the issues dealt with are: the origins of the Russian elites, including the issue of continuity with the Soviet past; the relationship between political and economic elites; the means taken by elites to structure politics and their relations; the dynamic of elite politics, and the nature of post-communism. These essays deal with many of the crucial questions facing Russia today

This book examines the course of official criticism of republican leaderships in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from Stalin's death until the collapse of central control in the late 1980s. It focuses upon five republics, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belorussia. The extraordinary power of the central leadership to replace particular republican leaders is contrasted with the continuing dominance of elite politics in these republics by local cliques with substantial and increasing autonomy from Moscow