Abstract
There is probably no question in the social sciences of greater importance than the causes of the rise of dictatorship. Indeed, it is probably no exaggeration to suggest that most of the great events of the 20th century are either directly or indirectly attributable to this phenomenon. To demonstrate this point, we need only make reference to three events or classes of events, which can also serve as the historical backdrop to this paper: (1) the rise of Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s; (2) the rise of a totalitarian dictatorship in the Soviet Union, which among other things has extinguished the promise of freedom in Communism as an intellectual ideology and political movement; (3) the contemporary pattern of revolving dictatorship in the developing countries, especially in Africa and Latin America.
“Germany is longing for the One, the Man, as the earth in summer is longing for rain…Could a miracle still save us? Lord, show the German people a miracle! A miracle! a man!!.” The diaries of Joseph Goebbels, 1924, (before he met Hitler).
I am indebted to participants in the Villa Colombella Seminar on Competitive Politics especially Raymond Breton, Giorgio Brosio, Timur Kuran, Tony Scott and Stan Winer for helpful comments and suggestions. Responsibility for any remaining errors is of course, my own.
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Wintrobe, R. (1991). Political competition and the rise of dictatorship. In: Breton, A., Galeotti, G., Salmon, P., Wintrobe, R. (eds) The Competitive State. International Studies in Economics and Econometrics, vol 21. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0645-7_9
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