To shoot or not to shoot: Posttotalitarianism in China and eastern Europe

Comparative Politics

Volumn 34, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 63-83

  Thompson, Mark R ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0039192928     PISSN: 00104159     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/422415     Document Type: Review

References (93)

1. In contrast, in China secessionist movements in Tibet and to a lesser extent in northwestern China have been brutally repressed as part of the general illiberality of post-1989 Communist rule.
2. Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 3.
3. Jacques Lévesque, The Enigma of 1989: The USSR and the Liberation of Eastern Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), argues against such a simplistic view.
4. Elizabeth Pond, Beyond the Wall: Germany's Road to Unification (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1993), pp. 111-12.
5. Ibid.
6. Bernard Wheaton and Zdenek Kavan, The Velvet Revolution: Czechoslovakia 1988-1991 (Boulder: Westview, 1992), pp. 61, 72.
7. Mark R. Thompson, "The Survival of 'Asian Values' as Zivilisationskritik" Theory and Society, 29 (2000).
8. For an appropriately sarcastic analysis see Jacob Heilbrunn, "The Clash of Samuel Huntingtons," The American Prospect, 39 (July-August 1998), 22-28.
9. Randall Collins, "German-Bashing and the Theory of Democratic Modernization," Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 24 (1995), 3-21.
10. Stephen Manning, "Social and Cultural Prerequisites of Democratization: Generalizing from China," in Edward Friedman, ed., The Politics of Democratization: Generalizing East Asian Experiences (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 232-48.
11. Not all culturalist arguments are so essentialist. See Lucian W. Pye, "Tiananmen and Chinese Political Culture: The Escalation of Confrontation from Moralizing to Revenge," Asian Survey, 30 (April 1990), 331-47.
12. John Segal and John Phipps, "Why Communist Armies Defend Their Parties," Asian Survey, 30 (October 1990), 959-76.
13. Ibid., pp. 960-61, 972-73.
14. A point Weber also analyzed. Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 212-13.
15. T. H. Rigby and Ferenc Fehér, "Introduction," in T. H. Rigby and Ferenc Fehér, eds., Political Legitimation in Communist States (London: Macmillan, 1982), p. 15.
16. Maria Marcus, "Overt and Covert Modes of Legitimation in East European Societies," in Rigby and Fehér, eds., pp. 82-93, cited in Giuseppe Di Palma, "Legitimation from the Top to Civil Society: Politico-Cultural Change in Eastern Europe," World Politics, 43 (1991), 55.
17. Maria Marcus, "Overt and Covert Modes of Legitimation in East European Societies," in Rigby and Fehér, eds., pp. 82-93, cited in Giuseppe Di Palma, "Legitimation from the Top to Civil Society: Politico-Cultural Change in Eastern Europe," World Politics, 43 (1991), 55.
18. Di Palma, p. 56.
19. Daniel V. Friedheim, "Democratic Transition through Regime Collapse: East Germany in 1989" (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1997), pp. 53-65.
20. Ibid., Table 37, p. 421, and ch. 8.
21. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 322-28.
22. Andrew Scobell, "Why the People's Army Fired on the People," in Roger V. Des Forges, Luo Ning, and Wu Yen-bo, eds., Chinese Democracy and the Crisis of 1989: Chinese and American Reflections (Albany: State University Press of New York, 1993), pp. 191-221.
23. Stephen White, After Gorbachev (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 23-27, Richard Sakwa, "The Revolution of 1991 in Russia: Interpretations of the Moscow Coup," Coexistence, 29 (December 1992), 335-75: John B. Dunlop, The Rise and the Fall of the Soviet Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), ch. 5. For his own (controversial) account, see Mikhail Gorbachev, The August Coup (London: HarperCollins, 1991).
24. Stephen White, After Gorbachev (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 23-27, Richard Sakwa, "The Revolution of 1991 in Russia: Interpretations of the Moscow Coup," Coexistence, 29 (December 1992), 335-75: John B. Dunlop, The Rise and the Fall of the Soviet Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), ch. 5. For his own (controversial) account, see Mikhail Gorbachev, The August Coup (London: HarperCollins, 1991).
25. Stephen White, After Gorbachev (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 23-27, Richard Sakwa, "The Revolution of 1991 in Russia: Interpretations of the Moscow Coup," Coexistence, 29 (December 1992), 335-75: John B. Dunlop, The Rise and the Fall of the Soviet Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), ch. 5. For his own (controversial) account, see Mikhail Gorbachev, The August Coup (London: HarperCollins, 1991).
26. Stephen White, After Gorbachev (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 23-27, Richard Sakwa, "The Revolution of 1991 in Russia: Interpretations of the Moscow Coup," Coexistence, 29 (December 1992), 335-75: John B. Dunlop, The Rise and the Fall of the Soviet Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), ch. 5. For his own (controversial) account, see Mikhail Gorbachev, The August Coup (London: HarperCollins, 1991).
27. Minxin Pei, From Reform to Revolution: The Demise of Communism in China and the Soviet Union (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994), chs. 1, 2. Also see Xiaoxing Han, "Democratic Transition in China: A Comparative Examination of a Deified Idea," in Des Forges, Ning, and Wu, eds., pp. 224-28.
28. Minxin Pei, From Reform to Revolution: The Demise of Communism in China and the Soviet Union (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994), chs. 1, 2. Also see Xiaoxing Han, "Democratic Transition in China: A Comparative Examination of a Deified Idea," in Des Forges, Ning, and Wu, eds., pp. 224-28.
29. Pei, p. 58 (emphasis in the original).
30. In 1997-98 Freedom House gave Malawi a rating of "free," while Singapore was considered "part-ly free," although the former had a real GDP per capita (PPP) of only $695, while the latter had one of $20,987. Adrian Karatnycky, ed., Freedom in the World 1997-1998: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1998).
31. Pei, p. 52.
32. Ibid., p. 57.
33. Mark Selden, "The Social Origins and Limits of the Democratic Movement," in Des Forges, Ning, and Wu, eds., p. 124.
34. Pei, Table 2.2, p. 59.
35. The National Statistics Bureau, ed., Zhongguo tongji nianjian 1988 (Beijing: Chinese Statistics Press, 1988), pp. 117-30, cited in Shaoguang Wang, "From a Pillar of Continuity to a Force for Change: Chinese Workers in the Movement," in Des Forges, Ning, and Wu, eds., p. 180.
36. The National Statistics Bureau, ed., Zhongguo tongji nianjian 1988 (Beijing: Chinese Statistics Press, 1988), pp. 117-30, cited in Shaoguang Wang, "From a Pillar of Continuity to a Force for Change: Chinese Workers in the Movement," in Des Forges, Ning, and Wu, eds., p. 180.
37. Mark R. Thompson, "Whatever Happened to Democratic Revolutions?," Democratization (2000).
38. Marc Blecher, China against the Tides: Restructuring through Revolution, Radicalism and Reform (London: Pinter, 1997), p. 106. Elsewhere, however, Blecher's argument is more structuralist.
39. Ibid., pp. 107-8.
40. Steven Saxonberg, "Regime Behavior during Crisis: A Comparison of East European Regimes in 1989," paper presented at the APSA annual meeting, Atlanta, September 2-5, 1999, p. 4. Also Steven Saxonberg, The Fall: Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland in a Comparative Perspective (London: Harwood Academic, 2001).
41. Steven Saxonberg, "Regime Behavior during Crisis: A Comparison of East European Regimes in 1989," paper presented at the APSA annual meeting, Atlanta, September 2-5, 1999, p. 4. Also Steven Saxonberg, The Fall: Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland in a Comparative Perspective (London: Harwood Academic, 2001).
42. Tang Tsou, "The Tiananmen Tragedy: The State-Society Relationship, Choices, and Mechanisms in Historical Perspective," in Jan Elster, ed., The Roundtable Talks (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), pp. 213-40.
43. Ibid., p. 222.
44. Ibid., pp. 223-24.
45. Timothy Brook, Quelling the People: The Military Suppression of the Beijing Opposition Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), Introduction.
46. Scobell, pp. 194-95.
47. Selden, pp. 126-27.
48. Wheaton and Kavan, pp. 206-8.
49. Rasma Karklins and Roger Petersen, "Decision Calculus of Protesters and Regimes: Eastern Europe 1989," The Journal of Politics, 55 (August 1993), 610.
50. Andrew J. Nathan, "Chinese Democracy in 1989: Continuity and Change," Problems of Communism (September-October 1989), 17, cited in Karklins and Petersen, p. 610.
51. Karklins and Petersen, p. 610.
52. Richard Snyder and James Mahoney, "The Missing Variable: Institutions and the Study of Regime Change," Comparative Politics, 32 (October 1999), pp. 103-22.
53. Anthony Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis (London: Macmillan, 1979), pp. 59-73.
54. Carl J. Friedrich and Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956), p. 135.
55. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1976), pp. xxxvi-xxxvii.
56. Václav Havel et al., The Power of the Powerless: Citizens against the State in Central-Eastern Europe (London: Hutchinson, 1985). For background on the term "posttotalitarian" see Mark R. Thompson, "Neither Totalitarian nor Authoritarian: Post-Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe," in Achim Siegel, ed., The Totalitarian Paradigm after the End of Communism: Towards a Theoretical Reassessment (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998), pp. 303-28.
57. Václav Havel et al., The Power of the Powerless: Citizens against the State in Central-Eastern Europe (London: Hutchinson, 1985). For background on the term "posttotalitarian" see Mark R. Thompson, "Neither Totalitarian nor Authoritarian: Post-Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe," in Achim Siegel, ed., The Totalitarian Paradigm after the End of Communism: Towards a Theoretical Reassessment (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998), pp. 303-28.
58. Havel, pp. 27-28.
59. Juan J. Linz, "Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes," in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby, eds., Handbook of Political Science, vol. 3 (Cambridge, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1975), pp. 175-411; Linz and Stepan, chs. 3, 4, 17.
60. Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, The Permanent Purge: Politics in Soviet Totalitarianism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956).
61. Havel, pp. 39-40.
62. Ibid.
63. For another approach applying a modified version of totalitarian theory to China, see Weizhi Xie, "The Semihierarchical Totalitarian Nature of Chinese Politics," Comparative Politics, 25 (April 1993), 313-30. Chien-min Chao, "Some Thoughts on the Party-Legislature Relations of Leninist Regimes: The Case of China," paper presented at the Conference on Institutional Analysis of Political Transitions in Germany and China, Beijing, September 13-14, 1999, uses the term "posttotalitarian authoritarian regime."
64. For another approach applying a modified version of totalitarian theory to China, see Weizhi Xie, "The Semihierarchical Totalitarian Nature of Chinese Politics," Comparative Politics, 25 (April 1993), 313-30. Chien-min Chao, "Some Thoughts on the Party-Legislature Relations of Leninist Regimes: The Case of China," paper presented at the Conference on Institutional Analysis of Political Transitions in Germany and China, Beijing, September 13-14, 1999, uses the term "posttotalitarian authoritarian regime."
65. Linz and Stepan drew the term frozen posttotalitarianism from Timothy Garton Ash, "Czechoslovakia under the Ice," in The Uses of Adversity: Essays on the Fate of Central Europe (New York: Random House, 1989), pp. 61-70.
66. Hermann Weber, DDR: Grundriß der Geschichte 1945-1990 (Hanover: Fackelträger, 1991), pp. 119-121, 260.
67. Susan L. Shirk, The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), p. 12.
68. Philip G. Roeder, Red Sunset: The Failure of Soviet Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 239-45.
69. Scobell, p. 192. Such party-military interpenetration went back as far as the 1920s, when key members of the old guard had held important military positions and "can be logically classified as 'military men.'"
70. Peter Christian Ludz, The Changing Party Elite in East Germany (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1972).
71. In later posttotalitarianism, as in the Soviet Union under Brezhnev, the state began to subsidize farmers; farming collectives accustomed to state largess often initially viewed market reforms hostilely. See Mark Selden, "Post-Collective Agrarian Alternatives in Russia and China," in Barrett L. McCormick and Jonathan Unger, eds., China after Socialism: In the Footsteps of Eastern Europe or East Asia? (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1996), pp. 7-28.
72. This miracle growth rate was canonized in World Bank, The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), Box 1.3, p. 59. China enjoyed an annual GNP growth of 9.4 percent from 1979 to 1989, with a surge of 11.34 percent from 1982 to 1988.
73. Selden, "Limits of the Democratic Movement," pp. 114-20.
74. Paul Krugman, "The Myth of Asia's Miracle," Foreign Affairs (November-December 1994), 62-78.
75. Barrett L. McCormick, Su Shaozhi, and Xiao Xiaoming, "The 1989 Democracy Movement: A Review of the Prospects for Civil Society in China," Pacific Affairs, 65 (Summer 1992), 186-187.
76. Selden, "Post-Collective Agrarian Alternatives," pp. 7-28.
77. A demonstration against the Gang of Four in Tiananmen Square on April 5, 1976, though small, could also date the beginning of the revival of China's democracy movement.
78. Selden, "Limits of the Democratic Movement," p. 111.
79. Andrew Walder, "The Political Sociology of the Beijing Upheaval of 1989," Problems of Communism (September-October 1989), 30-40, cited in Karklins and Petersen, p. 609.
80. This term was coined by the West German diplomat Günter Gaus, Wo Deutschland liegt (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1986).
81. On the East German Stasi see David Childs and Richard Opplewell, The Stasi: East German Intelligence and Security Service (New York: New York University Press, 1996); Walter Süß, Staatssicherheit am Ende: Warum es den Mächtigen nicht gelang, 1989 eine Revolution zu verhindern (Berlin: Ch. Links, 1999). On the StB see Wheaton and Kavan, pp. 136-37.
82. On the East German Stasi see David Childs and Richard Opplewell, The Stasi: East German Intelligence and Security Service (New York: New York University Press, 1996); Walter Süß, Staatssicherheit am Ende: Warum es den Mächtigen nicht gelang, 1989 eine Revolution zu verhindern (Berlin: Ch. Links, 1999). On the StB see Wheaton and Kavan, pp. 136-37.
83. For an encyclopedic look at the East German opposition, see Ehrhart Neubert, Geschichte der Opposition in der DDR 1949-1989 (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 1997). Also see Hagen Findeis, Detlef Pollack, and Manuel Schilling, Die Entzauberung des Politischen: Was ist aus den politisch alternativen Gruppen der DDR geworden? (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1994). The best English language studies are Christian Joppke, East German Dissidents and the Revolution of 1989: Social Movements in a Leninist Regime (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995); and John Torpey, Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent: The East German Opposition and Its Legacy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995).
84. For an encyclopedic look at the East German opposition, see Ehrhart Neubert, Geschichte der Opposition in der DDR 1949-1989 (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 1997). Also see Hagen Findeis, Detlef Pollack, and Manuel Schilling, Die Entzauberung des Politischen: Was ist aus den politisch alternativen Gruppen der DDR geworden? (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1994). The best English language studies are Christian Joppke, East German Dissidents and the Revolution of 1989: Social Movements in a Leninist Regime (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995); and John Torpey, Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent: The East German Opposition and Its Legacy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995).
85. For an encyclopedic look at the East German opposition, see Ehrhart Neubert, Geschichte der Opposition in der DDR 1949-1989 (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 1997). Also see Hagen Findeis, Detlef Pollack, and Manuel Schilling, Die Entzauberung des Politischen: Was ist aus den politisch alternativen Gruppen der DDR geworden? (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1994). The best English language studies are Christian Joppke, East German Dissidents and the Revolution of 1989: Social Movements in a Leninist Regime (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995); and John Torpey, Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent: The East German Opposition and Its Legacy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995).
86. For an encyclopedic look at the East German opposition, see Ehrhart Neubert, Geschichte der Opposition in der DDR 1949-1989 (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 1997). Also see Hagen Findeis, Detlef Pollack, and Manuel Schilling, Die Entzauberung des Politischen: Was ist aus den politisch alternativen Gruppen der DDR geworden? (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1994). The best English language studies are Christian Joppke, East German Dissidents and the Revolution of 1989: Social Movements in a Leninist Regime (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995); and John Torpey, Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent: The East German Opposition and Its Legacy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995).
87. Jeffrey Kopstein, The Politics of Economic Decline in East Germany, 1945-1989 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997).
88. Cited in Süß, pp. 339, 360-61.
89. Wheaton and Kavan, pp. 11-13. The standard work on the establishment of Charter 77 is Gordon H. Skilling, Charter 77 and Human Rights in Czechoslovakia (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1981).
90. Ibid., pp. 606-7.
91. Joppke, ch. 5. Also see Mark R. Thompson, "A Hostile People but a Loyal Opposition: National Identity and Anti-Fascism in the GDR," in Howard Williams, Colin Wight, and Norbert Kapfer, eds., Political Thought and German Reunification (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), pp. 1-27.
92. Selden, "Limits of the Democratic Movement," p. 127.
93. Ibid, p. 121.