The Architecture of Power: From the Collapse of Communism to the Path Dependency of Autocracy
The question of why communist and post-communist power structures took on such profound and often contradictory forms across different parts of the world leads directly to the intersection of ideology, institutional design, and historical path dependency. Whether in the bureaucratic party-states of the former Soviet Union and present-day China, the dynastic hereditary dictatorships of North Korea, or the hybrid patronage systems of Latin America and Asia, the emergence, consolidation, and transformation of authoritarian power rely on a complex interplay between institutional legacies and mechanisms of control. Originally advancing a utopian promise of a classless society, the Marxist-Leninist system developed practical mechanisms that entirely erased the boundaries between the state, the economy, law, and private life. The decisive engine of this development was the Leninist principle of the vanguard party. According to this doctrine, the general populace was incapable of developing a ...