Steven Saxonberg, Transitions and Non-Transitions from Communism: Regime Survival in China, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam

摘要

In the years following the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, little study was conducted to clarify the specific features of the transitioning regimes, which could have provided a comparative basis for comprehending the survival of other communist states. The literature furthermore has tended to presume transitions meant democratization, which of course did not transpire or have been problematic in many cases. In this study, Saxonberg does not presume that regime change implies a transition to democracy. Transition here refers simply to the end of communist party rule. This book is the first to compare both transitions and non-transitions "in order to distinguish necessary from sufficient conditions for a transition" (page 3). It is concerned with why such regimes break down, borrowing from institutional analyses, in particular Linz and Stepan's stages of regime development, which Saxonberg modifies. He also addresses other institutional and non-institutional factors that he believes are critical but neglected in the literature, by offering various theories on the development of different regime types and society's revolutionary potential.