What is it about?
This paper analyzes the responses of the East German elite to a nationwide mass uprising against the regime in June, 1953. It argues that the repressive response was a function of the balance of power between hard- and soft-liners within the regime, rather than the nature of the unrest itself.
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Why is it important?
We assume that the threat of mass opposition shapes authoritarian regime behavior, this study traces out how that process occurs. It emerges that the response of a regime to a mass threat to political stability is more contingent on intra-elite power-sharing than a direct function of the nature of the threat itself.
Perspectives
The dynamics explored here have parallels in other authoritarian regimes responding to crises, e.g. the Chinese regime during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
Henry Thomson
Arizona State University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Repression, Redistribution and the Problem of Authoritarian Control, East European Politics and Societies and Cultures, February 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0888325416670241.
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