Why the world’s most resilient dictatorships are products of violent revolution 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 monarchies
and landowners and helps to inoculate revolutionary regimes against elite defection military
coups and mass protest—three principal sources of authoritarian breakdown. Looking at a range
of revolutionary and nonrevolutionary regimes from across the globe Revolution and
Dictatorship shows why governments that emerge from violent conflict endure.
