From Shocks to Waves:

Hegemonic Transitions and Democratization in the Twentieth Century

Vsevolod Gunitskiy

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
2011
 © 2011
Vsevolod Gunitskiy
All rights reserved
 ABSTRACT

From Shocks to Waves:

Hegemonic Transitions and Democratization in the Twentieth Century
Vsevolod Gunitskiy

What causes democratic waves? This dissertation argues that sudden shifts in the

distribution of power among major states can help explain the wave-like spread of

democracy over the past century. These hegemonic shocks lead to bursts of regime

change by creating unique incentives and opportunities for domestic reforms, and

do so through three sets of mechanisms – hegemonic coercion, influence, and

emulation. Namely, shocks produce windows of opportunity for external regime

imposition, enable rising great powers to expand networks of trade and patronage,

and inspire imitators by credibly revealing hidden information about regime

effectiveness to foreign audiences.

I find strong statistical support for the idea that shifts in hegemonic power have

shaped waves of democracy, fascism, and communism in the twentieth century.

The statistical analysis is supplemented by case studies of three hegemonic shocks:

World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. The First World War

produced the century’s first democratic wave by demonstrating democracy’s

effectiveness to rulers on the battlefield and the factory floor, creating new states on

the ruins of autocratic empires, and increasing the organizational power of women

and working-class men. The wave also sowed the seeds of its own demise as rulers

and coalitions, swept up in the postwar momentum, adopted liberal institutions in

countries that lacked the social cohesion, political pre-conditions or economic

stability necessary for democratic consolidation. Pro-reform coalitions that

welcomed the reforms dissolved as the crisis passed. The economic rise of Nazi

Germany and the crisis of liberal capitalism in the Great Depression inaugurated a

fascist wave in the 1930s. In this period, fascist institutions penetrated the

governments of many self-proclaimed authoritarians but also left a lasting legacy on

the structure of modern democratic regimes. Growing fascist power and influence

inspired a number of imitators, culminating in a series of fascist regime impositions

at the outset of World War II. The outcome of that war produced not one but two

rising great powers, the United States and the Soviet Union. Reflecting this duality,

the war’s aftermath witnessed two distinct waves of institutional reforms that

embodied the competing visions offered by the two superpowers. Despite the

profound differences in their content, both regime waves diffused through a

mixture of coercion (through occupation and nation-building), influence (via the

expansion of trade, foreign aid, grants, and newly-forged international institutions),

and emulation (by outsiders impressed with the self-evident success of the two

systems).

Departing from theories that focus on the internal determinants of domestic

reforms, this dissertation argues that regime success in the twentieth century is

deeply tied to rapid changes in the global distribution of power, a relationship often

obscured by the vivid particularities of local transformations.

CONTENTS

List of Figures…………………...………………………………………………………..ii

List of Tables……………………………………….…………………………….………iii

Acknowledgments….……………………...…………………....…………..…….……iv

Chapter 1
Introduction: A Century of Shocks and Waves……………………………………..…1

Chapter 2
Testing the Effects of Hegemonic Power…………………………………………..…57

Chapter 3
The Alchemy of War: A Case Study of World War One………………………..…112

Chapter 4
A Low Dishonest Decade: A Case Study of the Great Depression………………..181

Chapter 5
Two Ways of Life: A Case Study of World War Two………………………………301

Chapter 6
Conclusion: Beyond the Great Plateau…………………………………………...…373

Bibliography…….…………………………………………………………………..…383

i
LIST OF FIGURES

1.1: Average global level of democracy, 1900-2000……………………………………………..……...4

1.2: Number of democracies as proportion of all states in the international system, 1900-2000…….4
1.3: Communist and Fascist shares of global power……………………………………...…………..….5
1.4: Number of fascist and communist states………………………………………......……………..….5
1.5: Average Hegemonic Volatility, 1900-2000………………………………………………………...19
1.6: Mimetic regime imposition by great powers, 1900-2000………..……………………...………..25
1.7: Soviet collapse and African democratization in the mid-1990s…………………………...….….30
1.8: A model of an institutional wave…….…..………………………………………………………....40
2.1: Average global democracy, Polity & SIP scores, 1900-2000 (standardized to 0-100)............…65
2.2 Democracies as a proportion of all states………………………………………………………..….65
2.3 Total number of democratic states………………………………………………………...………...66
2.4: Communist and fascist shares of global power, 1900-2000 (measured by CINC)…..............…67
2.5: Number of fascist and communist states, 1900-2000…………………………………………..…67
2.6: Number of fascist and communist states as proportion of all states………………......……...….68
2.7: Average Hegemonic Volatility (smoothed), 1900-2000…………………………………………..75
2.8: US and German Power (measured by CINC), 1920-1940………………………………………..76
2.9: Shares of hegemonic power bounded by salient regime spans.………………………………….78
2.10: Total regime promotion intensity, 1900-2000………….......…...…………………………….…90
2.11: Mimetic regime imposition by great powers, 1900-2000…………………...…………………..91
A1: Regional variations in the spread and retreat of democracy, 1900-2000……………………….103
A2: Total Regime Promotion Intensity by great powers, 1900-2000……………..............………...111
3.1: Total number of states in the international system, 1900-1930………………………………....113
3.2: The postwar democratic wave, as measured by Polity, 1900-1930………………...……….....117
3.3: The postwar democratic wave, as measured by SIP, 1900-1930………………….….………...118
3.4: US and German shares of hegemonic power, 1900-1930……………………………………....122
4.1: Relative powers, Germany vs. the United States…………………………………………………205
4.2: Number of fascist states, 1930-1945……………………………………………………………...205
4.3: Annual global democracy vs. % of global power under fascist regimes, 1930-1945………....206
4.4: US Power and the annual global democracy score (measured by SIP), 1930-1945.……….…207
5.1: Soviet share of hegemonic power, 1930-1960…………………………………………………...307
5.2: American share of hegemonic power, 1930-1960…………………………………………….…320
5.3: Average global level of democracy (1930-1970, using Polity IV)…………………………...….325
5.4: Total number of democratic states (states with a Polity score of at least 7)…….…………..….326
5.5: Democratic states as a proportion of all states in the international system……………….……326
5.6: Communist share of global power…………………………………………………………….…..327
5.7: Total number of communist states……………………………………………………………..….328
5.8: Number of communist states as a proportion of all states in the international system………..328

ii
LIST OF TABLES

1.1: Hegemonic shock outcomes……………………………………………....…………………….….20

2.1: Measures of domestic regimes, summary statistics……………………………….…………….….62
2.2: Measures of hegemonic power, 1900-2000…………………………………….……………..…..79
2.3. Systemic effects of hegemonic power………………………………………….…………………...80
2.4: Summary statistics, control variables…………………………………….……………………..…..83
2.5: Country-level effects of hegemonic power…………………………………………………………85
2.6: Model 5 from Table 2.2 with fixed effects………………………….…………………………..…..87
2.7: External interventions, promoter types 1900-2000………………………………………………..92
A1. Regional Effects…………………………………………………………………….………………..105
A2: Replication of Model 1 from Gleditsch and Ward 2006……………………………...………….108
A3: Model 1 with the addition of avchusshare…………………………………….……………….….109
3.1 Female Suffrage Expansion, 1917-1924………………………………….……………………..….146
3.2: New Democracies created by WWI……………………………….…………………………..….150
4.1 The Fascist Order in Festung Europa………………………………….…………………………....295

iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks must go first of all to my advising committee – Jack Snyder, Ken Waltz, and

Tanisha Fazal. Jack Snyder has overseen this project from the very beginning; his

guidance and encyclopedic knowledge of democratization has greatly improved

the dissertation along the way. Ken Waltz has been an enormous influence on my

views about theory in international relations, and that influence suffuses these

pages in ways that citations cannot capture. The clarity and richness of his work

sets a standard for all scholars of political science. Tanisha Fazal has been

instrumental in helping me deal with theoretical objections and developing my

knowledge of statistical procedures. Between the three of them they have provided

just the right mixture of coercion, influence, and emulation.

The department of political science at Columbia University has been a great

place to write this dissertation. Valuable conversations with Richard Betts, Virginia

Page Fortna, Robert Jervis, and Pablo Pinto helped me to frame and augment the

arguments. Without their help and the generosity of my advisors this work would

not be possible. Since debt, as Disraeli warned, is the prolific mother of folly, I

hasten to claim sole credit for the shortcomings, weaknesses, and omissions found

in these pages.

iv
 This project owes an intellectual debt to Samuel Huntington. A disagreement

can be a dead end or a point of departure. Despite my disagreements with aspects

of his work on the Third Wave, the high quality and originality of his scholarship

ensured that these disagreements always produced fruitful points of departure and

made the dissertation possible in the first place.

Parts of the dissertation, in various stages of development, have been presented

at the Millennium Journal of International Studies Annual Conference, the Midwest

Political Science Association, the American Political Science Association, and the

International Studies Association. I am grateful to the discussants and anonymous

audience members who have provided valuable comments and criticisms.

Participation in the Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research at Syracuse

University helped me in thinking about my case studies. Kurt Weyland at the

University of Texas at Austin and Jim Mahon at Williams College offered extremely

useful and detailed comments on draft chapters.

This dissertation is dedicated to my wife, who has probably looked forward to

its completion almost as much as I have. Her support has been responsible for

much more than these pages, and no dedication can adequately capture the value

of that support.

v
 "The winds and waves are always on the side
of the ablest navigators."
Edward Gibbon, 1776

“World history strides on from catastrophe to catastrophe,

whether we can comprehend and prove it or not.”
Oswald Spengler, 1932

“No one copies a loser.”

Samuel Huntington, 1982

vi
Sources:
Edward Gibbon (1776) Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chap. 68
Oswald Spengler (1932), Man and Technics, London: Allen and Unwin, p.37
Samuel Huntington (1982) “American Ideals versus American Institutions” Political
Science Quarterly 97.1:1-37

vii
 1

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: A Century of Shocks and Waves

The nations wax, the nations wane away

And in a brief space the generations pass,
And, like runners, hand on the torch of life
-- Lucretius1

“Anyone desiring a quiet life has done badly

to be born in the twentieth century.”
-- Leon Trotsky2

“Serious accidents are a major cause of change in safety,

even though the change is not always sustained.”
-- Trevor Kletz3

The rise and decline of democracy over the past century has been marked by

turbulent bursts of reform that swept across many countries in a relatively short

time – what Samuel Huntington famously called “democratic waves”.4 Moments of

great upheaval, not steady and gradual change, have been the hallmark of

democratic evolution. This dissertation seeks to explain the causes of these

1
Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, 50 B.C.E
2
Quoted in Isiah Berlin (1958/69) Four Essays on Liberty, p.1
3
Trevor Kletz (1993) Lessons from Disaster: How Organizations Have no Memory
and Accidents Recur, Gulf Professional Publishing, p. 70
4
Samuel Huntington (1991) The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late
Twentieth Century, University of Oklahoma Press
 2

transformative waves by focusing on the role of sudden hegemonic transitions in

the international system. While many explanations for democracy have looked at

domestic factors like economic growth, civil society, and class relations, I argue

that the real push for democracy comes from volatility in the international system.

My central thesis is that periods of sudden rise and decline of great powers create

unique incentives and opportunities for domestic reforms. These “hegemonic

shocks” have a crucial and often-ignored effect on the spread and retreat of

democratic reforms, and can explain the waves of democratization that have

shaped the twentieth century.

Since Huntington introduced the concept to political scientists, the presence of

waves has often been noted, but not easily explained. Huntington himself did not

seek to provide a theory of democratic waves, but only to describe what he thought

were the varied causes of the last bout of reforms. As he wrote in the introduction,

the book was “an explanatory, not a theoretical, work.”5 Though the argument is

“enticing in its scope and seductive in its pretense,” one scholar noted, “its

eclecticism does not give way to theoretical integration.”6

This dissertation builds on Huntington’s insight by proposing a theory for the

timing, intensity, and content of democratic waves in the twentieth century. It

outlines specific causal mechanisms that lead to their appearance, and tests the

argument using both statistical analysis and case studies of the first three

5
Huntington 1991:xiv
6
Gerardo L. Munck (1994) “Review: Democratic Transitions in Comparative
Perspective” Comparative Politics 26.3, p. 357
 3

hegemonic shocks of the twentieth century – World War I, the Great Depression,

and World War II. The puzzle I seek to answer is: what explains the causes of

democratic waves? In other words, why do democratic transitions cluster together

in space and time? (See Figures 1.1 and 1.2) For that matter, why do regime

transitions of all types seem to occur in waves, including communism and fascism?

(Figures 1.3 and 1.4) And finally, why do the reforms associated with democratic

waves often fail to consolidate, leading to democratic rollback in their aftermath?

Why do the waves collapse?

The wave-like pattern of democratic development is especially prominent when

the spread of democracy is charted over time. Figure 1.1 (following page) tracks the

average annual level of democracy between 1900 and 2000.7 As the graph shows,

the path of democratization is characterized by waves and counter-waves, with

democratic peaks following the two World Wars and the Soviet collapse.

7
Measured as an average of the Polity IV index of democracy and SIP, the Scalar
Index of Politics, combines the executive restraint components of the Polity IV
score with Vanhannen’s measure of popular participation See Scott Gates, Håvard
Hegre, Mark P. Jones, and Håvard Strand (2006) “Institutional Inconsistency and
Political Instability: Polity Duration, 1800-2000” American Journal of Political
Science 50.4:893-908
 4

Figure 1.1 Average global level of democracy, 1900-2000

Figure 1.2 Number of democracies as proportion of all states in the international

system, 1900-2000

The two major alternatives to democracy in the twentieth century – fascism and

communism – have also spread and retreated in wave-like patterns. A fascist wave

swept Europe in the 1930s, and a wave of Communist transitions followed the
 5

Soviet victory in World War II. Although non-democratic regimes lack well-

developed quantitative indices like Polity, the global spread of fascism and

communism can be estimated by charting the percentage of world power held by

fascist and communist states since 1900.8

Figure 1.3 Communist and Fascist shares of global power.

Figure 1.4 Number of fascist and communist states.

8
See Appendix 1 in Chapter 2 for classifications of fascist and communist regimes.
The share of power was calculated using the Composite Index of National
Capabilities, or CINC, discussed in Chapter 2.
 6

Examining the causes of these waves is essential not only for understanding

how democracy spreads, but also for judging the efficacy of external regime

promotion pursued by the United States and other great powers. Much of U.S.

policy during the Cold War was guided by the fear of a Communist wave that

would begin in Asia and eventually wash up on the shores of California. More

recently, the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the U.S. and its allies was sparked at least in

part by the Bush Administration’s belief in their ability to spark democratic waves

through forced regime change.9 When domestic reforms are embedded in the

dynamics of global or regional power shifts, it may be useless or even

counterproductive to focus purely on the needs and preferences of pro-reform

domestic actors inside any single country. Policies that attempt to influence

democratization would therefore benefit from examining the spread of democracy

as a process embedded in global cycles of democratic advances and retreats.

The Argument in Brief

This dissertation makes three related arguments about the causes of institutional

waves. First, I argue that abrupt hegemonic transitions in the international system –

that is, the sudden rise and decline of dominant countries – create unique

incentives and opportunities for waves of domestic reforms. These critical junctures

9
As George Bush said in a speech several months after the fall of Baghdad. “Iraqi
democracy will succeed – and that success wills send forth the news, from
Damascus to Tehran – that freedom can be the future of every nation…The
establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed
event in the global democratic revolution.” President’s remarks at the 20th
Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, United States Chamber of
Commerce, Washington DC, November 6, 2003.
 7

not only alter the hierarchy of great powers, but also shape the evolution of

domestic regimes. Namely, a sudden shift in the distribution of relative power that

favors a particular hegemon creates a wave of domestic reforms that reproduce the

institutional features of that hegemon’s regime. The outcomes of these shocks have

been powerful drivers of domestic transformations, affecting even those countries

that have little direct contact with the great powers themselves. I find powerful

support for this idea in both large-n statistical analysis and detailed case studies of

twentieth-century hegemonic shocks. The waves of democracy and autocracy that

have defined the past century are the products of these geopolitical cataclysms.

Second, the paper outlines three causal mechanisms through which hegemonic

shocks create waves of domestic reforms. First, hegemonic shocks create temporary

windows of opportunity for military interventions and regime impositions. For

example, the Communist wave in eastern Europe in the late 1940s would not have

been possible without a Soviet victory in the Second World War, accompanied by

the country’s rapid increase in relative power on the European continent. Second,

hegemonic shocks allow rising hegemons to expand their networks of trade and

patronage and to extend their influence via the construction of international

institutions. By contrast, countries that suffer sudden relative decline as a result of

the shock will be diminished in their ability to exercise influence beyond their

national borders. The Soviet collapse, for example, disrupted patronage networks in

many African states in the mid-1990s, leading their citizens to question the

legitimacy of their rulers. “The wind from the east,” said Gabon’s ruler Omar
 8

Bongo in 1990, “are shaking the coconut trees in Africa.”10 Shocks thus create

opportunities to significantly alter the institutional preferences and power dynamics

of coalitions within many countries at once, even in those countries not directly

affected by the shock. Third, hegemonic shocks reveal information about relative

regime efficiency to foreign audiences. By demonstrating which regimes perform

better under duress, shocks legitimize certain regimes and make them more

attractive to would-be emulators. Hegemons whose fortunes suddenly decline due

to a hegemonic shock will find their regimes discredited and abandoned by former

followers or sympathizers. Success is contagious, in other words, but only failure

demands inoculation.

Because hegemonic competition is a game of relative gains and losses, the rise

in status of one great power is necessarily accompanied by the decline of another.

Through the mechanisms described above, the rising hegemons are able to impose

their regimes on others through brute force, to influence the institutional choices of

these states more indirectly through patronage and trade, or to simply sit back and

watch the imitators climb onto the bandwagon. The declining hegemons,

meanwhile, face an equally powerful but countervailing set of factors: their

capacity to coerce erodes, their ability to influence and maintain allies through

trade and patronage declines, and the legitimacy of their regime as a model of

emulation evaporates, revealed to be inadequate under duress. These are the

mechanisms of coercion, influence, and emulation that produce waves of regime

10
Quoted in Eric S. Packham (2004) Africa in War and Peace, Nova Publishers, p.
209
 9

change in the wake of hegemonic shocks.

A third set of arguments examines why so many democratic reforms that take

place within these waves fail to consolidate, creating anti-democratic rollbacks. All

three waves of democracy experienced reversals shortly after their peak – a

catastrophic reversal after 1918, a severe one after 1945, and a partial but

persistent one after 1991. The reasons for these failed consolidations, I argue, stems

from the dynamics that create the wave in the first place. The outcome of a shock

in which a democratic hegemon emerges triumphant – as was the case with the

United States in the three cases above – creates extremely strong but temporary

incentives for democratization, including within states that would not have made

such a transition otherwise. These states adopt democratic institutions despite the

absence of structural conditions generally needed to sustain and consolidate

democracy – a well-established middle class, economic stability, ethnic

cooperation, and past experience with democratic “rules of the game”. New elites,

driven by a spirit of prevailing optimism or misleading cognitive biases that cause

them to over-emphasize recent and dramatic events, adopt institutions ultimately

unsuitable for their country’s level of social, economic or political development.

Meanwhile, extraordinary ad hoc coalitions that push for democratic reforms in a

moment of crisis dissolve as the crisis fades away. Like a victorious international

alliance that disintegrates once its purpose has been served, these domestic

coalitions struggle to hold together after the initial post-shock period – as was the

case, for example, in Germany after 1918. As a result, the shock produces a case of
 10

“democratic over-stretch”, an institutional version of a stock market bubble in

which states that are unlikely to consolidate a democracy try to adopt it regardless

of structural domestic conditions. The causes of failed consolidation that occur

after waves, therefore, are linked to initial transitions that create the wave in the

first place.

Relevance

The dissertation contributes to the literature on democratization in several

ways. First, it offers a theory for the temporal and geographic clustering of

domestic reforms. Although institutional waves have been a central feature in the

evolution of modern regimes, there are surprisingly few attempts to explain their

causes. This omission stems partly from the way democracy has been studied in the

past. Most theories of democratization emphasize the influence of domestic

variables such as economic development, class coalitions, or civil society.

Domestic factors alone, however, cannot account for the rapid and simultaneous

bursts of reform that have shaped democratic development. Departing from

theories that focus on the internal determinants of domestic reforms, I argue that

regime success in the twentieth century is deeply tied to rapid changes in the

global distribution of power, a relationship often obscured by the vivid

particularities of local transformations. Untangling the details of this relationship

requires a systemic theory of democratization – that is, a theory that examines how

linkages among states and changes in the international system shape and constrain

the incentives and opportunities for domestic reforms. Because it steps outside the
 11

state to examine the influence of the international environment, the approach

employed in this dissertation takes the form of a “second-image reversed” theory.11

It is not my goal, however, to claim that domestic factors are irrelevant in

explaining democratic transitions. Domestic explanations get a lot of things right,

and in some instances they are essential for understanding regime reforms. But

there are times when systemic pressures have important and long-lasting effects on

the evolution of domestic regimes. At such times, the interaction of external and

domestic factors becomes crucial for explaining regime change. It may well be

true, as modernization theory argues, that a country’s economic development

influences democratization. At the same time, economic development cannot

explain simultaneous transitions unless it can be shown that a number of countries

experienced a sudden rise in economic development at the same time. Moreover,

economic development itself is subject to a variety of external influences,

especially when the international system undergoes dramatic changes. My goal,

therefore, is not to explain away internal factors but to examine how they interact

with often-ignored external influences in creating domestic transformations.

No theory can explain all instances of regime reform; this is an inherent

limitation of social science theories that operate in a complex and contingent

world. The beginnings of the third wave in Southern Europe and later Asia and

Latin America were not associated with sudden shifts in hegemonic capability. The

wave of democratization in eastern Europe in 1989 was directly tied to changes in

11
Peter Gourevitch (1978) “The Second Image Reversed: The International Sources
of Domestic Politics” International Organization 32.4: 881-911
 12

great power politics that were motivated by fear of Soviet decline and Gorbachev’s

attempts to reverse that decline. Yet it was a precursor to the Soviet collapse rather

than a symptom of it. Hegemonic shock dynamics are clearly visible, however, in

the African wave of democratization after 1991. The so-called Color Revolutions in

the post-Soviet space or the ongoing wave of popular protests in the Arab world

also represent instances of waves that were not produced by shocks. Scholars have

focused on various mechanisms of diffusion to explain connections among these

protests, but the sudden rise or decline of great powers has not played a major role

in their explanations.

Not all waves, then, are caused by hegemonic shocks. At the same time, every

hegemonic shock of the twentieth century has produced a wave of domestic

reforms. Shocks are therefore a sufficient but not a necessary cause of institutional

waves. Moreover, the waves produced by hegemonic shocks have had an

enormous impact on the evolution of domestic regimes. Whether it was the

democratic waves that followed World War I and the Soviet collapse, the fascist

wave of the 1930s, or the two waves toward democracy and communism after

World War II – in each instance, shifts in the distribution of hegemonic power have

produced bursts of transformation that affected many countries around the world.

This dissertation also contributes to the literature on democratic consolidation

by providing a novel explanation for the frequent failures of democratic transitions.

Many countries undergo democratic transitions, but far fewer are able to sustain the

reforms that accompany these transitions. As Przeworski et al. (2000) have argued,
 13

consolidations are easier to explain – countries are much more likely to sustain

democratic institutions if they are wealthy, well-educated, ethnically homogenous,

relatively equal, and have a sizeable middle class. By contrast, transitions occur in

countries at all levels of income and education, with a variety of ethnic

compositions, and with many different types of class coalitions.12 While there

seems to be a magic formula for democratic consolidation, no such formula exists

to explain democratic transitions. Transitions are easy to do, but hard to explain;

consolidation is hard to accomplish, but easy to explain. As a result, some scholars

have argued that factors leading to democratic transitions may be different from

factors that sustain democracy over the long run.

My argument both builds upon this literature and departs from it in some ways.

Hegemonic shocks create immense incentives for reforms, I argue, leading

countries of all stripes and all levels of socio-economic development to attempt a

democratic transition. This leads to institutional over-reach that creates a number of

failed transitions. Failed transitions can thus be explained as instances of

democratic overstretch. At the same time, I argue, the wave sows the seeds of its

own demise, creating incentives that disappear as the shock fades. Thus the factors

that create an artificially high number of transitions also create the failed

consolidations that follow. The causes of transitions and consolidations are indeed

causally linked, if counterintuitively so, rather than produced by separate causal

12
Adam Przeworski, Michael E. Alvarez, Jose Antonio Cheibub, and Fernando
Limongi (2000) Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being
in the World, 1950-1990, Cambridge University Press
 14

processes.

Finally, the dissertation seeks to integrate the literature on hegemonic transitions

from international relations with the literature on democratization from

comparative politics – two strands of theory that share common affinities but rarely

intersect. The study of hegemonic transitions has generally neglected their

influence on domestic transformations, focusing instead on the causes of

hegemonic wars and their effects on war propensity and foreign policy.13 The study

of the causes of democratization, by contrast, has traditionally been the province of

comparativists who explore the internal dynamics of domestic political evolution.

As I hope to show, the intersection of these fields can usefully illuminate the causes

of domestic transformations. How democracy spreads can tell us about the nature

of democracy itself.

Defining Hegemonic Shocks

The word “hegemon” is used ambiguously in the international relations literature. It

can refer to a single paramount state, one associated with the provision of global

public goods and control of the commons. But it can also refer to one of several

great powers.14 I adopt the latter definition – in this dissertation, a hegemon refers

13
The classic texts are A.F.K. Organski (1958) World Politics, Knopf and Robert
Gilpin (1981) War and Change in Global Politics, Cambridge University Press. For
two more recent edited volumes, see Jonathan Friedman and Christopher Chase-
Dunn, eds. (2005) Hegemonic Declines: Present and Past, Paradigm Publishers and
William R. Thompson, ed. (2009) Systemic Transitions: Past, Present, and Future,
Palgrave-Macmillan.
14
The Oxford English Dictionary maintains this ambivalence, defining a hegemon
as “a leading or paramount power,” where “leading” implies the possibility of
 15

to a leading power, or a state that comprises a “pole” in the international system. In

that sense a hegemon as used here is a more exclusive term than the Correlates of

War definition of a “major power”, but more inclusive than the single-state

definition adopted by, for example, Gilpin (1981) or Mearsheimer (2001).15 The

salient characteristic of a “pole” is that it is not merely a major power, but a leading

state with the capacity to impose regimes, influence other great powers, and inspire

institutional imitators. Following the general view that the system was multipolar

until World War Two and bipolar until the Soviet collapse,16 hegemons between

the years 1816 and 2000 were labeled as: US 1898-2000; Russia/USSR 1816-1991;

Great Britain 1816-1945; France 1816-1945; Germany 1871-1945; and Japan

1905-1945.

I define a hegemonic shock as a sudden shift in the distribution of relative

power among the leading states in the international system. The term expands on

Gilpin’s notion of a “hegemonic war” to include non-military shocks such as

economic crises or imperial collapses – any period in which the power of one

hegemon rises or declines significantly against the others. Gilpin saw hegemonic

wars as “the ultimate test of change in the relative standing of the powers in the

multiple such states, while “paramount” implies a single all-powerful entity.

15
John Mearsheimer (2001) The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, W.W. Norton and
Company, p.40. Robert Gilpin (1981) War and Change in World Politics,
Cambridge University Press, p.29. See Chapter 2 for an extended discussion.
16
See, e.g., Kenneth N. Waltz (1979) Theory of International Politics, McGraw-Hill
or Paul Kennedy (1989) The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change
and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, New York: Random House: “The
multipolar world of 1885 was replaced by a bipolar world as early as 1943.”
(p.197, orig. emphasis)
 16

existing system,” and the same applies to hegemonic shocks in general.17 By

producing clear winners and losers, hegemonic shocks clarify the balance of power

and allow opportunities for the creation of new global orders. In doing so, they also

become the graveyards and incubators of competing regime types, as described in

the mechanisms above.

Hegemonic shocks are critical junctures in the development of domestic

institutions. They are rare and relatively brief, but they play a pivotal role in

shaping the evolution of political and social institutions. Karl Polanyi, for instance,

contrasts “critical periods” with “connecting stretches of time” and consciously

focuses his attention on the former.18 The notion of critical junctures parallels the

concept of punctuated equilibrium, introduced by Stephen Jay Gould and

subsequently borrowed by social scientists to describe dynamics wherein periods

of relative stasis are punctuated by bursts of sudden and dramatic changes. Stephen

Krasner, for example, notes that political development of states often follows an

uneven course: “Crisis situations tend to become the watersheds in a state’s

institutional development…During periods of crisis politics becomes a struggle

over the basic rules of the game rather than allocation within a given set of rules.”19

17
Gilpin 1981: fn.80
18
Karl Polanyi (1944/2001) The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic
Origins of Our Time, Boston: Beacon Press, p.4
19
Stephen Krasner (1984) “Approaches to the State: Alternative conceptions and
historical dynamics.” Comparative Politics 16, p. 234. See also Stephen Krasner
(1988) “Sovereignty: An institutional perspective” Comparative Political Studies 21,
p. 66-94; Paul Pierson (2004) Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social
Analysis, Princeton University Press; Peter J. Katzenstein (1985) Small States in
 17

Similarly, in American politics, scholars of elections and political parties have

underlined the importance of “critical realignments” in voting behavior, “where at

moments of crisis deep partisan attachments are formed which persist over long

periods of time”.20 In an analysis of the development of the American state,

Skowronec defines such moments as "a sporadic, disruptive event that suddenly

challenges a state's capacity to maintain control and alters the boundaries defining

the legitimate use of coercion."21 According to this view, periods of quotidian

World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe, Cornell University Press; Frank R.

Baumgartner, Christian Breunig, Christoffer Green-Pedersen, Bryan D. Jones, Peter
B. Mortensen, Michiel Nuytemans and Stefaan Walgrave (2009) “Punctuated
Equilibrium in Comparative Perspective” American Journal of Political Science
53(3), 603–620; Gary Goertz (2004) International Norms and Decision Making: A
Punctuated Equilibrium Model, Rowman & Littlefield. Finnemore and Sikkink note
that “world historical events such as wars or major depressions in the international
system can lead to a search for new ideas and norms. Ideas and norms most
associated with the losing side of a war or perceived to have caused an economic
failure should be at particular risk of being discredited, opening the field for
alternatives.” Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink (1998) “International Norm
Dynamics and Political Change” International Organization 52.4:909; See also J.
Samuel Barkin and Bruce Cronin (1994) “The State and the Nation: Changing
Norms and the Rules of Sovereignty in International Relations” International
Organization 48.1, p.107-130.
20
Peter Gourevitch (1986) Politics in Hard Times: Comparative Responses to
International Economic Crises, Cornell University Press, p.222. Scholars commonly
divide American political history into five periods separated by (in V.O. Key’s
formulation, American political history can be divided into five periods separated
by “critical elections” that drastically realign political allegiances. V.O. Key (1955)
“A Theory of Critical Elections” Journal of Politics 17:3-18.Likewise, Walter Dean
Burnham refers to long-term American political development as a process of
punctuated equilibrium. He describes American politics as characterized by
periods of "long-term inertia" during which "politics as usual" prevails, regularly
interrupted by "concentrated bursts of change”. Walter Dean Burnham (1999)
"Constitutional Moments and Punctuated Equilibria" Yale Law Review 108: 2237-
77.
21
Stephen Skowronek (1982) Building A New American State: The Expansion of
National Administrative Capacities, 1877-1920, Cambridge University Press, p.10;
 18

politics are periodically interrupted by crises that shape the content and likelihood

of reforms. Like all instances of punctuated equilibrium, hegemonic shocks create

enormous incentives and opportunities for change; in doing so they disrupt the

flow of politics as usual and define the parameters of future reforms. As rare but

crucial events, they have left a deep imprint on the evolution of domestic regimes

in the past century.

Selecting cases of hegemonic shocks requires some measure of hegemonic

volatility. I measured hegemonic volatility by looking at the average annual change

in relative power among the hegemons. This was operationalized by summing the

absolute values of annual changes in CINC (Composite Index of National

Capabilities) scores among great powers, yielding the graph below.22 This variable

captures hegemonic shocks by tracking how quickly the distribution of relative

power among major states changes over time. It improves on existing measures that

use dummy variables for pre-designated shock years.

See also Stephen Skowronek (1995) "Order and Change" Polity 28.1:91-96;
Sheldon D. Pollack (2010) War, Revenue, and State Building: Financing the
Development of the American State, Cornell University Press, p. 33. In sociology,
Ann Swindler distinguishes between “settled” and “unsettled” time. Ann Swidler
(1986) “Culture in Action: Symbols and strategies” American Sociological Review
51.2, p. 273-86. Stinchcombe 1965:153ff examines a variety of social
organizations like college fraternities, banks, and trade unions. He notes that
organizations of a particular type tend to be established in bursts, and that the
forms they adopt tend to persist for a long time. Arthur Stinchcombe (1965) “Social
Structure and Organizations” in James G. March, ed., Handbook of Organizations,
Chicago: Rand McNally
22
See Chapter 2 for an extended discussion.
 19

Figure 1.5: Average Hegemonic Volatility, 1900-2000

There are three immediately visible spikes: 1917-1922, 1940-1947 (with some

reverberations continuing into the 1950s), and 1989-1995. These represent my

case selections of World War I, World War II, and the Soviet Collapse (a future

case study not included in this dissertation). Although it does not appear on the

graph above, I have also added a case study of the Great Depression, for the

following reasons. First, due to the way the CINC index is constructed, it is likely to

underestimate economic change in favor of military and geopolitical factors.

Second, consistent with the demands of the theory, even when measured via CINC

relative U.S. power begins to decline beginning in the mid-1920s and especially

after 1929, while German power increases dramatically after Hitler’s ascent to

power in 1933. The period of the Great Depression thus provides an important and
 20

unique case of a democratic hegemon in decline, offering greater variation on my

dependent variable.23

The table below identifies the winning and losing hegemons in the wake of

each shock. Identifying their regime types also makes a prediction about what type

of institutional wave we should expect. For example, the joint victory by the US

and USSR in World War II would lead us to expect two waves of reforms, one

toward democracy and another toward communism – which is indeed what

happened, even while the waves occurred under different circumstances.

Hegemonic Rising Rising Declining Declining

Shock hegemons regime type hegemons regime type
WWI US democracy Germany monarchy
Great Germany fascism US democracy
Depression
WWII US, USSR democracy Germany, Japan fascism
communism
Soviet US democracy USSR communism
collapse
Table 1.1: Hegemonic shock outcomes.

In each of the four cases the content of the waves produced by the shocks are

consistent with the expectations of the theory. The sudden rise of a great power

produced waves of reforms that reflect that state’s regime, while periods of sudden

decline produced waves away from the hegemon’s regime. The outcomes of these

shocks consecrate the regimes of wining hegemons and discredit the losing

regimes. They do so through the mechanisms of hegemonic coercion, influence,

and emulation - and it is to a description of these mechanisms that I now turn.

23
See Chapter 2 for a discussion of the case selection.
 21

Mechanisms in International Relations Theory

The emphasis on mechanisms stems from the limitations of social science

theory. Systemic theories are bound to encounter exceptions and anomalies; as

Jervis points out, their biggest weakness is underestimating the power and

autonomy of even weak states.24 In pursuing a systemic explanation of institutional

waves, my goal is not to formulate a universal theory of democratization but to

highlight the recurring mechanisms through which shocks consistently lead to

waves. Each wave examined in this dissertation has contained common patterns

that have recurred across time. History does not repeat itself, as Mark Twain

declared, but it does rhyme, and these rhymes reveal themselves in the

mechanisms that produce institutional waves. Jon Elster defines mechanisms as

“frequently occurring and easily recognizable causal patterns” that are less general

than laws but more general than descriptive case studies.25 Residing at the middle

level of explanation between universal laws and descriptive case studies,

mechanisms open up the black box of causation by providing “a continuous and

contiguous chain of causal or intentional links”.26 As Charles Cameron puts it:

24
Robert Jervis (1997) System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life,
Princeton University Press, p.103
25
Jon Elster (1998) “A Plea for Mechanisms” p.45-73 in Peter Hedstrom and
Richard Swedberg, eds., Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social
Theory, Cambridge University Press, p. 24. Paul Pierson likewise argues for the
study of mechanisms as the goal of social science. See Pierson 2004:5-6, 99.
26
Jon Elster (1983) Explaining Technical Change: A Case Study in the Philosophy of
Science, Cambridge University Press, p.24.
 22

We are interested in something less than natural laws, because there

aren’t any natural laws in social science - just people making
decisions and trying to live their lives. But even if there aren’t any
natural laws, things are not completely random. There is a logic to
campaigning for office, voting in legislatures, directing bureaucracies,
offering and accepting bribes, making revolutions and initiating wars,
and so on….The causal mechanisms are the little engines driving the
empirical regularities.27

As Gleditsch and Ward point out, “Merely attributing democratization or

autocratization to some ‘international context’… explains little without clarifying

the relevant international context and how this influences prospects for

democracy.”28 Mechanisms move beyond aggregative empirics to elucidate the

concrete ways in which hegemonic shocks produce institutional waves.

Hegemonic Shocks and Mechanisms of Coercion

The first way in which shocks lead to waves is by increasing opportunities for

external impositions. By producing stark but temporary disparities in relative

power, shocks create windows of opportunity for rising hegemons to impose their

regimes on other states. By contrast, in instances of hegemonic decline shocks

weaken the hegemon’s ability to sustain foreign regimes upheld by force. Examples

of coercive transformations that contributed to institutional waves include the

Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe and North Korea after World War II, or the

American occupation of Japan and Germany until 1952 and 1955, respectively.

27
Charles Cameron (2010) “What is Political Science” p.216 in Andrew Gelman
and Jeronimo Cortina, eds., A Quantitative Tour of the Social Sciences, Cambridge
University Press.
28
Kristian Gleditsch and Michael D. Ward. (2006) "Diffusion and the International
Context of Democratization" International Organization 60.4, p.916
 23

Shocks lower the costs of occupation, in two ways. In cases of military shocks,

when the army has already been mobilized, the fixed cost of mobilization required

for foreign occupation has already been met. Interventions after major wars occur

at a time when the rising hegemons are not only at their most powerful and most

committed to changing the global order - but also when they are most able to do

so. Second, since shocks suspend the normal rules of the international order, they

may provide a window of legitimacy for foreign military occupations. In his book

Embracing Defeat, the historian John Dower has argued that the success of the U.S.

occupation of Japan after World War II was shaped at least in part by the nature of

the war that proceeded it, and the decisive defeat that brought the war to an end.29

The U.S. occupation of Germany encountered no native opposition at least in part

due to the nature of the war and the total defeat that accompanied its conclusion.

Likewise, the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe in the early aftermath of World

War II was legitimized in part by the nature of the Soviet victory in that conflict.

These factors simply do not come into play with interventions that occur in the

absence of major interstate wars.

Stalin’s remark about the division of Europe after World War II is a distillation of

the coercive aspect of post-shock reforms: “Whoever occupies a territory also

imposes on it its own social system. Everyone imposes his system as far as his army

can reach. It cannot be otherwise.”30

29
John Dower (1999) Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, W.W.
Norton & Company
30
Stalin made the remark to the Yugoslavian military mission to Yalta in 1944, as
 24

An obvious objection is that democracies have not always sought to impose

their own regimes through the use of outside interventions. As Peceny puts it, “the

practice of the liberal great powers over the past century is filled with illiberal

behavior…The United States has backed dozens of dictatorial regimes over the past

century and only made active efforts to promote democracy during a third of its

20th century military interventions.”31 Likewise, Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003)

have argued that democracies prefer to establish stable and friendly regimes -

rather than democratic ones - in the countries that they have occupied.32

These studies, however, do not distinguish between impositions that occur in

the wake of hegemonic shocks and those that occur in the course of “normal”

politics. If the above arguments are correct, military hegemonic shocks should

create a marked increase in instances of hegemons imposing their own regimes on

other states (“mimetic” imposition). In other words, we would expect to see spikes

in mimetic regime promotion by great powers in the closing months and

immediately following both world wars. This effect can be tested directly by

looking at the rate of coerced regime promotions after military shocks. As I show in

the next chapter, the data in fact confirms that great powers act differently after

shocks. Using a dataset by John Owen (2010), I examined the rates of mimetic

later recalled by one of its members. See Milovan Djilas (1962) Conversations with
Stalin, Harmondsworth, p. 90-1.
31
Mark Peceny (2010) “Democratizing During Hard Times: Germany’s Transition
to Democracy in the Wake of the First World War” Paper presented at the 106th
Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 2-5,
2010, Washington, D.C, p.5-6
32
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson, and James D.
Morrow (2003) The Logic of Political Survival, MIT Press
 25

imposition by great powers. As Figure 1.6 shows, mimetic regime impositions by

great powers are much more likely to occur in the wake of military hegemonic

shocks.

Figure 1.6: Mimetic regime imposition by great powers, 1900-2000.

An empirical analysis of twentieth-century interventions show great powers are

much more likely to promote their own regimes in the wake of shocks – of the 31

cases of hegemonic intervention during shock years, in 29 of them they promoted

their own regimes (about 94 percent) of the time. 33 Of the 41 cases of hegemonic

intervention during non-shock years, they imposed their own regime in 27 cases

(about 66 percent). In other words, in an average shock year there were 4.8

mimetic impositions by a great power, and only 0.28 such impositions in an

33
Shock years are counted as the last year of the war and the following two years,
or 1918-1920 and 1944-1946, for a total of six shock years. The two exceptions are
Japan in Russia (1918) and the USSR in Austria (1945).
 26

average non-shock year.34

In short, great powers do act differently after hegemonic shocks. They are more

likely to impose regimes during hegemonic transitions, and when they do so they

are much more likely to impose their own regimes than during non-shock years.

The reasons for this, as suggested above, stem from the temporary decrease in the

costs and changed conditions for regime impostions that occur in the wake of

hegemonic shocks.

Recent studies suggest important causal links between external impositions,

interstate wars, and systemic peace. Lo, Hashimoto and Reiter (2008), for example

find that peace is more durable following interstate wars in which the loser

experience a foreign-imposed regime change.35 Future studies about the

democratizing effects of foreign interventions will benefit from distinguishing

interventions that take place in the wake of hegemonic shocks from those that do

not.

Hegemonic Shocks and Mechanisms of Influence

Another mechanism by which shocks produces institutional waves is by

changing the institutional preferences and power bases of domestic actors within

the affected countries. Immediately after World War II, for example, Communist

parties appeared to be gaining ground in France and Italy. The US Marshall Plan

34
A difference-of-means test between mimetic hegemonic impositions in shock vs.
non-shock years reveals (unsurprisingly) that the difference is statistically
significant.
35
Nigel Lo, Barry Hashimoto, and Dan Reiter (2008) “Ensuring Peace: Foreign-
Imposed Regime Change and Post-War Peace Duration, 1914-2001” International
Organization 62.4:717-36
 27

shifted the institutional preferences of Western European voters away from

communism and toward liberal democracy, so that by 1948, with the influx of

American money and institutional infrastructure, Communist parties had lost much

of their support. “The United States spent little of its hegemonic power trying to

coerce and induce other governments to buy into American rules and institutions,”

notes Ikenberry. “It spent much more time and resources trying to create the

conditions under which postwar European governments and publics would remain

moderate and pro-Western.”36

The Marshall Plan became the most prominent way in which the United States

exercised its influence and promoted liberal democratic regimes in the years

following the war. It was an unprecedented use of post-shock economic

dominance to secure the democratization of west European regimes that followed

the American institutional model. By the end of the program in 1952, the United

States had spent $13 billion, more than all previous American foreign aid put

together. The largest impact of the Marshall Plan resided not with the amount of the

disbursements but with the conditions attached to them. Along with collaborators

in western Europe, U.S. aid officials sought to prevent national politicians “from

being tempted to fall back on state intervention, planning, and closed

economies.”37 In doing so, Marshall aid nudged center-left parties toward social

democracy rather than communism. It was “an economic program but the crisis it

36
G. John Ikenberry (2000) After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the
Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars, Princeton University Press, p.202
37
Victoria de Grazia (2005) Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance through
Twentieth-Century Europe, Harvard University Press, p.345-6
 28

averted was political,” writes Tony Judt.38

The impact of Marshall aid on the consolidation of democracy in western

Europe was both immediate and long-lasting. In Austria, for example, local

communists (supported by Soviet forces, who still occupied the eastern half of the

country) “never made any dent in the popularity of Americans and their aid,” notes

Judt. “[T]he latter put food in people's mouths and this was what mattered most.” In

Greece, the $649 million in aid extended in the spring of 1948 “made the

difference between survival and destitution.” It “supported refugees and staved off

hunger and disease,” and provided half of the country’s gross national product in

1950.39 Across Europe, it reduced the attraction of Soviet-style reforms and

communist institutions by providing a means for general economic recovery. The

democratic wave in western Europe was made possible by the rare combination of

American influence and commitment (both political and economic) in the years

immediately following the war.

The aftermath of World War II also provided a dramatic illustration of how

rising great powers can take advantage of hegemonic shocks to advance the

construction of global institutions which act as conduits for their influence. While

institution-building is normally a slow and inertia-driven process, the brief period

after hegemonic shocks facilitates the creation of new international institutions. By

38
Tony Judt (2005) Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, Penguin Press, p.97.
As Kennedy notes, “it took no genius to see that the raison d'etre for the plan was
to convince Europeans everywhere that private enterprise was better able to bring
them prosperity than communism.” Kennedy 1989:377
39
Judt 2005:96
 29

establishing dramatic new hierarchies in international politics, shocks create

opportunities for great powers to create new global and regional orders. Thus in the

wake of the war, both the Soviet Union and the United States used their enormous

power and influence to construct a new institutional architecture that helped them

perpetuate control and influence over the states embedded within it.

Conversely, in cases of hegemonic decline, shocks undermine the hegemon’s

ability to wield influence in other states through aid, patronage networks, or

international institutions. In doing so they shifted the institutional preferences of

domestic groups in those states. For example, the collapse of the Soviet Union led

to the demise of communism as a viable path for state development in Africa. The

collapse of the Soviet Union undercut the legitimacy of its institutions and its ability

to attract fellow travelers. International financial institutions and bilateral donors

became more interested in supporting accountable government, and the stoppage

of Soviet patronage damaged the neo-patrimonial elite networks. Governments

were faced with shrinking funds, and were forced to cut social spending, which led

to an increase in popular protests, which (along with elite defection) led to political

liberalization and multiparty elections.40 In this way, systemic and domestic factors

interacted to produce a wave of African democratic reforms in the mid-1990s:

40
Previous work has shown that the stability of autocratic states often rests on the
rulers’ ability to maintain clientelist networks through selective patronage. When
potential rivals can be co-opted, there is no incentive to deviate from the status
quo; but the disruption of these patronage networks paves the way for democratic
reforms. See Barbara Geddes (1999) “What Do We Know About Democratization
After Twenty Years?” Annual Review of Political Science 2:115-44.
 30

Figure 1.7: Soviet collapse and African democratization in the mid-1990s

In other cases, shocks may produce shifts in institutional preferences even without

direct hegemonic involvement. The very existence of a global crisis can influence

some states to undertake serious internal reforms by mobilizing domestic groups

and lowering the barriers to collective action. They may discredit incumbent elites,

forcing them to bargain with the masses, or encourage states to look for new

institutions to deal with future problems.41 In a case study that I examine in more

detail in Chapter 3, the outcome of World War I led to organizational gains by

women and laborers because their cooperation was essential for the victorious

outcome, leading to a wave of suffrage expansion after the war.

41
The logic of hegemonic shocks suggests that the effect of interstate war on
domestic institutional reforms is mediated by war outcomes, rather than a universal
impulse toward democracy, which is perhaps why the literature has not found
consistent links between war and democracy. Edward D. Mansfield and Jack
Snyder (2010) “Does War Influence Democratization?” p.23-49 in Elizabeth Keir
and Ronald Krebs, eds., In War’s Wake: International Conflict and the Fate of
Liberal Democracy, Cambridge University Press.
 31

Hegemonic Shocks and Mechanisms of Emulation

A third way through which shocks create institutional transformations is by

encouraging states to deliberately imitate the domestic institutions of the winning

hegemons. I define institutional emulation as the process whereby a state

deliberately and voluntarily imitates particular domestic institutions of successful

and powerful states.

Although emulation has long been associated with norms, institutional

emulation is driven by the logic of competition in the international system. While

this aspect of neorealism has rarely been explored, emulation is one of the major

predictions of neorealist theory. Because the international system is competitive

and anarchically structured, it will select for states that are able to successfully

ensure their own security. Those who do not will fall by the wayside.42 In addition,

the international system shapes behavior through socialization, and the two

processes are mutually reinforcing – “statesmen learn because they see the

misfortunes of those who do not conform”.43 The anarchy of the international

system creates competitive pressures that over time select for domestic institutional

arrangements that appear successful to other states. In a competitive world, we

would expect to see institutions that increase the state’s chances of survival (by

fostering economic growth, increasing internal stability, or winning wars) to spread,

while institutions that perform poorly and endanger the state’s chances of survival

will lose credibility. To employ Waltz’s own oligopoly metaphors: saying that the

42
Waltz 1979: 71, 91, 118-119
43
Jervis 1997:104. See also Waltz 1979:74-77, 92, 127-128
 32

insides of states don’t matter because structure dominates decisions is akin to

saying that a firm’s internal organization does not matter because the market

dominates decisions. When it comes to rewarding or punishing state institutions,

the international structure will select certain institutional features of states over

others.

The few materialist accounts of emulation in international relations have

focused on military emulation. For example, Resende-Santos examines the causes

of military emulation in South America in the 19th century. 44Starting in the 1880s,

South American countries began imitating various elements of the German army

system. In seeking an explanation for this imitation, Resende-Santos rejects

domestic factors. The cultural, political, historical or institutional features of those

states were too diverse to explain such convergence. Instead, he argues, the causes

of military emulation can be located in the international system, specifically in the

external security environment that all states must face. Cross-national emulation, he

argues is “a product of the underlying nature of the international system, not the

peculiar characteristics or aims of individual states.”45

Emulation is thus a strategy that can increase the adopting state’s security. It

does so in two ways, through internal strengthening and external bandwagoning.

(Resende-Santos focuses only on the first element and, as I will argue shortly, does

44
Joao Resende-Santos (2007) Neorealism, States, and the Modern Army,
Cambridge University Press. See also Colin Elman, The logic of emulation: The
diffusion of military practices in the international system. PhD dissertation,
Columbia University.
45
Resende-Santos 2007:4
 33

so for the wrong reasons.) First, emulation can be used to strengthen the state

against both internal and external threats. Emulating states hope to repeat some of

the rising hegemon’s dramatic success and in doing so improve their own

institutional fitness. Discussing the adoption of free trade policies based on the

British model during the 1850s, a deputy in the French National Assembly asked:

"When such a powerful and enlightened nation not only puts such a great principle

into practice but it is also well known to have profited by it, how can its emulators

fail to follow the same way?”46 In that sense institutional emulation is a strategy of

internal strengthening.

Second, imitating a more powerful peer can allow a state to curry favor with it

and to participate in the international system that the hegemon creates and

maintains. From that perspective, emulation is a strategy of external bandwagoning,

though a looser one than signing treaties or forging official alliances. As Markoff

puts it, “Weak states depend on stronger ones and may bid for favor by mimicking

their political structures.”47 The unique advantage of emulation is that it can enable

the adopting state to balance and bandwagon simultaneously.

But emulation, as the diffusion of best practices, is an ongoing fact of history.

Why should hegemonic shocks make such emulation more likely? Shocks

46
Quoted in William J. Bernstein (2008) A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped
the World, New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, p.314. Or, as William McNeil puts
it “Any human skill that achieves admirable results will tend to spread from its
place of origin by taking root among other people who encounter the novelty and
find it better than whatever they had previously known or done.” William McNeil
(1992/1994) The Pursuit of Power, University of Chicago Press, p.147
47
John Markoff (1996) Waves of Democracy: Social Movements and Political
Change, Pine Forge Press, p. 32
 34

temporarily intensify the dynamics of emulation by removing uncertainty about

rthe relative effectiveness of competing regime types. Despite the potential benefits

of reforms, leaders face considerable uncertainty when choosing to rebuild their

domestic institutions. Shocks encourage institutional emulation by dramatically

demonstrating which regime types perform better under duress. In bargaining

theory, war is said to reveal private information about actors' capability and

resolve, information that cannot be credibly verified through bluffs and cheap talk

before the fight. Similarly, hegemonic shocks reveal information about the relative

strength of competing regime types, information not credible through cheap talk.48

Hidden vulnerabilities become obvious; failed institutional models lose their

legitimacy; the giant’s clay feet are revealed for all to see.

During the Cold War, for example, both sides extolled the virtues of their

regimes to encourage third-world converts. But the true condition of Soviet

domestic institutions, and the country’s ability to uphold a communist system

outside its borders, did not become apparent to world audiences (and most

scholars) until after the system’s dramatic collapse in 1989. Similarly, both world

wars offered a large-scale test of war-fighting effectiveness between democratic and

48
The information revealed through hegemonic shocks cannot be said to be
“private” in the conventional sense, since actors want to keep private information
hidden, while hegemons actively attempt to convince outsiders of the effectiveness
of their regimes in order to gain influence and followers. What the two ideas share
in common is the concept of “cheap talk” – regime efficacy cannot be credibly
conveyed by persuasion alone, and it takes a shock to convincingly show which
regimes perform better under duress, regardless of what the hegemons claim
beforehand. Part of the importance of hegemonic shocks is that they credibly – and
dramatically – reveal this information to foreign audiences.
 35

non-democratic states. In both cases the democratic side (and in one case the

communist side as well) triumphed, despite de Tocqueville’s oft-repeated assertion

that democratic regimes would prove inferior to centralized ones on the theater of

battle.49

Emulation does not guarantee success. As Resende-Santos puts it, “borrowed

best practices may or may not prove effective… because of faulty copying, failure

to copy ancillary practices, inability to integrate properly and utilize methods, or

simply the lack of the necessary human skill and know how. 50 Another source of

failed emulation, I would argue, is the skewed incentives that arise as a result of

hegemonic shocks. Emulation is in some sense the least “rational” mechanism

through which hegemonic shocks contribute to institutional waves. Institutional

mimicry after shocks can be driven by a number of misleading cognitive heuristics.

Research in political psychology has repeatedly shown that statesmen and political

actors tend to over-emphasize dramatic events (availability bias), over-estimate the

importance of recent events in lieu of a “historical” perspective (recency bias), and

49
While democratic victory in World War I temporarily put this argument to rest,
the rapid ascent of fascism in the 1930s (accompanied by democracy’s decline)
resurrected old concerns. Thus Aldous Huxley argued in a 1936 essay that "A
democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war
must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared
for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and
perfectly obedient bureaucracy." Aldous Huxley (1936) “Ends and Means: An
Inquiry into the Nature of Ideals and into the Methods Employed for Their
Realization”
50
Resende-Santos 2007:7
 36

misjudge their own effectiveness at bringing out the desired political reforms.51

These cognitive biases contribute to the emulation of winning regime types in the

wake of hegemonic shocks. But they also lead to the failed consolidations that

follow, as leaders optimistically adopt democratic regimes even when the domestic

pre-conditions (economic development, class coalitions) are not conducive to

democratic consolidation.52

The outcomes of hegemonic shocks serve as signals about the effectiveness of

competing regimes. Whether the signals are correctly interpreted, or whether they

accurately reflect the factors the created the outcome, is a different matter. As

Markoff puts it, “If organizations that have done well have accounting departments,

soon all will, even if no one is sure that accounting departments made the leaders

do well.”53 It is in this regard that I depart from the neorealist explanations of

emulation. Resende-Santos, for example, argues that external threats make

emulation more likely. “In the face of major threats, military emulation is the

quickest and most dependable way to increase power and bolster security,” he

writes. “Timing, pace, and scale will correspond with the timing and magnitude of

external threats…the higher and more intense the threat level, the deeper and more

51
See Thomas Gilovich, Dale Griffin, and Daniel Kahneman, eds. (2002) Heuristics
and Biases, Cambridge University Press. On the last bias, see Robert Jervis (1976)
Perception and Misperception, Princeton University Press, p.344-8
52
Exploring the role of institutional emulation in the wake of hegemonic shocks
presents a fruitful area of research that connects the micro-foundations of diffusion
mechanisms with macro-historical structural shifts in the international system.
53
Markoff 1996:32. See also John Meyer, John Boli and George Thomas (1997)
“World Society and the Nation-State” The American Journal of Sociology 103:144-
81.
 37

sustained the adverse shift in the external security environment, the more rapid and

large scale the emulation.”54 But his own evidence suggests that emulation takes

place immediately after major wars, not in the period preceding them. “In the

military sphere, large-scale emulation often, but not exclusively, accompanies

major wars”, he writes.55 “Accompanies” is slippery word, but Resende-Santos

makes clear in the next sentence that he’s talking about the aftermath of wars:

“…such wars often trigger significant changes in the local or international balance

of capabilities, as well as alterations in the relative standing of states.”56 If “states

emulate on the basis of proven effectiveness”57 as he argues, then that proof

emerges only after the crisis is resolved. The specific timing and content of military

emulation discussed by Resende-Santos suggests that states imitate winning

techniques. Prussia, Austria and Russia copied the French after Napoleon’s

victories. France emulated Prussia after its victory in the Franco-Prussian wars.58

My argument about emulation thus rejects a purely constructivist account based

54
Resende-Santos 2007:8
55
Resende-Santos 2007:13
56
Resende-Santos 2007:13
57
Resende-Santos 2007:6
58
Resende-Santos 2007:13. In one paragraph Resende-Santos makes a similar
argument that curiously undercuts his main thesis: “Given their preoccupation with
competitive effectiveness, states prefer to emulate only practices and technologies
demonstrated to be the most effective among synchronic alternatives. In the area of
military emulation, states use battlefield performance, especially victory in war, as
the truest observable measure of effectiveness. States thus emulate the military
system that emerges victorious in great power wars….Proven success in war
provides states with a closer approximation of the true utility of certain military
practices. It reduces the uncertainties that surround such practices.”(Resende-
Santos 2007:7; emphasis added)
 38

on persuasion or socialization, but it also takes a slightly different view about its

causes than the standard neorealist view. It is the reduction of uncertainty and the

demonstration effects which accompany hegemonic shocks that spur waves of

emulation, rather than the increased competition in the international system that

precedes them. And while the outcomes of hegemonic shocks reveal information

about which systems function more effectively under duress, that information may

not be applicable to other states. Nevertheless, the dramatic nature of hegemonic

shocks encourages emulation in cases where regime consolidation is unlikely.

Although democracy has been the central model of emulation in recent

decades, states have admired and mimicked a variety of other regimes, particularly

those that had emerged triumphant in periods of hegemonic transition. The Soviet

Union, for instance, inspired followers after World War II because “the Soviet

Union’s victory over Nazi Germany, a country most observers had seen in 1939

and 1940 as an industrial giant, suggested that the Soviet system had considerable

real-world vigor.”59 Likewise, the decline of liberal capitalism in the 1930s led

many states, including the United States, to move closer to the statist policies of the

national socialists, who thrived and attracted followers during this period. As

Schivelbusch notes:

In the wake of global economic disaster, there was no particular

reason to prefer the political system most closely associated with
capitalism - liberal democracy - to new systems that promised a
brighter future. On the contrary, people were more inclined to ask
themselves whether democracy was inevitably doomed by the

59
Gale Stokes (1993) The Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Collapse of
Communism in Eastern Europe, Oxford University Press, p.8
 39

economic breakdown of liberal capitalism.60

The triumphant narrative of democracy’s ascent in the twentieth century ignores

those periods when capitalist democracy really did seem destined for the dustbin of
history.

From Transition to Consolidation

Why are waves of democracy often followed by counter-waves or reversals? As

I’ve argued, the answer has to do with the dynamics of waves themselves. The

unique circumstances that allow the wave to occur in the first place also sow the

seeds of the wave’s decline. Hegemonic shocks create immense but temporary

incentives and opportunities for regime transformations. Shocks bring together

extraordinary pro-reform coalitions motivated by the desire to imitate the rising

power or to ingratiate themselves in the international system it creates.

Alternatively, they may have unsteady procrustean institutions imposed upon them

by the winning hegemon. Motivated by rhetoric, fear, or gain, leaders adopt

democratic institutions in states that lack the socio-economic pre-requisites for a

stable democracy. In the immediate aftermath of the shock, these domestic pre-

requisites become less important, allowing for the creation of a wave of democratic

transformations.

But the relative importance of systemic and domestic factors changes as the

new regimes move toward consolidation. The international incentives that created

60
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America,
Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany, 1933-1939; transl. from German by
Jefferson Chase, Henry Holt and Co., 2006, p.11
 40

a strong push for democratic reforms disappear as the shock passes:

Figure 1.8 From transition to failed consolidation .

As time goes on, domestic factors increasingly begin to matter in maintaining

these institutional reforms. The nature and composition of social coalitions, the

domestic economy, and other factors traditionally associated with democracy

begin to play a more important role. At least some of the transformations begin to

fail as idiosyncratic, country-specific internal factors start to take hold. Such failed

consolidations are particularly likely in the fragile new states created by the

hegemonic shocks. Democratizing regimes face a number of obstacles that their

more mature counterparts do not. They lack well-established traditions of

democratic governance and are often plagued by fragile institutions that buckle

under the weight of political tensions. They can fall prey to ethnic violence, to

populist unrest, to cycles of civil war or government coups. Mansfield and Snyder
 41

argue that new democracies are more prone to nationalism and aggression. This

occurs because elites in democratizing states have an incentive to use nationalist

rhetoric to shore up the support of the masses, and the fragile new institutions

frequently collapse under their weight.61 In new states created by World War I, for

instance, the spirit of compromise and consensus required for parliamentary

governance could not be sustained in an environment of quarreling ethnic and

social groups brought together in artificially bounded territories. The initial shock,

in short creates the institutional equivalent of a stock market bubble, a period of

“democratic over-reach” that produces an artificially high number of transitions.

This dynamic appears unique to cases of democratic waves. The consolidation

of Communist regimes in eastern Europe, for example, was made possible only by

the continued maintenance of the threat of coercion, occasionally reinforced by

physical occupation. As soon as the coercive grip loosened, the unwilling members

of the Soviet bloc dismantled communist institutions. In the case of fascism, it is

difficult to discuss failures of consolidation because the entire wave crested and fell

so rapidly in a space of less than fifteen years. But a large number of fascist regimes

were also created and upheld by outside coercion - namely, the creation of a

Festung Europa by German armies and the East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere by their

Japanese equivalents.

61
Jack L. Snyder (2000) From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist
Conflict, W.W. Norton and Company; Edward M. Mansfield and Jack L. Snyder
(2007) Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War, The MIT Press
 42

Alternative Explanations

As mentioned in the beginning of the chapter, given the vast literature on

democratization there have been surprisingly few attempts to explicitly examine

the causes of democratic waves. Part of the problem stems from the literature’s

focus on domestic variables, which tends to downplay the importance of factors

like the international system or diffusion among states in shaping regime outcomes.

Domestic theories of regime change have at various times focused on economic

development, elite pacts, mass movements, civil society, party coalitions, electoral

systems, national culture, federalism, ethnic and linguistic diversity, class relations,

and civil-military relations – to name just a few of the more prominent

explanations. As a result, while the trend of democratization has provided much

fertile ground for theories of institutional change, democracy’s relationship with the

international system remains largely unexplained, even if often noted. As a result,

proponents of systemic explanations of democracy have often charged

comparativists with neglect the international causes of democratization - what

Pridham called the “forgotten dimension” of democratization.62

62
Geoffrey Pridham (1995) “Democratic Transition and the International
Environment” in Geoffrey Pridham, ed., Transitions to Democracy: Comparative
Perspectives from Southern Europe, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, UK:
Dartmouth Publishing Group, p. 445. “The literature of sociology and political
science, with its overriding stress on why democratization has advanced in some
places more than others, has obscured the profoundly transnational dimension of
democratization.” Markoff 1996:20. Similar lamentations about theories of
democracy ignoring external forces can be found in more recent articles as well:
see Jon C. Pevehouse (2002) “Democracy from the Outside-In? International
Organizations and Democratization” International Organization 56.3, fn. 15;
Michael McFaul, “The Fourth Wave of Democracy and Dictatorship:
 43

The domestic variable bias in democratization studies stems partly from the

history of the field itself. The first comparative studies of political development

were rooted in the early democratic experiences of a few countries in Western

Europe, particularly England and France. A common criticism of the early

democratization literature was its implicit treatment of Europe as the “default”

course of long-term institutional development.63 Later scholars expanded their

European scope or else abandoned the continent entirely and focused on

democratization around the world after the mid-nineteen-seventies, first in Latin

America and later in Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa. But while the subject area

expanded, the method of examining the phenomenon remained the same –

comparativist and reductionist, breaking down the global phenomenon of

democratization into individual cases by country, or in some cases by region, and

then attempting to find commonalities or patterns within those cases, while at the

same time emphasizing the differences that set their country or region apart from

others.

By century’s end democratic theory had become increasingly divided even as

the number of democracies climbed to an all-time high. A 1994 review article

accused comparative theories of producing unclear dependent variables, making it

Noncooperative Transitions in the Postcommunist World” World Politics, Vol. 54.2,

January 2002, p. 212-244. Beissinger notes: “…much of the comparative politics
literature on democratization continues to treat cases as if they were entirely
independent of one another and has failed to probe the consequences that might
flow from change through example.” Mark R. Beissinger (2007) “Structure and
Example in Modular Political Phenomena: The Diffusion of Bulldozer/Rose/
Orange/Tulip Revolutions” Perspectives on Politics 5, p.260
63
Munck 1994
 44

hard to compare results across studies. Their efforts at causal theorizing had

generated a number of explanatory variables but few clearly specified general

causal models. In some cases their empirical tests relied on a small set of variables,

raising questions about generalizability and validity of the causal claims.64 An

acerbic 1999 review of the literature by Barbara Geddes noted that “scholars have

greeted the increasing number of democratizations with delight, intense attention,

and theoretical puzzlement. It seems as though there should be a parsimonious and

highly compelling explanation of the transitions, but the explanations proposed

thus far have been confusingly complicated, careless about basic methodological

details, often more useful as description than explanation, and surprisingly

inconsistent with each other.”65

But within the past decade, partly as a response to this theoretical

fragmentation, a small but growing body of literature has moved away from the

comparative method. These studies build on the assumption that “democratization

is driven at least partly by forces originating outside a country’s borders, rather than

being a self-contained domestic process”.66 These “systemic” theories, as I have

called them, emphasize the influence of the international environment and links

among states in shaping domestic reforms. They sought to link external factors to

domestic actors, who would not disappear from the analysis but serve as important

64
Munck 1994:122
65
Geddes 1999:117
66
Daniel Brinks and Michael Coppedge (2006) “Diffusion Is No Illusion: Neighbor
Emulation in the Third Wave of Democracy” Comparative Political Studies 39:463-
89
 45

intervening forces between external influences and internal reforms. The

fundamental assumption of a systemic approach, therefore, is that democratization

often cannot be understood apart from examining the influence of the international

system upon the choices of domestic actors in an environment of strategic and

continuously interacting states characterized by competition, learning, and

emulation.

Yet even most systemic theories of regime change do not address the puzzle of

institutional waves directly. There exists, for example, a healthy debate on the

merits and drawbacks of foreign aid as an external tool of domestic regime

promotion. But the influence of foreign aid alone cannot explain the clustering of

regime transitions without recourse to some other variables. In other words, even if

foreign aid is indeed an important factor in regime transitions, the presence of

waves suggests that the influence of foreign aid varies widely over time – and this

itself is a puzzle that must be explained.

At the same time, hegemonic shocks are clearly not the only existing

explanation for democratic waves. Alternative explanations that most closely fit the

description can be divided into three categories: historical, bellicist theory, and

diffusion models.

Historical Explanations

The historical explanation denies (or at least does not engage) the possibility of

a generalizable theory of democratic waves. This is the view taken by many

historians, who stress the contingency and uniqueness of historical events. “Men
 46

wiser and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a

predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me,” writes H.A.L.

Fisher in the preface to his “History of Europe. “I can see only one emergency

following upon another...and only one safe rule for the historian: that he should

recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and

the unforeseen...”67

The historical type of explanation was also put forth by Huntington in the The

Third Wave. Huntington argued that the famous “third wave” of democratization

resulted from a combination of factors, both internal and external. These included

actions by the Catholic Church and other powerful external actors, the loss of

legitimacy among autocratic elites due to poor economic performance, economic

modernization, and “demonstration effects”. I will not repeat the criticisms put

forth in the very beginning of the chapter except to reiterate that Huntington,

though no stranger to theorizing, did not seek to propose a theory of democratic

waves as such, only to examine the causes of the last wave.

There is no doubt that history stubbornly resists the straitjacket of theory. “Many

a beautiful theory,” wrote Thomas Huxley, “was killed by an ugly fact.” And the

search for law-like regularities is indeed a fruitless one, since human society is far

too complex to submit itself to nomological principles. But this does not mean that

all attempts to theorize about the social world must be abandoned. Jon Elster

invokes the French historian Paul Veyne’s objection against grand theory. Suppose,

67
H.A.L. Fisher (1970) A History of Europe
 47

says Veyne, we wanted to provide a nomological explanation for the unpopularity

of Louis XIV by invoking a general social science theory. We might start by looking

for factors that seem most salient, beginning perhaps with the generalization “kings

who impose high taxes become unpopular”. But in order to take care of

counterexamples from other reigns and eras, the general statement will have to

saddled with numerous caveats, exceptions, and qualifications, the final result of

which is “a chapter in the history of the reign of Louis XIV with the amusing feature

of being written in the present and the plural” rather than in the past tense and the

singular.68

Yet Veyne conflates theory with nomological, covering-law statements, which is

simply not the case in social science. As Waltz writes:

Theories are qualitatively different from laws. Laws identify invariant

or probable associations. Theories show why those associations
obtain. Each descriptive term in a law is directly tied to observational
or laboratory procedures, and laws are established only if they pass
observational or experimental tests.69

Because laws establish relations between variables (and in the natural sciences,

often to a very precise degree), they can be obtained through induction alone and

buttressed by the empirical evidence of repeated observations. But “theories cannot

be constructed through induction alone, for theoretical notions can only be

invented, not discovered”70 “No laws are possible in sociology, for the number of

cases is far smaller than the number of variables effecting the outcome," writes

68
Jon Elster (1999) Alchemies of the Mind, Cambridge University Press
69
Waltz 1979:5
70
Waltz 1979:7
 48

Michael Mann.71 In short, Veyne makes the mistake of thinking that facts determine

theories, whereas in fact a number of theories can fit a given set of facts. Henri

Poincaré made this point about the primacy of theory when he wrote in Science

and Hypothesis: “Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But an

accumulation of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.”72

Laws and theories are tightly connected in the natural sciences precisely because

laws allow the creation of theories – a repeated observation leads to an attempt to

explain it. But because there are no laws in the social sciences, theories can only

be generated through carefully crafted assumptions, and then seeing if they hold up

through creating testable hypotheses. Because social science theories always

encounter exceptions and anomalies, their real test, as Waltz argues, is whether

they tells us something useful about the world. If not, they should be rejected as a

weak explanation of outcomes (as in fact almost all social science theories are).73

The question then becomes not whether a theory is realistic, but whether it’s useful.

In that sense, “theory is fruitful because it goes beyond the necessarily barren

71
Michael Mann, The Sources of Social power, vol.1; quoted in “Delving into
Democracy’s Shadows” by Scott McLemme, The Chronicle of Higher Education,
Sep.17 2004. http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i04/04a01001.htm
72
Henri Poincare, Hypothesis and Science. Online at http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/
~lward/Poincare/Poincare_1905_10.html. Stanley Hoffman makes a similar point:
“Collecting facts is not enough…it is not helpful to gather answers when no
questions have been asked first.” Stanley Hoffman, “International Relations: The
Long Road to Theory” cited in John Lewis Gaddis (1992) “International Relations
Theory and the End of the Cold War” International Security 17.3, p.14
73
See also Imre Lakatos (1970) “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific
Research Programmes” in Lakatos and Musgrave, Criticism and the Growth of
Knowledge, Cambridge University Press
 49

hypothetico-deductive approach.”74

The result is that social science theories can only make general predictions. A

theory of hegemonic shocks cannot predict individual cases of transition. As

mentioned in the beginning of the chapter, it cannot account for all instances of

democratization. It does, however, point to factors that make domestic reforms

more likely in the wake of shocks. It makes testable predictions about the

consequences of these shocks, and describes the concrete mechanisms that

connect shocks to waves. It can be tested (as I do in this dissertation) through both

empirical analysis and careful examination of case studies. A state that fails to

democratize in the wake of a shock presents an anomaly but does not invalidate

the theory. If, however, a sudden hegemonic transition in which a democracy

emerges as a winner fails to create a wave of democratization, that would present a

major – possible fatal – problem for the theory. In that sense, social science

theories are falsifiable, but in a different sense than natural sciences theories, which

can be invalidated with the discovery of a single black swan. Social science

theories simplify the world by isolating the most salient factors. As such, they

require both boldness and humility – the boldness of a simplifying assumption, and

the humility of recognizing it as such.

With this aside in mind, I now move on to the two alternative theoretical

explanations for democratic waves – bellicist theory and diffusion models.

74
Waltz 1979:11
 50

Bellicist Theory

Bellicist theories examine the influence of interstate conflict and military

competition on domestic institutions. Through their primary emphasis is on state-

building, they have direct implications for the evolution of domestic regimes.

Because I discuss bellicist theories in detail in Chapter 3, here I limit myself to a

few summary remarks.

First, bellicist theories ignore the effect of non-military crises on the propensity

for institutional reforms. Second, explanations that focus on the influence of major

wars upon state development are ambiguous about their effects on regime

outcome. Much of the bellicist literature is concerned with the effects of

mobilization on state development. An early example is the writings of Otto

Hintze, who stressed that a country’s geopolitical environment affects its

mobilization strategy, which in turn shapes its regime type. Hintze, a scholar of the

Prussian state, argued that constant preparation for war led to a standing army and

a centralized state, while relative safety within the international system,

geographically defined by mountains and oceans, created the internal opportunity

for democracy.75 According to this argument, then, mobilization for war – conflict

or constant threat thereof – leads to centralization of authority and despotism, with

the corollary that relative isolation from interstate conflict produces democracy.76

75
Otto Hintze (1975) The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze, Felix Gilbert, ed.,
Oxford University Press
76
See also e.g., Brian M. Downing (1992) The Military Revolution and Political
Change: Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe, Princeton
University Press; William R. Thompson (1996) "Democracy and Peace: Putting the
 51

But an opposing school of thought argues that mobilization for war produces

democratic institutions. “Throughout history, warfare has been a major

democratizing force,” argues Dankwart Rustow, “because it has made necessary

the marshalling of additional human resources.”77 North and Weingast, for

instance, have argued that warfare led to the need for increased revenue, which

forced the monarchy to cede important political rights to the Parliament.78 In

general, then, mobilizing for war can force states to grant rights to previously-

excluded social groups in exchange for their cooperation and increased revenue.

Finally, the extensive literature on democratic peace reverses the causal arrow

by arguing that democracy creates peace through various institutional and

normative mechanisms. And other studies find no visible connection between war

and regime change.79

It may be that all of these arguments are true to some extent, but there is not

much room for a coherent theory of institutional waves among the confused and

endogenous causal arrows. In short, while bellicist theories can help explain the

timing of waves (they happen in the aftermath of major wars), they cannot account

Cart before the Horse?" International Organization 50.1, p. 141-174.

77
Dankwart A. Rustow (1970) “Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic
Model” Comparative Politics 2.3, p.348.
78
Douglass C. North and Barry R. Weingast (1989) “Constitutions and
Commitment: The Evolution of Institutional Governing Public Choice in
Seventeenth-Century England”, The Journal of Economic History, Vol.49:803-832
79
Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder (2010) “Does War Influence
Democratization?” p.23-49 in Elizabeth Keir and Ronald Krebs, eds., In War’s
Wake: International Conflict and the Fate of Liberal Democracy, Cambridge
University Press
 52

for the waves’ direction toward or away from democracy or other regime types. To

account for the content of the waves, we must turn to the incentives produced by

the outcome of the war.

Diffusion Models

By far the most common factor used to explain democratic waves involves

some variant of institutional diffusion. The study of diffusion in political science

began in American politics, with Walker’s (1969) foundational work on the spread

of policy innovations across American states.80 Later work has examined the spread

of state lotteries tax policy, pre-legalization abortion policies, and education

reforms. In international relations, diffusion is posited to be some factor that

enables institutions or regimes to carry over across borders. Huntington’s

“demonstration effects” fall into this category of explanation. Much of this literature

is empirically driven, and focuses on factors like networks, neighborhood effects

and positive feedback.81

These theories are systemic at heart because they refuse to treat individual

cases of reform as isolated instances. Instead democratization is seen to take place

in an environment of strategic and continuously interacting units. In some instances

80
Jack L. Walker (1969) “The Diffusion of Innovations among the States” American
Political Science Review 63.3:880-99.
81
See, e.g., Kristian Skrede Gleditsch and Michael D. Ward, “Diffusion and the
International Context of Democratization”, International Organization Fall 2006, p.
911-933; Peter T. Leeson and Andrea M. Dean (2009) “The Domino Theory: An
Empirical Investigation” American Journal of Political Science 53.3:533-51. Harvey
Starr (1991) “Democratic Dominoes: Diffusion Approaches to the Spread of
Democracy in the International System” Journal of Conflict Resolution 35.2:356-81.
 53

democratization can become a self-reinforcing process, creating waves of reforms.

Much of this literature focuses on examining the patterns of democratic diffusion

via regional and global effects, often through very sophisticated quantitative

techniques and spatial models. In a typical finding, Loughlin et al (1998) report

“strong and consistent evidence of temporal clustering of democratic and

autocratic trends as well as strong spatial association (or autocorrelation) of

democratization.”82 And while statistically plausible, this result does not tell us

much about the specific mechanisms that lead to diffusion. As Narizny points out,

“These works focus on the spatial-temporal dynamics of regime transition, not on

the agents, methods, or motives of change. As a result, their causal mechanisms are

severely undertheorized.”83

The current literature on diffusion in some ways resembles the early literature

on democratic peace – an empirical regularity seeking a theoretical explanation.

The most recent trend in studies of diffusion has been to move away from

aggregative empirics and toward the concrete mechanisms that produce these

cross-border effects.84 In a direct sense, that is also the goal of this dissertation. I

thus don’t view diffusion theories as a competing alternative, but as a broad

category of explanations that subsumes a variety of explanations for the cross-

82
John O'Loughlin, Michael D. Ward, Corey L. Lofdahl, Jordin S. Cohen, David S.
Brown, David Reilly, Kristian S. Gleditsch, Michael Shin (1998) “The Diffusion of
Democracy, 1946–1994,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers
88.3:545–574
83
Kevin Narizny (2006) “Democratization, Capitalism and Hegemony”,
unpublished manuscript, p.3
84
See, e.g., the discussion of elite learning in Beissinger 2007.
 54

border spread of domestic institutions, including my own. The theory described in

this dissertation is also a theory based on diffusion – although a specific type of

diffusion that stems from the effects of hegemonic shocks. To explain the dynamics

of this diffusion I focus on the causal mechanisms that lead to the spread of regimes

associated with the rising hegemon. While diffusion may explain the direction of

institutional reforms (neighbors follow neighbors, etc), it cannot explain the timing

of institutional waves. To do so requires recourse to a more specific mechanism of

diffusion – in this case, the timing is shaped by outcomes of hegemonic shocks.

Diffusion is too broad a concept to suffice as an explanation for democratic waves.

Theories of waves should connect external influences to domestic reforms via

concrete causal mechanisms, and show specific instances in which these

mechanisms operate. That is my goal in the remainder of these pages.

The Plan of the Dissertation

The rest of the dissertation proceeds as follows. Chapter 2 empirically tests the

relationship between hegemonic shocks and domestic institutional change through

large-n statistical analysis. This chapter will begin by defining and operationalizing

my variables, stating hypotheses, and then testing them with OLS and fixed-effects

regressions. The goal of this chapter is to examine the general patterns of the

relationship between hegemonic volatility and institutional waves at the systemic

level, and domestic reforms at the country level. I then compare how my systemic

explanation fares next to purely domestic statistical models.

Next, chapters 3 through 5 offer case studies of the first three hegemonic shocks
 55

of the twentieth century – World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II.

Each of these shocks produced waves of reforms that differed in their duration,

intensity, and content. The three chapters employ process-tracing and comparative

historical analysis to trace the effects of each shock on specific institutional

changes in countries around the world. While there is a large secondary literature

on the causes and effects of these shocks, and likewise a large literature on the

evolution of domestic regimes over the twentieth century, there is surprisingly little

overlap between the two. One of the goals of this dissertation is to bring the two

together in order to re-examine the domestic transformations of the past century

through the prism of hegemonic shocks. Chapter 3 examines the short-lived

democratic wave that followed World War. Chapter 4 examines the crisis of

Western capitalism in the Great Depression, and the shift away from liberal

democracy it produced in Europe and elsewhere. Chapter 5 examines the two

institutional waves following World War II, when both the US and the USSR

oversaw two distinct waves of transformations toward their respective regime types.

Finally, Chapter 6 concludes and summarizes, and discusses the theory’s

implications for the current and future state of international relations. The financial

crisis that began in 2008 re-awakened many of the same fears that observers

expressed in the 1930s. Does state capitalism, as exemplified by the rise of China,

present a new institutional bundle, and a new challenge to democracy similar to

the earlier challenges of communism and fascism? And how would a future shock

affect the pattern of regime transformations, particularly if the 2008-9 financial

 56

crisis undermines the strength and legitimacy of democratic capitalism? This

chapter will also discuss the implications for the U.S. policy of external regime

promotion and offer avenues for future research.

 57

CHAPTER 2

TESTING THE EFFECTS OF HEGEMONIC POWER

This chapter examines the relationship between hegemonic power and the spread

of democracy using large-n statistical analysis. Serving as a complement to the case

studies, the goal of this chapter is to examine the general patterns of the interaction

between hegemony and regime change across the international system in the years

between 1900 and 2000. A multivariate regression model that tracks changes in the

hegemonic power of the United States reveals that it has a strong positive effect on

democratization both at the systemic level and within individual countries, even
 58

when controlling for other factors traditionally associated with democratization1.

Additionally, sudden changes in the hegemonic power of fascist Germany and

communist Soviet Union are strongly and negatively associated with decreases in

the average level of democracy within countries and in the international system as

a whole. These results are robust to a number of specifications, model variations,

and measures of democracy.

I begin by defining my main dependent and independent variables, democracy

and national power. I also discuss the definition and measurement of the salient

transformations of these variables, namely democratic waves and shares of

hegemonic power (and shifts in the levels of hegemonic power). After a brief

overview of systemic patterns (which show very strong support for an association

between hegemonic power and levels of global democracy), I introduce other

control variables commonly associated with democratization. This allows for the

creation of a multivariate model that tests domestic arguments on their own terms

while adding a new variable suggested by hegemonic shock theory. Changes in

hegemonic power are shown to have a substantively and statistically significant

effect on democratization both inside countries and around the world as a whole.

In short, this chapter suggests that the comparative literature on democratization

often suffers from an omitted variable bias, and that future studies of democracy

and other regime reforms should take into account the effects of the rise and

decline of hegemonic power.

1
In the model, these include economic development, cross-border diffusion effects,
regime history, geographic region, colonial history, and national culture.
 59

Defining Democracy

Robert Dahl (1971) has influentially argued that the two core attributes of

democracies are contestation (competitive elections for political leaders) and

participation (broad and inclusive access to voting).2 This is the definition I adopt

here.3 Given the above, the first question is whether democracy should be

measured as a dichotomous or a continuous variable. Przeworski et al (2000) offer

a high-spirited defense of a dichotomous measure.4 Their argument can perhaps

best be summarized by the words of writer Amiri Baraka (1962): “A man is either

free or not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.”5

There is, however, a wide variation among democracies in the level of

individual freedom and electoral participation. Donnelly (2000) suggests a three-

point checklist for when a dichotomous variable may be preferable to a continuous

one: when the dividing line is sharp and clear, when the grey area between the two

2
Robert Dahl (1971) Polyarchy, Yale University Press. See also Michael Coppedge,
Angel Alvarez, Claudia Maldonado (2008) “Two Persistent Dimensions of
Democracy: Contestation and Inclusiveness” The Journal of Politics 70.3, p. 632-
647.
3
For a partial list of conceptualizations and measurements of democracy, see Gary
Goertz (2006) Social Science Concepts: A User’s Guide, Princeton University Press,
p.8-9.
4
Adam Przeworski, Michael E. Alvarez, Jose Antonio Cheibub, and Fernando
Limongi (2000) Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being
in the World, 1950-1990, Cambridge University Press. For another argument in
favor of a dichotomous measures of democracy, see Mike Alvarez, Jose Antonio
Cheibub, Fernando Limongi and Adam Przeworski (1996) “Classifying Political
Regimes” Studies in Comparative International Development 31:3-36
5
“Tokenism” in Kulchur, Spring 1962
 60

cases is small, and when few important cases fall into that grey area.6 On these

criteria, democracy fails to qualify on all three grounds. Likewise, Elkins (2000)

empirically investigates whether democracy should be measured as a dichotomous

or continuous variable. He concludes that overall, graded measures have “superior

validity and reliability”.7 Since I am interested in domestic reforms rather than

clear-cut cases of democratic transitions, a continuous measure of democracy is

appropriate for both theoretical and empirical reasons.

Measuring Democratization

I use the Polity IV index to measure the level of democratization. It is a

continuous, internally consistent, and frequently-used measure of autocratic and

democratic regimes which (unlike Freedom House, for example) covers the time

span examined in the argument. Polity codes annual information on regime and

authority characteristics for all independent states (with a population over 500,000)

from 1800 to 2004. Regimes are measured on a scale from -10 (strongly autocratic)

to +10 (strongly democratic), as measured by four components: regulation,

competitiveness, and openness of executive recruitment and constraints on the

6
Jack Donnely (2006) Realism and International Relations, Cambridge University
Press, p. 88. Epstein et al reject a dichotomous measure of democracy on similar
grounds. See David L. Epstein, Robert Bates, Jack Goldstone, Ida Kristensen and
Sharyn O'Halloran (2006) “Democratic Transitions” American Journal of Political
Science 50.3: 551-569. Kellstedt and Whitten (2009) likewise argue that
continuous variables are more appropriate in the case of democracy. Paul M.
Kellstedt and Guy D. Whitten (2009) The Fundamentals of Political Science
Research, Cambridge University Press, p. 96.
7
Zachary Elkins (2000) “Gradations of Democracy? Empirical Tests of Alternative
Conceptualizations” American Journal of Political Science 44.2:287
 61

chief executive. (To make analysis easier, I have recoded it on a scale from 0 to

20). At the systemic level, I measured democratization as the total global average of

Polity IV scores in a given system-year. At the level of regions or countries,

democratization is measured by the region’s or country’s Polity IV score in a given

year.

A common criticism of Polity is that it focuses on the competition dimension of

democracy at the expense of participation.8 The United States, for example, has

received a perfect score since 1871, despite the enfranchisement of women (1920),

African-Americans (de jure in 1869, but de facto in 1965), and citizens aged 18-

21(1971) since that period. For this reason, and as a check on the robustness of the

results, I also include a measure of democratization called SIP, or the Scalar Index

of Politics. SIP combines the executive restraint components of the Polity IV score

with Vanhannen’s measure of popular participation, and is scaled from 0 to 1.9

Since non-democratic regimes lack well-developed quantitative indices, and

regime dummies were used to classify individual states as communist or fascist,

and global levels of fascism and communism in the system were measured using

the total power (as measured by CINC; see below) of communist and fascist states.

(See Appendix 1 for regime classifications.)

8
Geraldo Munck and Jay Verkuilen (2002) “Conceptualizing and Measuring
Democracy: Evaluating Alternative Indices” Comparative Political Studies 35.1:5-34
9
SIP is described and employed in Scott Gates, Håvard Hegre, Mark P. Jones, and
Håvard Strand (2006) “Institutional Inconsistency and Political Instability: Polity
Duration, 1800-2000” American Journal of Political Science 50.4:893-908.
 62

Variable Description Obs Mean St. Dev. Min Max

pol Polity score 9596 9.68 7.30 0 20
country year
polch 1-year change in Polity 9341 0.04 1.75 -19 16
score
sip SIP score 9392 0.43 0.38 0 0.98
sipch 1-year change in SIP 9084 0.00055 0.087 -0.95 0.96
score
sipglobal Average annual global 101 0.4233 0.0748 0.3106 0.6055
SIP level
polglobal Average annual global 101 0.9.60 1.38 7.30 12.90
Polity level
system-year

totfasccinc Fascist share of global 86 0.046 0.090 0 0.377

power
totcomcinc Communist share of 87 0.233 0.121 0 0.378
global power
Table 2.1: Measures of domestic regimes (dependent variable), summary statistics

Measuring Institutional Waves

Following Huntington’s definition of a democratic wave, I define an institutional

wave as a group of transitions between two regime types that occur within a

specified period of time and that significantly outnumber transitions in the opposite

direction during that period.10 Although frequently equated with democratization,

10
Huntington defines a democratic wave as “a group of transitions from
nondemocratic to democratic regimes that occur within a specified period of time
and that significantly outnumber transitions in the opposite direction during that
period.” (Huntington 1991:15) I define institutions as mechanisms employed by
states to deal with problems of enforcement, security, coordination, and credible
commitment. They are public rules that organize relationships among individuals,
groups, and states. This definition follows the historical-institutionalist approach.
See Kathleen Thelen (1999) “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics”
Annual Review of Political Science 2:369-404. On credible commitment via
legislatures, see Douglass North and Barry R. Weingast, "Constitutions and
Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in
Seventeenth-Century England." Journal of Economic History 49:803-832. States
employ and reform institutions to increase their external security and internal
stability, not always successfully. Central banks, courts, electoral rules and social
welfare programs are all examples of various state institutions. Institutions are not
“normally distributed” across states in the system. Instead, certain combinations of
 63

institutional waves have been associated with a variety of regimes throughout

history. Some examples include the revolutionary Latin American wars of

independence between 1810 and 1825, the communist wave in Asia following

World War II or, reaching deeper into time, the spread of parliamentarianism

across Europe during the thirteenth century.11

Since Huntington first described them, the notion of democratic waves has

become widely accepted in the literature.12 Przeworski et al (2006) constitute the

institutions occur more frequently than others. A regime, then, is defined as a

bundle of inter-related institutions bound by an overarching ideology of the state.
11
The Latin American wave included the South American Wars of Independence
(1810-25), the Mexican War of Independence (1810-21), and the Central American
Declaration of Independence (1821). The post-WWII communist wave included
the Chinese civil war, the Korean War, the First Indochina War, the Huks’ uprising
in the Philippines, and the Malayan War. The parliamentary wave followed the
rapid rise in European population and long-distance trade between the 11th and
13th centuries. As Palmer et al note, “nothing shows better the similarity of
institutions in Latin Christendom, or the inadequacy of tracing the history of any
one country by itself.” R.P. Palmer, Joel Colton, and Lloyd Kramer, A History of the
Modern World to 1815, 9th edition, Knopf, 2002, p.35.
12
E.g. Kristian Gleditsch and Michael D. Ward. (2006) "Diffusion and the
International Context of Democratization" International Organization 60(4): 911-
933. Daniel Brinks and Michael Coppedge (2006) “Diffusion Is No Illusion:
Neighbor Emulation in the Third Wave of Democracy” Comparative Political
Studies 39:463-89 and many others in the growing literature on democratic
diffusion and clustering (see chapter 1 for a brief overview); David Collier and
Steven Levitsky (2009) “Democracy: Conceptual Hierarchies in Comparative
Research” in David Collier and John Gerring, eds. Concepts and Method in Social
Science, Routledge. As with many ideas in social science, it would be more correct
to say that Huntington re-introduced rather than introduced the concept: an article
from 1887, for example, mentions “the second European democratic wave, which
first became visible in 1830 and culminated in the general upheaval of 1848.”
Anson D. Morse (1887) “The Cause of Secession” Political Science Quarterly 2.3:
482. (The first wave refers to the cluster of liberalization following 1789 in the
United States, France, Poland, Netherlands, and Haiti).
 64

most prominent dissenters. 13 They criticize Huntington for using a measure based

on the percentage of democratic states, and find no evidence for waves when using

the criterion of transitions rather than institutional changes. However, their analysis

is problematic for two important reasons: first, they employ a dichotomous measure

of democracy that conceals more subtle changes in levels of democratization;

transitions measured with dichotomous variables are sensitive to where one makes

the cut.14 Two, most importantly, their time of analysis is limited to the years 1950-

1990. Since two of the three democratic waves occur before their period, the

failure to find evidence of waves is understandable.

Figure 2.1 tracks the average annual Polity IV and SIP scores since 1900. In

both instances the path of democratization is characterized by waves and counter-

waves, with democratic peaks following the two World Wars and the Soviet

collapse. (The two measures are highly correlated, as expected, but Polity

consistently over-estimates the level of democracy in the system.) The waves also

appear when using other metrics, such as the proportion of countries that are

democratic, or the absolute number of democracies in the international system (See

Figures 2.2 and 2.3; in the latter case, the rollback of the second wave disappears).

13
Democracy and Development, p.40-45
14
Other measures (notably, Huntington’s) do find waves even when using a
dichotomous variable.
 65

Figure 2.1 Average global democracy, Polity and SIP scores, 1900-2000
(standardized to 0-100)

Figure 2.2 Democracies as a proportion of all states (with democracies defined as

states with a Polity score of 7 or more)
 66

Figure 2.3 Total number of democratic states (with democracies defined as states
with a Polity score of 7 or more)

The two major regime alternatives to democracy in the twentieth century –

fascism and communism – have also spread and retreated in wave-like patterns.

(Figures 2.5, 2.5, 2.6) A fascist wave swept Europe and other parts of the world in

the 1930s, and a wave of Communist transitions followed the Soviet victory in

World War II.

Although non-democratic regimes lack well-developed quantitative indices

like Polity, the global spread of fascism and communism can be estimated by

charting the percentage of world power held by fascist and communist states since

1900. (The share of power was calculated using CINC, discussed below.)
 67

Figure 2.4: Communist and fascist shares of global power, 1900-2000 (measured
by CINC)

Figure 2.5: Number of fascist and communist states, 1900-2000

 68

Figure 2.6: Number of fascist and communist states, as a proportion of all states in
the international system

The existence of these waves presents the central puzzle to be explained. I now

turn to a discussion of a variable that offers such an explanation – shares of relative

power held by hegemons of competing regime types.

Defining National Power

Power has remained a contested term in political science, even when confined to

the narrower domain of relative national power.15 “The concept of political

15
There is an extensive literature in international relations on the meaning and
measure of national power. See Gregory F. Treverton, Seth G. Jones (2005)
“Measuring National Power” RAND Conference Proceedings; available online at
http://www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/2005/RAND_CF215.pdf; Ashley J.
Tellis, Janice Bially, Christopher Layne, Melissa McPherson (2000) “Measuring
National Power in the Postindustrial Age”, RAND; Kelly M. Kadera and Gerald L.
Sorokin (2004) “Measuring National Power” International Interactions 30, 211-230;
David Baldwin (1989) The Paradoxes of Power, Basil Blackwell; Richard J. Stoll
 69

power,” wrote Hans Morgenthau, “poses one of the most difficult and controversial

problems of political science.”16 As with other essentially contested concepts, a

measure of relative national power should capture the features salient to the

particular theory under consideration.17 In this case, relative national power means

the power to coerce (to successfully impose regimes upon others), to influence

through trade and patronage, and to inspire institutional imitators, which assumes a

degree of success and attractiveness in the international arena. A suitable measure

of relative national power would then focus on material resources that proxy for

military and economic prowess.

Both military and economic measures of national power are flawed in their own

way.18 Economic measures underestimate the brute strength of highly militarized

and Michael D. Ward, eds. (1989) Power in World Politics, Lynne Rienner; Michael
Handel (1981) Weak States in the International System, Frank Cass; Kjell Goldmann
and Gunnar Sjöstedt, eds. (1979) Power, Capabilities, Interdependence: Problems
in the Study of International Influence, Sage Publications. For non-materialist
approaches to the study of national power, see Michael Barnett and Raymond
Duvall (2005) “Power in International Politics” International Organization 59.1:39-
75; Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall, eds. (2005) Power in Global
Governance, Cambridge University Press; Felix Berenskoetter and M.J. Williams,
eds. (2007) Power in World Politics, Routledge; Rodney Bruce Hall (2003) “Moral
Authority as a Power Source” International Organization 51.4:591-622.
16
Hans Morgenthau (1948) Politics Among Nations, Ch.1, New York: Alfred A.
Knopf
17
David Collier and Robert Adcock (1999) “Democracy and Dichotomies: A
Pragmatic Approach to Choices about Concepts” Annual Review of Political
Science 2: 537-565. On the primacy of concept analysis and case selection for
choosing methods of statistical inference, see Gary Goertz (2006) Social Science
Concepts: A User’s Guide, Princeton University Press. On “essentially contested”
concepts, see Walter Gallie (1956) “Essentially Contested Concepts” Proceedings of
the Aristotelian Society 56:167-98.
18
On the importance of the link between economic growth and military power, see
Paul Kennedy (1987) The Rise and Fall of Great Powers: Economic Change and
 70

regimes such as nineteenth-century Prussia. Military measures in turn

underestimate economic powers like Japan or conceal potential economic

inefficiencies within militarily powerful states like the Soviet Union.19 Thus a

measure of state capability appropriate for measuring hegemonic capacity should

capture the multi-dimensional nature of power in hegemonic transitions.

I use the Composite Index of National Capabilities (CINC) to measure relative

national power. CINC defines power as “the ability of a nation to exercise and

resist influence”. Stipulating that power and material capabilities are not identical,

the codebook nonetheless argues that “given their association it is essential that we

try to define the latter in operational terms so as to understand the former.”20 CINC

includes all states from 1816 to 2001 and incorporates six variables: total

population, urban population, iron and steel production, energy consumption (after

1859), number of military personnel, and military expenditure. The variables fall

into three categories of two variables each - demographic, industrial, and military.21

Military Conflict From 1500 to 2000, Random House. See also Emilio Casetti (2008)
“The Long-Run Dynamic of the Nexus between Military Strength and National
Power: An Econometric Analysis” Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society vol.
2008
19
This is particularly the case when military technology relies on technological and
economic investment. The historian Martin Walker has persuasively argued that the
lack of mass consumption in the USSR blunted the incentive for technological
advancement, which in turn prevented the country from successfully competing
with the United States in military technology. See Martin Walker (1995) The Cold
War: A History, Henry Holt and Company.
20
CINC Codebook, p.1; David J. Singer, Stuart Bremer, and John Stuckey (1972)
"Capability Distribution, Uncertainty, and Major Power War, 1820-1965." p. 19-48
in Bruce Russett, ed., Peace, War, and Numbers, Beverly Hills: Sage
21
Total population reflects the idea that “a large population can have a larger army,
maintain its home industries during times of war, and absorb losses in wartime
 71

Where data was missing and the change rate could reasonably be assumed to be

uniform, figures were interpolated using linear regression.22 Each of these

categories are subject to criticism, particularly, as Wohlforth puts it, the “implicit

assumption that the wellsprings of national power have not changed since the

dawn of the industrial age”.23 But while Wohlforth correctly proposes to expand the

concept to include such measures as the number of patents granted or the number

of internet hosts per 1000 people, these additions are inappropriate for the time

frame of my analysis. Besides being an internally consistent measure that spans the

required range of time, CINC is a widely-used measure in international politics,

which aids in replicability. It is a multi-dimensional measure, capturing both the

military and economic aspects of power inherent in my approach. Its emphasis on

relative power is also conducive to the theoretical analysis of hegemonic

transitions.

easier than a state with a smaller population.” (Codebook p.21) Urban population
is a proxy for modernization: it is associated “with higher education standards and
life expectancies, with industrialization and industrial capacity, and with the
concentrated availability of citizens who may me mobilized during times of
conflict.” (p. 27)
22
CINC Codebook, p. 2. Geographic components of power (island, peninsular, and
land-locked states) were deemed too dyad-specific to be useful for cross-national
comparison, because they look at the relationships among states instead of national
characteristics. (p.3) Natural resources like arable land, climate, and other variable
availability are, according to the authors, already reflected in the indicators. (p.3)
23
William C. Wohlforth (1999) “The Stability of a Unipolar World” International
Security 24.1: 5-41. See also William C. Wohlforth (1987) “The Perception of
Power: Russia in the Pre-1914 Balance” World Politics 39.3:353-381.
 72

Defining Hegemons

As I mentioned in the first chapter, the word “hegemon” is used ambiguously in

the international relations literature. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a

hegemon as “a leading or paramount power,” where “leading” implies the

possibility of multiple such states, while “paramount” implies a single all-powerful

entity. I adopt the former definition – in this dissertation, a hegemon refers to a state

that comprises a “pole” in the international system.24 In that sense a hegemon as

used here is a more exclusive term than the Correlates of War definition of a

“major power”, but more inclusive than the single-state definition adopted by, for

example, Gilpin (1981) or Mearsheimer (2001).25

24
The first recorded usage in the OED, in 1904, implies several such states: “The
hegemon of the western hemisphere is the United States.”
25
The COW coding of major powers also omits countries during “shock years”, the
very period when their fortunes would shape institutional waves. The full COW
coding is USA 1898-2000; UK 1816-2000; France 1816-1940, 1945-2008,
Germany 1816-1918, 1925-1945, 1991-2008, Austria-Hungary 1816-1918, Italy
1860-1943, Russia 1816-1917, 1922-2008, China 1950-2008, Japan 1895-1945,
1991-2008. Mearsheimer (2001), on the other hand, defines a hegemon as “a state
that is so powerful that it dominates all the other states in the system”. John
Mearsheimer (2001) The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, W.W. Norton and
Company, p.40. (At the same time, Mearsheimer’s list of “the five dominant great
powers of the past 150 years” (p. 169) is very similar to mine, so this may be a
matter of semantics: United States 1800-1990; USSR 1917-1991; United Kingdom
1792-1945; Germany 1862-1945; and Japan 1868-1945.)
For other single-state definitions, see Robert Gilpin (1981) War and Change in
World Politics, Cambridge University Press, p.29 and William C. Wohlforth (1993)
The Elusive Balance: Power and Perceptions During the Cold War, Cornell
University Press, p.12-14. William Fox (1944) defined superpowers as countries
that possessed great capabilities and could challenge and fight each other on a
global scale. In his view, in 1943 the US, the UK, and the USSR were superpowers.
See William Fox (1944) The Super-Powers: the United States, Britain, and the
Soviet Union—their responsibility for peace. Harcourt, Brace Co. In the dissertation
I use the term “hegemon” and “great power” interchangeably.
 73

The salient characteristic of a “pole” is that it is not merely a major power, but a

leading state with the capacity to impose regimes, influence other great powers,

and inspire institutional imitators. Following the general view that the system was

multipolar until World War Two and bipolar until the Soviet collapse26, hegemons

between the years 1816 and 2000 were labeled as: US 1898-2000; Russia/USSR

1816-1991; Great Britain 1816-1945; France 1816-1945; Germany 1871-1945;

and Japan 1905-1945.27 When testing the effects of hegemonic shocks in the

multivariate model below, fascist hegemons (Germany and Japan) are restricted to

the period 1933-1945, while the communist hegemon (that is, the USSR) is

restricted to the period 1923-1990 – after all a hegemon cannot inspire institutional

wave unless it possesses that set of institutions itself.

Defining Shocks and Shares of Hegemonic Power

Shocks clarify the balance of power, and in doing so reveal the leaders of the

international system. Theorists have argued that the balance of power is most

transparent after major wars, since, as Gilpin writes, “a hegemonic war is the

ultimate test of change in the relative standing of the powers in the existing

system.”28 I expand on Gilpin’s idea of a hegemonic war to include non-military

26
See, e.g., Waltz (1979) or Kennedy (1987) “The multipolar world of 1885 was
replaced by a bipolar world as early as 1943.” (Kennedy 1987:197, orig. emphasis)
27
A dataset extending beyond 2000 will have to grapple with the rise of China and
(to a lesser extent) India, but I consider the period between 1991 and 2000 to be
one of unchallenged American unipolarity.
28
Gilpin (1981) fn.80
 74

shifts in the balance of power. I define a hegemonic shock as a sudden shift in the

distribution of relative power among the leading states in the international system.

Since the definition of a hegemon was discussed above, here I will focus on the

concept of a “sudden shift” in relative power. In the international relations

literature, “shocks” have traditionally been defined in the same way that Justice

Potter Stewart defined obscenity – we know them when we see them. In practice,

this has meant defining certain pre-designated years as “shock years” and using

dummy variables to separate them from non-shock years for the purposes of

regression analysis. For example, Gates et al (2007) define shock years in their

dataset as lasting from 1914–23, 1939–49, and 1989–96.

To get a better grasp on sudden shifts in hegemonic power, I measured

hegemonic volatility by summing the absolute values of annual changes in CINC

scores among the hegemons. More precisely, hegemonic volatility (HV) for a given

year t is defined by the formula:

n
#i=1| CINC i, t " CINC i, t"1 |
HVt =
n
where n is the number of hegemonic states in a given year. This variable captures

hegemonic shocks by tracking how quickly the distribution of relative power

!
among major states changes over time. It is also an improvement on existing

measures that use dummy variables for pre-designated shock years. The figure

below shows hegemonic volatility smoothed over time (an average of that year’s

volatility and the previous four years):

 75

Figure 2.7: Average Hegemonic Volatility (smoothed), 1900-2000

There are three immediately visible spikes, falling approximately between

1917-1922, 1940-1947 (with some reverberations continuing into the 1950s), and

1989-1995. These represent my case selections of World War I, World War II, and

the Soviet Collapse (a case study to be completed at a later date). Although it does

not appear on the graph above, I have added another case, the Great Depression,

for the following reasons. First, due to the way the CINC index is constructed, it is

likely to underestimate economic change in favor of military and geopolitical

factors. Second, consistent with the demands of the theory, even when measured

via CINC relative U.S. power begins to decline beginning in the mid-1920s and
 76

especially after 1929, while German power increases dramatically after Hitler’s

ascent to power in 1933. (See Figure 2.8) The period of the Great Depression thus

provides an important and unique case of a democratic hegemon in decline,

offering greater variation on my dependent variable.

Figure 2.8: US and German Power (measured by CINC), 1920-1940

Total hegemonic volatility, however, is not an appropriate measure to account

for the spread of democratization. While clarifying the case selection, hegemonic

volatility conceals the upward and downward movements of different hegemonic

regime types. The testable hypotheses that flow from examining hegemonic shocks

focus on the rise and fall of individual great powers. Namely, we would expect a
 77

rise in power of a democratic hegemon (in this case, the United States 1900-2000)

to lead to increased democratization at the systemic and within-country levels. A

decline in the power of the democratic hegemon, on the other hand, should lead to

a decrease in democratization. Similarly, the rise and fall of the communist and

fascist hegemons should lead to a rise and fall in the spread of communism and

fascism.

H1: Decline in relative power of a hegemon leads to a retreat in the hegemon’s

regime type around the world.
H1.1: The intensity of the decline affects the magnitude of regime retreat.

Conversely:

H2: A rise in the relative power of a hegemon leads to the spread of the hegemon’s
regime type around the world.
H2.1: The intensity of the hegemonic rise affects the magnitude of regime spread.

To test these hypotheses, I created a measure called the hegemonic share of

power for the state representing each regime type – democratic (the United States),

fascist (Nazi Germany) and communist (Soviet Russia). In the case of the U.S., the

share of hegemonic power was measured as a proportion of American power and

total hegemonic power in a given system-year. In the case of Germany and the

USSR, their hegemonic share was calculated similarly, but only for those years in

which the hegemons actually represented the alternative regime types (USSR 1922-

1991, Germany 1933-1945), since these are the time periods salient to the theory

at hand. I used a single hegemon to represent each regime type, since they were

the leading representatives of their regimes that inspired others to follow suit, and
 78

since it was their sudden rise and decline, as documented in the case studies, that

drive the waves. As a robustness check, the regression results were also tested with

an expanded definition of hegemonic shares – all democratic great powers (Britain,

France, and the U.S.) instead of only the United States, and all fascist great powers

(Germany and Japan). This operationalization was highly correlated with the one

used here, and produced very similar results. (See footnote 33, below.)

Figure 2.9: Shares of hegemonic power bounded by salient regime spans, United
States (1900-2000), Soviet Union (1922-1991), and Germany (1933-1945).
 79

Variable Description Summary Statistics

Mean Std. Dev. Min Max

US share of hegemonic U.S. CINC score as a proportion of 0.4868 0.1997 0.254 1

power (usshare) the total CINC of hegemonic states in
a given system-year
Average US share of A 5-year average of the U.S. share of 0.4726 0.1800 0.2725 1
hegemonic power hegemonic power (current year plus
(avusshare) the four previous years).
United States

Change in US share of 1-year change in the U.S. share of 0.0073 0.0563 -0.105 0.427
hegemonic power hegemonic power
(cgusshare)
Average change of US share A 5-year average of change in the 0.0070 0.0274 -0.024 0.112
of hegemonic power U.S. share of hegemonic power
(avchusshare) (current year plus the four previous
years). Captures the overall trends
associated with hegemonic shocks.
German share of hegemonic German CINC score as a proportion 0.193 0.051 0.111 0.269
power, 1933-45 of the total CINC of hegemonic states
(grshare) in a given system-year
Average German share of A 5-year average of German share of 0.185 0.047 0.117 0.245
hegemonic power hegemonic power (current year plus
Nazi Germany

(avgrshare) the four previous years).

Change in the German 1-year change in the German share of -0.0002 0.034 -0.075 0.047
share of hegemonic power hegemonic power
(chgrshare)
Average change in the A 5-year average of change in the 0.006 0.014 -0.025 0.023
German share of hegemonic German share of hegemonic power
power (current year plus the four previous
(avchgrshare) years).
Soviet share of hegemonic USSR CINC score as a proportion of 0.374 0.143 0.133 0.566
power, 1922-1991 the total CINC of hegemonic states in
(rushare) a given system-year
Average Soviet share of A 5-year average of the USSR share of 0.365 0.145 0.143 0.559
hegemonic power hegemonic power (current year plus
Soviet Union

(avrushare) the four previous years).

Change in the Soviet share 1-year change in the USSR share of 0.003 0.025 -0.078 0.088
of hegemonic power hegemonic power
(chrushare)
Average change in the A 5-year average of change in the 0.005 0.014 -0.026 0.050
Soviet share of hegemonic USSR share of hegemonic power
power (current year plus the four previous
(avchrushare) years).
Table 2.2: Measures of hegemonic power, 1900-2000 (n=101 for US variables, 13
for German variables, and 70 for Soviet variables).
 80

Bivariate Model

A system-level analysis of the effects of hegemonic shocks suggests a strong

relationship between the amount of relative power wielded by the hegemons and

the spread of democratic, fascist, and communist states around the world. The U.S.

share of hegemonic power is a strong predictor of global democracy at the systemic

level. It has a strong and statistically significant effect on spread of democratization;

for example, a 10% increase in the share of U.S. hegemonic power is associated

with an increase in the global democratization average by nearly 0.7 points. (See

Appendix 2 for a discussion of the regional effects of hegemonic power.)

Coefficient
IV DV (std error)

U.S. share of Total average global Polity IV score, excluding the 6.95 (0.22)***
hegemonic power US
(1900-2000)
U.S. share of Total average Sip score, excluding the US 0.272
hegemonic power (0.026)***
(1900-2000)
Russian share of Global proportion of power, communist states 0.314
hegemonic power (excluding the USSR) (0.05)***
(1918-1991)
German share of Global proportion of power, fascist states 0.033
hegemonic power (excluding Germany) (0.01)***
(1933-1945)
Table 2.3. Systemic effects of hegemonic power.
 81

Multivariate Model

The bivariate results are suggestive, but they cannot account for the influence of

other factors on democratization, nor can they provide much evidence of a causal

relationship between the two variables. Including GDP data in the results above,

for example, has some significant effects on the coefficients. To account for such

effects I constructed a multivariate model that incorporates variables commonly

employed in major democratization datasets. The most significant finding of this

chapter is that changes in hegemonic power have a substantively and statistically

strong effect on democratization within individual countries, even when common

covariates of democracy are taken into account.

The first of these is economic development. The relationship between economic

growth and political development is among the most robust findings in political

science, although scholars continue to debate the precise mechanisms that connect

the two. Economic development was measured by two factors – the log of per

capita GDP, and the level of urbanization. Per capita GDP data was taken from

Angus Maddison’s dataset of historical statistics. Urbanization was measured by as

urban population (living in cities above 500,000 people) as a proportion of total

population. Both population measures were obtained from the CINC dataset. In the

regression model the two economic development variables were lagged by a year.

Diffusion – the tendency for states to adopt the institutions of their neighbors –

has also frequently been identified as a spur to democratization. Since diffusion

forms an alternative explanation to hegemonic shocks, it is particularly important to

 82

account for its influence in a statistical model. Diffusion was measured in two ways

– as the country’s proportion of democratic neighbors for any given country-year,

and a dummy variable coded as 1 if a country’s neighbor had transitioned to a

democracy over the previous year. This data was obtained from the replication

dataset by Gleditsch and Ward (2006).29 The diffusion variables, like the economic

development variables, were lagged by a year.

A state’s institutional history is also an important factor in shaping democratic

development. The state’s institutional history was measured by two complementary

variables – the number of years a country had existed with a democratic regime,

and the number of years it had existed with an autocratic regime. This data was

also obtained from Gleditsch and Ward (2006).

A number of other factors have traditionally been associated with shaping

democracy. The spread of democracy has varied with geographic regions (see

Appendix 2 for a more detailed discussion). Regional data is important to capture

because they control for “false diffusion.” As Brinks and Coppedge put it: “Any

variable that favors countries being, becoming, or remaining democratic would, if

regionally concentrated, lead to a region that appears to be more likely to be,

become, or remain democratic; and this regional tendency could appear to be the

product of democratic diffusion within the region.”30 Geographic data was coded

by hand. Finally, colonial history and national culture were also coded by hand as

29
Kristian Gleditsch and Michael D. Ward. (2006) "Diffusion and the International
Context of Democratization" International Organization 60(4): 911-933.
Replication archive available at http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~ksg/publ.html.
30
Brinks and Coppedge (2006)
 83

dummy variables. Five dummy variables were created to distinguish among former

British, French, Portuguese, Spanish or Dutch colonies. (Of these, former British

colonies are thought to have a consistently higher propensity for democracy.) A

country was coded 1 if it had been one of those colonies, and 0 otherwise. Five

dummies were also created to distinguish among predominantly Protestant,

Catholic, Muslim, Greek Orthodox, and Buddhist countries, the country’s religion

serving as a proxy for national culture. (Of these, predominantly Muslim countries

are thought to have a consistently lower propensity for democracy.) Since the

British colony and Muslim variables are the most theory-relevant, most regressions

included only those two variables to avoid a including variables less salient for

testing the theory. Data for colonial history and national culture was coded using

data from the CIA World Factbook. Table 6 provides the summary statistics for

these control variables (excluding the geographic and national culture dummies.)

Variable Obs Mean Std. Dev Min Max

Per capita GDP 8116 4211 4592 218 42916
(pcgdp)
Urbanization 9860 0.170 0.16 0 1
(urban)
% democratic 9338 0.31 0.31 0 1
neighbors (pnbdem)
Number of neighbor 9226 0.078 0.34 0 6
transitions to
democracy (nbtd)
Length of autocratic 9573 26.1 30.8 0 123
rule (autdur)
Length of democratic 9573 8.4 19.5 0 123
rule (demdur)
Table 2.4: Summary statistics, control variables. Geographic and national culture
dummies are excluded.
 84

Multivariate Regression Results

Because my dependent variable is continuous, and the relationship between

democracy and hegemonic power is posited to be linear, I employ an OLS model

to examine the effects of hegemonic shocks. My independent variable in these

models is the U.S. share of hegemonic power. The first model uses just one

additional control variable, the log of per capita GDP in thousand of dollars, lagged

by one year. The main independent variable is statistically and substantively

significant (as it is in the other model variations). A ten percent increase in the

share of US power is associated with a 0.68 rise in the average country’s Polity

score.

The second model adds variables that control for regional and neighborhood

diffusion. These include two measures of neighborhood diffusion: a dummy

variable that measures whether a neighbor transitioned to a democracy in the

previous year, and the percent of a country’s democratic neighbors (also lagged by

a year). It also includes regional dummies to account for regional diffusion (not

shown; see Appendix 2 for an expanded discussion of regional variation). Model 3

adds regime duration to the control variables in Model 2, in order to account for

institutional inertia within countries. Previous research has shown that experience

with democracy affects the success of democratization. Institutional history is

measured by the number of years a country has experienced democracy and

autocracy. Model 4 adds variables that account for colonial history (a series of

dummies for British, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch colonies; not shown)
 85

and a measure of political culture (proxied by dummies that indicate a Protestant,

Catholic, Muslim, Greek, or Buddhist/Confucian religious dominance; not shown).

Finally, Model 5 uses the control variables in Model 4 but uses change in US share

of hegemonic power as the main independent variable (the derivative of the level

of the US share of hegemonic power). As before, an increase in the change of share

of US power is associated with an increase in the average global level of

democracy.

Variable Model1 Model2 Model3 Model4 Model5

US Share of 6.75 4.94 3.20 3.52 4.02

Hegemonic (.39)*** (.38)*** (.31)*** (.32)*** (.91)***
Power

Economic 0.65 0.27 0.87 0.78 0.88

Development (.017)*** (.018)*** (.09)*** (.09)*** (.09)***

Democratic 6.38 0.64 0.68 0.67

Diffusion 1 (.29)*** (.17)*** (.16)*** (.17)***

Democratic 3.4 3.13 3.90

Diffusion 2 (.25)*** (.26)*** (.25)***

Regime 0.07 0.07 0.07

Duration - (.003)*** (.003)*** (.002)***
DEM

Regime -0.08 -0.08 -0.08

Duration – (.002)*** (.002)*** (.002)***
AUT

r-sq 0.18 0.45 0.59 0.60 0.60

Table 2.5: Country-level effects of hegemonic power. All variables measured 1900-
2000. DV is Polity score, rescaled to 0-20. * significant at the 90% level; **
significant at the 95% level; ***significant at the 99% level
 86

As the below results show, the share of U.S. hegemonic power, and changes

within it, have a significant effect on democratic development under a number of

different specifications, and using a variety of control variables. The U.S. share of

hegemonic power appears to have an effect at the individual country level, and this

effect remains significant even when all other variables are included. In line with

expectations, economic development and diffusion effects are also consistently

significant, as is regime history. Regime duration, under both autocracy and

democracy, is statistically significant and with the expected coefficient signs.

Geographic dummies, colonial history and national culture vary in significance

(they have been omitted from the display to simplify the presentation.)31 The share

of US power, and changes within that power (whether on a year-to-year of five-

year basis), remains significant under a number of robustness checks, including

robust standard errors, and when a lag of the dependent variable is included in the

analysis.32 It remained significant for both measures of democracy, the Polity and

the SIP score. The models were also run using an alternative measure of

hegemonic change – instead of focusing on a single hegemon to represent each

31
In general, French, Spanish and Portuguese colonies have negative coefficients;
British and Dutch colonies have positive but statistically insignificant coefficients.
32
Including a lag of the dependent variable is not generally recommended because
it is highly correlated with the DV and inflates the r-squared. It can be used as a
robustness check, however, since it “soaks up” a lot of the variance and can reveal
which variables remain significant when the lag is included.
 87

regime type, measures of hegemonic shares were expanded to included other great

powers with that regime type.33

To control for the persistent institutional inertia within individual countries,

Model 5 was re-run with fixed effects, yielding the results below.

Democracy Communism Fascism Model

Model Model (Nazi Germany
(US share of (Soviet share of share of hegemonic
hegemonic hegemonic power) power)
power)
Change in the 4.89 -4.4 -7.9
share of (.71)*** (.69)*** (3.1)***
hegemonic
power
Economic 1.50 2.16 -4.0
Development (.11)*** (.18)*** (1.0)***
Democratic 0.40 0.45 0.79
Diffusion 1 (.13)*** (.14)*** (.28)***
Democratic 4.48 3.49 0.91
Diffusion 2 (.27)*** (.33)*** (1.1)
Regime -0.005 0.025 0.17
Duration (.005) (.006)*** (.03)***
(Democracy)
Regime -0.08 -0.08 0.24
Duration (.002)*** (.003)*** (0.05)***
(Autocracy)

Table 2.6: Model 5 from Table 2.2 with fixed effects.

33
To do so I created a variable called demshare, which included the share of
hegemonic power of the democratic great powers – the U.S., Britain, and France;
and fascshare, which included the share of hegemonic power of Germany and
Japan between the years 1933-1945. Since the USSR was the only communist great
period during this period, this variation was not necessary for communist regimes.
Demshare had a similar effect on the average level of democracy as the U.S. share,
and was substantively and statistically significant in the model variations used
above. (Not surprisingly, since the correlation coefficients between usshare and
demshare was 0.67) Likewise, when fascshare is substituted for grshare in the fixed-
effects model, the coefficient is negative (as expected) and statistically significant at
the 95% confidence interval.
 88

As in the previous results, the salient independent variable remains

substantively and statistically significant. Similarly, when the shares of Soviet or

German hegemonic power are substituted as the main independent variable, their

coefficients are large and statistically significant but negative, as the theory

predicts.34

Testing the Effects of Hegemonic Coercion

The effects of hegemonic shocks on the likelihood of regime coercion can be

tested directly by looking at the rate of coerced regime promotions after military

shocks. In theory, military hegemonic shocks should create a marked increase in

instances of hegemons imposing their own regimes on other states (“mimetic”

imposition). In other words, we would expect to see spikes in mimetic regime

promotion by great powers in the closing months and immediately following both

world wars.

To test this hypothesis empirically requires some measure of coercive regime

promotion (CRP). Measurement is slightly complicated by the fact that there are

two equally valid ways to count these cases – the number of promoters or the

number of targets. First, we might add up the number of states imposing regimes

upon others, then see how many of those states are hegemons, and then see how

many of those hegemons were imposing their own regimes. Second, we might add

34
As a robustness check, the fixed-effects models were run with two variations of
the main independent variable: a one-year change in the level of hegemonic
power, and the average five-year change in the share of hegemonic power. These
models were also run with a lag of the dependent variable on the right-hand side.
In all cases, the main independent variable remained statistically significant.
 89

up the number of states experiencing or undergoing CRPs, then see how of those

cases involve hegemons, and how many cases in that subset were countries

undergoing mimetic CRP by a hegemon. Although the two numbers correspond,

they are not always equivalent – a number of states may try to impose a regime on

a single state (Albania in 1912 for example); conversely, a single state may try to

impose a regime on more than one state during the same year (USSR in 1945).

The list of promoters and targets was taken from Owen 2002 and 2010 and

supplemented by a few cases left out of the dataset.35 To obtain a rough measure of

overall regime promotion intensity, I multiplied the two measures together, so that,

for example, if two countries were promoting a regime in three other states, the

total intensity score was six. The total regime promotion intensity for all states is

shown in Figure 2.10:

35
See John Owen (2002) “The Foreign Imposition of Domestic Institutions”
International Organization 56.2:375-409 and John Owen (2010) The Clash of Ideas
in World Politics: Transnational Networks, States, and Regime Change 1510-2010,
Princeton University Press. I have added four omitted cases: USSR in Mongolia
(1921); US in Nicaragua (1954), US and Britain in Iran (1953), and US in Chile
(1973). These do not significantly affect the results since all but the first instance
were not mimetic impositions.
 90

Figure 2.10: Total regime promotion intensity, 1900-2000.

There are three visible spikes (after the two world wars and another in the late

1960s.) The next step is to isolate those instances of regime coercion in which great

powers are promoting their own regimes. The frequency of mimetic impositions by

great powers is shown in Figure 2.11:

 91

Figure 2.11: Mimetic regime imposition by great powers, 1900-2000.

Graphing the salient variable yields the posited results: mimetic regime impositions

by great powers are much more likely to occur in the wake of military hegemonic

shocks.36 The table below breaks down the number of promotions by the relevant

categories (“shock” years are counted as the last year of the war and the following

two years, or 1918-1920 and 1944-1946, for a total of six shock years):

36
Great power impositions in general are much more likely after hegemonic
shocks. The graph of total regime impositions (mimetic and non-mimetic) by great
powers is virtually identical to Figure 2.11. It is displayed in Appendix 4.
 92

Type of Promoter Shock years Non-shock TOTAL

years
Hegemon, 29 27 56
Mimetic
Non-hegemon, 2 29 31
Mimetic
Hegemon, 2 14 16
Non-mimetic
Non-hegemon, 1 17 18
non-mimetic
TOTAL 34 87 121
Table 2.7: External interventions, promoter types 1900-2000, classified by shock vs.
non-shock years

As the table demonstrates, great powers dominate but do not monopolize

regime coercion in the twentieth century: of the 121 instances of regime coercion

during this period, great powers were promoters in 72 of the cases. However, great

powers nearly monopolize regime promotion during hegemonic transitions. During

transition years, countries attempted to impose their regimes on others 34 times,

and in 31 of those cases the promoter was a great power.37 Moreover, great powers

are much more likely to promote their own regimes in the wake of shocks – of the

31 cases of hegemonic intervention during shock years, in 29 of those cases they

promoted their own regimes (about 94 percent).38 Of the 41 cases of hegemonic

intervention during non-shock years, they imposed their own regime in 27 cases

(about 66%). Dividing by the number of years, in an average shock year there were

37
The number of impositions is higher than the umber of countries promoting
regimes because in many instances the same country (particularly the US and the
USSR) attempted to impose its regime on multiple countries.
38
The two exceptions being Japan in Russia (1918) and the USSR in Austria (1945).
 93

4.8 mimetic impositions by a great power, and only 0.28 such impositions in an

average non-shock year.39

In short, great powers act differently after hegemonic shocks. They are more

likely to impose regimes during hegemonic transitions, and when they do so they

are more likely to impose their own regimes than in non-shock years. The reasons

for this, as suggested in the previous chapter, stem from the temporary decrease in

the costs and increased likelihood of success in the wake of hegemonic shocks.

These findings both complement and build upon the recent literature on

external regime impositions. Over the past decade or so, perhaps inspired by the

American experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, the literature on regime promotions

has been pessimistic about the effect of coerced regime imposition on domestic

stability. For example, Pickering and Peceny (2006) examine regime promotions by

the U.S., Britain, France, and the U.N. Between 1946 and 1996. 40 “Most scholars

doubt that military intervention can lead to democracy,” they write. “Many are

skeptical because they see the fundamental causes of democracy as internal.”41

They find that UN interventions are more likely to result in democracy than

intervention by the democratic great powers, and find a strong statistical

association between hostile intervention by the United States and democratization.

They argue, however, that this relationship is driven by three cases in the

39
A difference-of-means test between mimetic hegemonic impositions in shock vs.
non-shock years reveals (unsurprisingly) that the difference is statistically
significant.
40
Jeffrey Pickering and Mark Peceny (2006) “Forging Democracy at Gunpoint”
International Studies Quarterly 50:539-559
41
Pickering and Peceny 2006:539
 94

Caribbean, only one of which (Panama in 1989) created a stable democracy. They

conclude that there is “little evidence that military intervention by liberal states

helps to foster democracy in target countries” and argue that “the evidence

presented here offers a cautionary tale for those determined to forge democracy at

gunpoint.”42 Bueno de Mesquita and Downs (2006) reach a similar conclusion. 43

Their analysis is based on an extension of selectorate theory, focusing on the

implications for the survival of the intervening leader and the type of government

institutions in the target states that interventions are most likely to produce.

Examining state and UN interventions between 1946 and 2001, they find that

external military intervention “does little to promote democracy and often leads to

its erosion and the substitution of largely symbolic reforms”. 44 Likewise, in a study

of superpower interventions during the Cold War, Easterly et al (2008) find that

intervention by either the United States or the USSR both decreased the likelihood

of democracy by about 33 percent. 45 Peic and Reiter (2010) examine forty-two

cases of regime imposition since 1920 and find that interventions increase the risk

of civil war because they damage the infrastructural power of the state.46 They

42
Pickering and Peceny 2006:539,556
43
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and George W. Downs (2006) “Intervention and
Democracy” International Organization 60:627-49
44
Bueno de Mesquita and Downs 2006:647
45
William Easterly, Shanker Satyanath, and Daniel Berger (2008) “Superpower
Interventions and their Consequences for Democracy: An Empirical Inquiry” NBER
Working Paper 13992, p.1
46
Goran Peic and Dan Reiter (2010) “Foreign-Imposed Regime Change, State
Power and Civil War Onset, 1920-2004” British Journal of Political Science
 95

conclude that interventions that follow interstate wars and change the target state’s

political institutions increase the risk of civil war eightfold.47

Examining the effects of foreign interventions on regime transformations is

complicated by the problem of selection effects - since outsiders are more likely to

intervene in states that are experiencing problems, these targets of intervention are

also more likely to experience failed consolidations and civil wars afterwards,

exaggerating the negative connection between intervention and regime failure. 48 In

an unpublished working paper, Downes (2011) accounts for these selection effects

through matching procedures, and finds that foreign interventions can promote

regime stability when outside powers are seeking to restore previous rulers.

However, when they are seeking to depose the current ruler and install a new

government, civil war becomes more than three times as likely. This happens

because disrupting a sitting government “disrupts state power and foments

grievances and resentments.”49

Finally, John Owen (2010) takes a longer view of foreign interventions,

examining instances of external regime promotions since 1500.50 He argues that

impositions of domestic regime occur in waves, and describes three such waves

47
Peic and Reiter 2010:22
48
For a similar approach to examining the effects of peace-keeping on civil wars,
see Virginia Page Fortna (2008) Does Peacekeeping Work? Shaping Belligerents’
Choices after Civil War, Princeton University Press
49
Alexander B. Downes (2011) “Catastrophic Success:Foreign-Imposed Regime
Change and Civil War” Working Paper, draft March 29, 2011, p.1
50
John M. Owen (2010) The Clash of Ideas in World Politics: Transnational
Networks, States, and Regime Change 1510-2010, Princeton University Press
 96

since 1500, each accompanied by an ideological struggle between competing

regime types - the first between 1520 and 1650 (catholics vs. protestants); the

second between 1770 and 1850 (republics vs. constitutional monarchies vs.

absolute monarchies; and the third between 1917 and the present day (democracy

vs. fascism vs. communism. Owen argues that the incidence of foreign regime

promotion “rises steeply during periods of great-power struggle, either hot or cold

wars”. 51 The waves of imposition occur because in the presence of competing

ideologies, particularly during times of relative insecurity, states find strategic

significance in regime imposition or view them as relatively costless.52

Although my analysis is based on John Owen’s dataset, his data leads me to a

different conclusion about the causes of the waves of regime impositions. These

bursts of interventions are indeed the products of competition between competing

regime types, but they occur in the immediate aftermath of the struggle rather than

during its course. In particular, mimetic regime impositions by great powers occur

once the struggle has been decisively concluded via interstate war. Great powers

do undertake non-mimetic impositions during the course of the struggle itself -

most notably, during the Cold War - but these interventions are far less

concentrated in time. At least for the twentieth century, Owen’s argument requires

an important refinement: non-mimetic impositions occur during ideological

struggles, but mimetic impositions occur directly after these struggles, and tend to

be more clustered in time. These latter sorts of imposition are what produce the

51
Owen 2010:24
52
Owen 2010:27
 97

waves of foreign-imposed regime changes, and contribute (along with influence

and emulation) to the larger waves of regime change that follow hegemonic

shocks.

These results also have some implications for the study of state death and the

dynamics of international norms. Fazal(2007) has argued that state death is

associated with buffer states caught between states with enduring rivalries.53

Hegemonic shocks have also frequently been associated with the death and birth of

states – World War I, for instance, destroyed the continental empires of central and

eastern Europe and created a number of new nation-states from their remnants. The

fascist wave culminated in the forced annexation and death of a number of states

across Europe. Hegemonic shocks, in other words, may create unique conditions

that intensify the normal mechanisms of state death.

Fazal has also argued that violent state death has virtually ceased after 1945

because of a norm against conquest. This suggests that while shocks create

incentives for hegemonic coercion, the nature of that coercion (that is, whether it

takes the form of dismemberment of rivals, forcible annexation or regime

imposition through occupation) is mediated by the shifting structure of norms in the

international system – and that these shifts are guided by the changing behaviors of

the rising hegemons. The same mechanisms that lead to institutional waves may

also create cascades of norm change. Because norms are inherently social

constructs, and because they are associated with persuasion instead of power,

53
Tanisha Fazal (2007) State Death: The Politics and Geography of Conquest,
Occupation, and Annexation, Princeton University Press
 98

material factors are assumed to be less important or even irrelevant in shaping

changes in global norms. However, there is a tendency in the constructivist

literature to conflate power with coercion – and since social constructs cannot be

coerced, material power does not play an important role in these discussions. Yet

power can and does influence normative changes in complicated ways, some of

which may have nothing to do with brute force. States may imitate the norms of

rising hegemons for similar reasons that they imitate their institutions – to copy

their success, to attract allies, or to gain legitimacy in the eyes of their peers.

Hegemonic shocks can thus shift the normative preferences of domestic actors and

groups in many states simultaneously, leading to a norm cascade. To take one

prominent example, the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union discredited the

normative basis for communism among its fellow travelers in the developing world,

contributing to a normative shift toward democracy. Today, illiberal states pay lip

service to the importance of national elections even when the elections themselves

are subject to a variety of political constraints. In this case, the sudden decline in

the power of a communist hegemon directly contributed to a normative shift away

from communism as an alternative institutional bundle. To equate norm change

with persuasion while conflating power with coercion ignores the complexity of

these influences.

Overall, the above analysis suggests that the literature on regime impositions

would benefit from a closer look at its interaction with interstate war and the

international environment as a whole. Recent studies suggest important causal links

 99

between external impositions, interstate wars, and systemic peace. Lo, Hashimoto

and Reiter (2008), for example find that peace is more durable following interstate

wars in which the loser experience a foreign-imposed regime change.54 Pessimistic

conclusions about the democratizing effects of foreign interventions may be

warranted, but they may benefit from distinguishing interventions that take place in

the wake of hegemonic shocks from those that do not. Interventions after major

wars occur at a time when the rising hegemons are at their most powerful and most

committed to changing the global order. Post-shock interventions may also be

legitimized by the outcome of a major war in a way that peacetime interventions

are not. The U.S. occupation of Germany encountered no native opposition at least

in part due to the nature of the war and the total defeat that accompanied its

conclusion. In his book Embracing Defeat, the historian John Dower has argued

that the success of the U.S. occupation of Japan after World War II was shaped at

least in part by the nature of the war that proceeded it, and the decisive defeat that

brought the war to an end.55As I will argue in Chapter 5, the Soviet occupation of

Eastern Europe was legitimized in part by the nature of the Soviet victory in that

conflict. These factors simply do not come into play with interventions that occur

in the absence of major interstate wars. In short, the effect of hegemonic shocks on

54
Nigel Lo, Barry Hashimoto, and Dan Reiter (2008) “Ensuring Peace: Foreign-
Imposed Regime Change and Post-War Peace Duration, 1914-2001” International
Organization 62.4:717-36
55
John Dower (1999) Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, W.W.
Norton & Company
 100

the propensity for external impositions to produce lasting regime change requires

future consideration.

Conclusion

The empirical tests suggest that quantitative literature on democratization should

pay close attention to a particular systemic influence that shapes and constrains

domestic regime outcomes – the hegemonic share of power, and sudden changes

within the level of that power. This variable remains significant under a number of

model specifications and measures of the dependent variable. In the case studies

that follow, I will examine the effects of hegemonic power in more detail, focusing

on the specific mechanisms that drive this relationship.

 101

APPENDIX 1: Regime Classifications

States Classified as Fascist:

Austria - 1933-1944
Bulgaria - 1934-1944
Germany - 1933-1944
Hungary - 1938-1944
Italy - 1922-43
Japan - 1936-1945
Portugal - 1934-73
Romania - 1940-44
Spain - 1936-75
Albania - 1939-1944
Belgium – occupied May 28 1940 to end of 1944 (1940-44)
Czechoslovakia - 1939-1944
Denmark - 1940-44
France May 1940 to December 1944
Greece April 1941 to October 1944 (1941-44)
The Netherlands - May 10 1940 to beginning of 1945 (1940-44)
Norway - 1940-44
Poland October 1939 to early 1945 (1940-44)
Yugoslavia (incl independent state of Croatia 1941-43) – April 17, 1941 to May
1945 (1941-44)
Philippines - April 1942 to December 1944 (1942-44)
Thailand - December 1941 to June 1944 (1942-44)

States Classified as Communist:

Afghanistan - 1978-1991
Albania - 1946-1991
Angola - 1976-1992
Benin - 1976-1989
Bulgaria - 1947-1990
Cambodia - 1976-1991
China since 1950
Congo - 1970-1991
Cuba since 1959
Czechoslovakia - 1948-1989
Ethiopia - 1975-1990
Eastern Germany - 1950-1990
Greece - 1948-49
Grenada - 1979-1983
 102

Hungary - 1950-1989
Laos since 1976
Mongolia - 1925-1991
Mozambique - 1975-1990
North Korea since 1948
Poland - 1945-1989
Romania - 1948-1989
Somalia - 1976-1990
USSR - 1921-1991
Republic of Vietnam - 1954-1975
Yemen’s People Republic - 1968-1989
Vietnam since 1976
Yugoslavia - 1945-1991
 103

APPENDIX 2: Regional Effects of Hegemonic Power

Scholars have noted significant variation in the spread of democracies across

geographic regions.56 Figure 6, below, charts the spread of democracies across

different regions, measured by that region’s average Polity score.

Figure A1: Regional variations in the spread and retreat of democracy, 1900-2000.

56
See, e.g. John O'Loughlin, Michael D. Ward, Corey L. Lofdahl, Jordin S. Cohen,
David S. Brown, David Reilly, Kristian S. Gleditsch, Michael Shin (1998) “The
Diffusion of Democracy, 1946-1994” Annals of the Association of American
Geographers 88.4:545-574
 104

Despite the differences, at least some of the waves are present in all the regions. In

the Western countries, which democratized earliest, there is a peak around World

War I and a trough in the 1930s, culminating in an all-time low in the early years

of World War II and a rapid democratic recovery at the end of the war. Central and

Eastern Europe experiences a rapid increase, followed by rollback, after both wars;

the period of Soviet rule is marked by democratic stagnation, followed by a rapid

spread of democracy in the early 1990s. Sub-Saharan Africa, on the other hand,

begins as fairy democratic (due to a small number of states of relatively democratic

states at the beginning of the century) and declines throughout most of the

twentieth century as new states enter the region, but experiences a rapid wave in

the 1990s. Asia experiences bursts of democratization after World War II and

during the 1990s. Central and South America stagnate during much of the

twentieth century, and experience democratic waves in the 1990s; the Caribbean

sees a short-lived burst of democracy after World War I, followed by a rapid

decline and recovery in the 1960s. The Middle East shows distinct waves, with

rollbacks, in the early years of the twentieth century and after World War II,

followed by a smaller wave in the 1980s and 1990s.

Table A1 presents the relationship between regional democracy and US

hegemony (measured in two ways: the level of U.S. hegemonic share, and the

change in the level of US hegemonic share averaged over the preceding five years).

The first two columns show the results of a simple bivariate regression for each
 105

region. The last two columns show regression results that include a measure of the

regional per capita GDP.

Region US Change in US US hegemonic Change in US

hegemonic share (5-year share, share,
share average) controlling for controlling for
regional per regional per
capita GDP capita GDP
57
West 6.16 24.2 1.95 11.4
(0.85)*** (7.27)*** (1.0)* (5.5)**
Central and 10.2 73.9 11.2 70.5
Eastern Europe (1.6)*** (11.68)*** (2.1)*** (12.6)***
Caribbean 3.47 28.0 1.32 20.0
(1.4)** (10.9)*** (1.2) (7.2)***
Central America 10.7 47.1 8.25 37.1
(1.0)*** (9.8)*** (1.2)*** (7.9)***
South America 10.5 45.1 7.27 33.0
(1.1)*** (10.1)*** (1.5)*** (8.9)***
Sub-Saharan -1.85 14.4 7.65 30.8
Africa (1.1) (8.4)* (.85)*** (7.1)***
Asia 7.28 18.8 6.57 5.8
(.6)*** (6.7)*** (.73)*** (6.4)
Middle East and 2.3 10.5 3.9 11.8
North Africa (0.66)*** (5.0)** (0.58)*** (4.4)***
Table A1. Regional Effects. Columns 1 and 2 are bivariate results. Results in
columns 3 and 4 include regional per capita GDP data in the regression.
N = 101. DV is Polity.

The results show a strong relationship between the two variables, with some

variation. The American share of hegemonic power (and changes therein) is

strongly correlated with levels of democratization in all regions except Sub-Saharan

Africa, although the effect is weaker in the Caribbean. When regional wealth is

57
Includes Western Europe, Scandinavia, and the settler colonies: U.S., Canada,
Australia, and New Zealand.
 106

taken into account, the relationship remains strong everywhere except in Asia (and

becomes significant in Sub-Saharan Africa).

 107

APPENDIX 3: Replication of Gleditsch and Ward (2006)

This appendix replicates the results found in Gleditsch and Ward (2006) and adds a

variable associated with hegemonic shocks as a particularly tough check of the

robustness of my results. Gleditsch and Ward analyze the spatial diffusion of

democracy and the effect of neighborhood contagion on autocratic breakdown.58 I

first replicate Model 1 (found on page 925) of the article, then replicate the same

model with the addition of a variable that captures changes in the level of

American hegemonic power. They employ a Markov chain model that looks at

factors such as democratic transitions in neighbors and the global proportion of

democracy. A replication of their results thus offers a direct test of the idea that

hegemonic power has an effect on the spread of democracy distinct from diffusion

processes as a whole. It also biases the results against a positive finding for my

variable, since the variables they use (see table below) are likely to correlate very

closely with variables associated with the effects of hegemonic power. Second, the

independent variable used in the model is dichotomous, which doesn’t capture the

effects of hegemonic power on democratic reforms that do not lead to clear-cut

transitions. For these two reasons, the replication is thus a “hard case” for my

theory, since the model is biased against positive results for my variables.

As a brief preview, the results are mixed. Of the three operationalizations of my

variable used in the replication, two are not statistically significant. A third,

however (measuring a five-year average of the change in U.S. hegemonic power) is

58
Kristian Skrede Gleditch and Michael D. Ward (2006) “Diffusion and the
International Context of Democratization” International Organization 60.4:911-933
 108

statistically significant, and shows that increases in the rate of U.S. hegemonic

power make democracies less likely to break down, consistent with the predictions

generated by the theory. The result is substantively large – the coefficient of this

variable is bigger than any of the other independent variables used in their model.

These results suggest that at the very least levels of hegemonic power deserve a

closer look in further empirical studies of democratization.

Covariates Beta Coefficient Gamma Coefficient

Constant 2.46 (0.81)*** 3.856 (0.317)
Logged GDP per capita -0.500 (0.089)*** -0.065 (0.004)
Proportion of Neighboring -0.550 (0.264)** -0.687 (0.467)
Democracies
Civil War 0.369 (0.223)* -0.016 (0.025)
Years of Peace at Territory 0.002 (0.002) -0.004 (0.0001)
Economic Growth -0.024 (0.012)* 0.003 (0.0001)
Global Proportion of -0.621 (1.05) -2.570 (0.467)***
Democracies
Neighboring Transition to -0.436 (0.138)
Democracy
Table A2: Replication of Model 1 from Gledistch and Ward 2006, page 925

Here, the beta coefficient represents the likelihood that a democracy will

endure, while the gamma coefficient represents the likelihood that an autocracy

will break down.59 Thus, for example, a higher proportion of neighboring

democracies significantly increases the likelihood that democracies will break

down (contrary to their prediction, with beta = -0.550) but also significantly

decreases the likelihood that autocracies will endure (with gamma = -0.687)

59
The gamma coefficient is calculated by adding the beta coefficient and the alpha
coefficient (the coefficient of the interaction term for that variable).
 109

Next, I replicated this model with the addition of a measure of U.S. hegemonic

power. I used three variations: a lag of the U.S. share of hegemonic power

(lusshare), change in the share of U.S. hegemonic power (chusshare), and a running

five-year average in the change in the U.S. share of hegemonic power

(avchusshare). Ex ante, the last measure appears to be the most likely candidate,

since it measures changes in the rate of change over a five year-period and thus is

closest to capturing the dynamics of a hegemonic shock. In fact, this variable is

significant at the 10% level and more importantly, possessed the expected signs:

Covariates Beta Coefficient Gamma Coefficient

Constant 3.309 (0.966)*** 3.731 (0.365)
Logged GDP per capita -0.509 (0.090)*** -0.066 (0.004)
Proportion of Neighboring -0.537 (0.267)** -0.689 (0.046)
Democracies
Civil War 0.364 (0.225) -0.017 (0.025)
Years of Peace at Territory 0.002 (0.002) -0.004 (0.000)
Economic Growth -0.021 (0.012)* 0.003 (0.0001)
Global Proportion of -3.283 (1.936)* -2.120 (1.09)
Democracies
Neighboring Transition to -0.434 (0.138)***
Democracy
Average change in US 5.867 (3.317)* -1.070 (3.40)
hegemonic power share
Table A3: Model 1 with the addition of avchusshare, a measure of change of US
hegemonic power

Here, a sudden increase in the US share of power increases the likelihood that

democracies will endure. (The other two measures were not statistically significant,

although substantively they had the expected signs.) The coefficient (in bold) is very

large (5.867) and statistically significant. Substantively, the magnitude of this

coefficient is larger than all the other variables except the global proportion of
 110

democracies. It also decreases the likelihood that autocracies will endure, but the

effect is not statistically significant. Given the aforementioned factors that bias the

model against finding a significant relationship, it seems plausible that future

quantitative studies should further examine the effects of hegemonic power on the

propensity for domestic reforms.

 111

APPENDIX 4: Total Regime Impositions by Great Powers

This graph shows the intensity of regime impositions by great powers. It is virtually

identical to Figure 2.11, but includes both mimetic and non-mimetic impositions.

The graph demonstrates that all hegemonic interventions cluster after hegemonic

shocks, contra Owen (2010).

Figure A2: Total Regime Promotion Intensity by great powers, 1900-2000

 112

CHAPTER 3

THE ALCHEMY OF WAR

“The year 1918 marked a bright and conspicuous date in the annals of
our history. After a series of successes which seemed to forecast their
eventual triumph, our aggressors suddenly foundered in a cataclysm
which at a single blow destroyed the oldest monarchies of Europe.”
-- Gustave Le Bon (1921)1

“Purged and humbled, democracy presents itself for revision.”

-- T.V. Smith (1927)2

The first democratic wave of the twentieth century found an unexpected origin in

the immense destruction of the Great War. The postwar flowering of democratic

regimes on the European continent was a period of hope born from tragedy, a

moment of crisis transformed into opportunity. The wave of reforms that

accompanied the end of the war was intense, widespread, ambitious – and

1
Gustave Le Bon (1921) The World in Revolt: A Psychological Study of Our Times,
transl. by Bernard Miall, New York: The Macmillan Company, p.9
2
T.V. Smith (1927) “Review of Democracy Under Revision by H.G. Wells” The
Social Service Review 1.4:665
 113

ultimately unsuccessful. Between 1917 and 1922, over a dozen newly-born

European states emerged from the ruins of collapsed empires (See Figure 3.1) and

adopted democratic institutions like parliaments, civil liberties, and universal

suffrage. At the same time, semi-democracies like Britain and Belgium expanding

voting rights to previously excluded groups like women and working-class men.

The spirit of postwar democratic optimism was so strong that a year after the

armistice, British politician and historian James Bryce wondered whether the “trend

toward democracy now widely visible is a natural trend, due to a general law of

social progress”.3

Figure 3.1: Total number of states in the international system, 1900-1930

3
James Bryce (1921) Modern Democracies, Vol.1, New York: Macmillan, p.24.
 114

Surveying the wreckage of collapsed European empires, it was tempting to

believe that an era of democracy had indeed dawned on the continent. The

outcome of the war appeared to vindicate democracy while exposing the

deficiencies of its competitors. Absolutist empires, defeated and disgraced, had

been refashioned in a democratic mold, however precariously, all across Europe. A

poet writing in 1919 could not “dare to speak of kings and queens / Democracy is

now the card”.4 Returning to the United States after his triumphant European tour,

Woodrow Wilson proclaimed that democratic principles had “penetrated to the

heart and understanding” of both masses and rulers, and imagined the Founding

Fathers “looking on with a sort of enraptured amazement that the American spirit

should have made conquest of the world.”5

The wave of postwar democratization was driven by two factors related to the

outcome of the war. First, the collapse of ill-glued6 monarchical empires created a

number of new states in central and eastern Europe. Inspired by democracy’s

ability to mobilize masses and triumph over powerful enemies, the leaders of these

new states looked to democratic institutions as the way to harness the postwar spirit

of national self-determination, modernize their societies, and acquire both

4
Richard de Gallienne (1919) “Ballade of the Modern Bard” Harper’s Magazine,
October, p. 761
5
Woodrow Wilson, Speech of September 6 1919, quoted in G. John Ikenberry
(2000) After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order
After Major Wars, Princeton University Press, p.158
6
To borrow Jacques Barzun’s description of Austria-Hungary. Jacques Barzun
(2000) From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life from 1500 to
the Present, Harper Perennial, p.690
 115

international and domestic respectability. “Four great empires in Europe, all ruled

by ancient dynasties, crash to the ground,” wrote Bryce, “and we see efforts made

to build up out of the ruins new States, each of which is enacting for itself a

democratic constitution.”7 American power proved decisive in the European

theater and now loomed large across the continent. By joining the democratic

camp, the new states also hoped to secure American financial assistance and

security guarantees. At the same time, the “ostentatious purity”8 of Woodrow

Wilson’s democratic vision provided the ideological basis for the reforms.

Europeans “who had been long tried, confused, bereaved,” write Palmer et al,

“were stirred by Wilson’s thrilling language in favor of a higher cause.”9 In the new

states, material and ideological factors converged to bolster democracy’s appeal

and legitimacy.10

Second, the war led to democratizing reforms via the mobilization of women

and labor in partial democracies. As leaders of the Allied countries soon realized,

uninterrupted industrial production was a necessary ingredient for waging a

7
Bryce 1921:4-5. These were the Hohenzollern, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and
Ottoman empires.
8
J.M. Roberts (1999) Twentieth Century: The History of the World, 1901 to 2000,
Viking, p.283
9
R. R. Palmer, Joel Colton, and Lloyd S. Kramer (2002) A History of the Modern
World, 9th edition, McGraw-Hill, p.687-8
10
In an empirical analysis, Gates et al find that states created by the war were
much more democratic that the average pre-war regime. Scott Gates, Håvard
Hegre, Mark P. Jones, Håvard Strand, “Democratic Waves? Global Patterns of
Democratization, 1800-2000,” paper prepared for delivery at the National Political
Science Conference, January 2007, Trondheim, Norway, p.14. For similar
arguments, see Palmer et al 2002:746 and Raymond Sontag (1970) A Broken
World: 1919-39, HarperCollins, p.66.
 116

prolonged, materiel-heavy war. For the first time since the wars of Napoleon,

victory hinged on mobilizing the disenfranchised. The modern battlefield

demanded mass armies, and industry absorbed massive amounts of labor. Triumph

would require the cooperation of the labor class. For workers, this newfound

importance offered an opportunity to generate political concessions and led to an

expectation that a higher standard of living “must emerge with the coming of

peace.”11 Warfare strengthened labor’s organizational power and forced the

working and ruling classes to strike a reciprocal bargain – if workers’ acquiescence

led to victory, they would be rewarded with political freedom and welfare

measures. As the hostilities ended, labor was more unified, better organized, “and

in a position to back its demands with threats.”12 The Allied victory cemented the

wartime bargain and made the expansion of political rights inevitable in the short

term.

In the space of a few years, the alchemy of war had transformed the laborer into

a union worker, the housewife into a suffragette, the emperor into a relic. At the

onset of the conflict, Europe had only three states that could be called

democracies; by the end, the number had grown to sixteen. (See Figures 3.2 and

3.3)13

11
Dietrich Rueschmeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens (1992)
Capitalist Development and Democracy, University of Chicago Press, p. 91-2; See
also Sandra Halperin (2004) War and Social Change in Modern Europe: The Great
Transformation Revisited, Cambridge University Press, p.154
12
Halperin 2004:171
13
Norman Davies (1996) Europe: A History, Oxford University Press, p. 943. The
precise numbers vary with differing definitions of democracy, but the overall trend
 117

Figure 3.2: The postwar democratic wave, as measured by Polity, 1900-1930.

remains the same. According to Nancy Berneo, by 1920 twenty-six out of twenty-
eight European states were parliamentary democracies. (She notes that by 1938,
thirteen of these democracies had become dictatorships.) Nancy Bermeo (1997)
“Getting Mad or Going Mad? Citizens, Scarcity and the Breakdown of Democracy
in Interwar Europe” Center for the Study of Democracy, paper 97.06. Huntington
(1991:17) writes that 17 countries had adopted democratic institutions between
1915 and 1931, but only four of these had retained them through the 1930s.
Peceny notes that the number of democracies “nearly doubled” in 1919, although
almost all of these new democratic regimes collapsed by the end of the 1930s.
Mark Peceny (2010) “Democratizing During Hard Times: Germany’s Transition to
Democracy in the Wake of the First World War” Paper presented at the 106th
Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 2-5,
2010, Washington, D.C., p.1.
 118

Figures 3.3: The postwar democratic wave, as measured by SIP, 1900-1930.

But the countries that formed the democratic wave of 1918-1923 pursued two

distinct trajectories. New states formed from imperial ruins adopted radically

democratic institutions but saw failures and reversals in the late 1920s and the

1930s. The causes for this failure, as I argue later in this chapter, were embedded in

the dynamics that created the wave in the first place. The outcome of the war had

brought together a number of short-lived pro-democracy coalitions, creating a

number of transitions in countries where the structural conditions for long-term

democratic consolidation were simply not in place, whether due to a sustainable

parliamentary majority to consolidate initial reforms, or the absence of economic

and social conditions for democratic consolidation were absent. Optimistic leaders,

swept up in the tide of national self-determination and democratic rhetoric after the
 119

war adopted institutions that their countries had little chance of sustaining. These

states attempted to democratize despite the absence of structural conditions that

generally serve to sustain democracy – a well-established middle class, economic

stability, ethnic cooperation, and past experience with democratic “rules of the

game”. Europe’s democratic reversal is often linked to the crisis of confidence

caused by the Great Depression. But even inside countries where economic

collapse was the final nail in democracy’s coffin, problems began well before

1929. “The new states hatched at Versailles,” writes Tony Judt, “were fragile and

somehow impermanent from the very start.”14 Parliamentary coalitions everywhere

were short-lived, unstable, and ineffective. Interwar Romania, for example, saw

coalitions fall on average every sixteen months.15 “A kind of economic, political,

and cultural illiteracy prevailed,” writes Fritz Stern. “[T]here was an insufficient

understanding of the preconditions for democracy and of the connections between

economic and social conditions and democratic politics.”16 The defeat of the

Central Powers, writes Huntington, “produced democratic institutions in central

and eastern European countries that socially and economically (except for

Czechoslovakia) were not ready for them and hence they did not last long.”17

Unlike the newly-formed states, countries that had been semi-democratic

14
Tony Judt (2005) Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, Penguin Press, p.195
15
Andrew C. Janos (1970) “The One-Party State and Social Mobilization” in
Samuel Huntington and Clement Moore, eds., Authoritarian Politics in Modern
Society: The Dynamics of Established One-Party Systems, Basic Books, p. 207
16
Fritz Stern (1997) “The new democracies in crisis in interwar Europe” in Axel
Hadenius, ed., Democracy’s Victory and Crisis, Cambridge University Press, p.17
17
Huntington 1991:86. I discuss Czechoslovakia as an exception that proves the
rule later in this chapter.
 120

before the war – many in western and northern Europe – successfully expanded

their suffrage and developed the first elements of the welfare state. In contrast to

their east and central European peers, states like Canada, Belgium, and Great

Britain managed to consolidate their postwar democratic gains with few internal

reversals. These states, Frieden notes, “faced fewer postwar difficulties than eastern

and central Europe.” Even territories most affected by fighting like Belgium and

northern France saw the rapid resumption of economic activity. Despite a recession

in 1920-21, by the following year “business conditions were returning to

normality,” writes Frieden. “Despite difficulties and disappointments, by 1924

Europe had essentially recovered.”18 Most of these states also had substantial

experience with democracy and a large middle class that moderated political

volatility. In these countries, the major shift toward autocracy came two decades

later, during the Nazi occupation at the beginning of World War II. By contrast,

“the little countries that emerged from the collapse of the old land empires in 1918

were poor, unstable, insecure – and resentful of their neighbors.”19 The main long-

term effect of the war, therefore, was to make proto-democracies more democratic

without creating any sustainable new democracies. It did, however, give many

countries a preview of democratic institutions that would return later in the century

with World War II and the Soviet Collapse.

The remainder of the chapter is divided into four sections. I first examine the

18
Jeffry A. Frieden (2006) Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth
Century, W.W. Norton, p.138-9
19
Judt 2005:4
 121

hegemonic transition that occurred as a result of the war, focusing on the decline of

monarchical Germany and the victory by democratic great powers – Britain,

France, and particularly the United States. I then turn to a study of the mobilization

of labor and postwar expansion of suffrage in Europe’s partial democracies. The

next section examines the creation of new democracies out of the ruins of

European empires. Finally, I examine the failed consolidations and the democracy

backlash of the mid-1920s.

The Postwar Power Transition

The war’s outcome raised the prestige of democratic institutions for old and

new states alike. The postwar shift in the distribution of power (see Figure 3.4)

made democratic regimes more powerful, more able to exercise global influence,

and more appealing all at once. It was the Great War, argues Fritz Stern, “that saw

the elevation of democracy into a universal ideal.”20 By defeating autocracies on

the battlefield and on the factory floor, it suggested that democratic institutions

were an effective way to organize modern society.

20
Stern 1997:15
 122

Figure 3.4: US and German shares of hegemonic power, 1900-1930. The period
between 1918 and 1923 shows a rapid hegemonic transition with a German
decline and an American surge.

This outcome seemed far from inevitable in 1914. The conventional wisdom of

the day argued that democracy was paralyzed by checks and balances and stymied

by fickle public opinion. As a result, it would prove inferior to autocracy in

mobilizing men and resources for a major conflict. This idea of “democratic

defeatism” persisted since the earliest writings on politics.21 In his account of the

Peloponnesian War, Thucydides attributed the victory of authoritarian Sparta over

democratic Athens to the democratic impediments faced by Athenian leaders.22

Alexis de Tocqueville, E.H. Carr, George Kennan, and Walter Lippmann all shared

21
Michael Desch (2002) “Democracy and Victory: Why Regime Type Hardly
Matters” International Security 27.2, p.5
22
See especially the discussion of the Sicilian debate. Thucydides, The
Peloponnesian War, book 7
 123

the belief that democratic institutions failed to adequately prepare countries for

wars. Even democracy’s supporters admitted that its benefits “are not secured

without very considerable sacrifices,” as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of War for

Industrial Relations wrote in 1916. “As a political system it is clumsy and inefficient

in all material ways…”23 A 1917 article in Harper’s magazine voiced a widespread

concern when it wondered whether democracy could compete with autocratic

rule:

In an age dominated by science and dependent upon the scientific

method, are the democratic masses capable of intelligent self-direction,
or must they in self-defense surrender the control of government to the
superior ability of the trained and exceptionally gifted few? There is no
time to enlighten or consult the electorate. …Does democracy then
stand discredited? Has it been demonstrated that national efficiency and
popular government are irreconcilable?24

“Today the great war is being waged between German autocracy and English

science under democratic control,” concluded the author. “We shall not know

until after the terms of peace have been announced which of the two is the more

efficient.”25 This view reflected the perception of many political leaders. As Senator

Henry Cabot Lodge noted in 1915,“if democracy is not both able and ready to

defend itself it will go down in subjection before military autocracy because the

latter is then the more efficient.”26 The vital test of any regime, wrote the historian

23
Ernest Martin Hopkins (1916) “Democracy and Industry” Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol.65, p.60
24
Robert W. Bruere (1917) “Can Democracy Be Efficient?” Harper’s Magazine
195.2, p. 821. This idea has a long history, stretching back to Aristotle’s Politics,
and made a forceful return in the Great Depression.
25
Bruere 1917, p. 825
26
Henry Cabot Lodge (1915) “Force and Peace” Annals of the American Academy
 124

and diplomat George Beer in 1916, is not the character of its internal politics but its

ability “to survive in a struggle imposed by others. Were European democracy to

fail in this crisis, its fate would be sealed and America would become the last

bulwark of free government.”27 President Wilson too saw the war as a test for

democracy and a struggle between two competing visions of the future. In a 1918

speech, he described the United States as the “practitioner of the new creed of

mankind” and Germany as the “most consistent practitioner of the old”. The war,

he said, was a “battle to determine whether the new democracy or the old

autocracy shall govern the world.”28 As the United States entered the fight,

American sociologist Franklin Giddings summed up the stakes:

So, at last, the giant democracies of western Europe and the giant
absolutisms of central Europe confronted each other on the fields of
France and Flanders in life and death grapple….Democracy or
dynasty will be sovereign, from this time on.29

The war provided the century’s first Manichean confrontation between two rival

ideologies of the state. Now that monarchy has passed into the realm of

anachronism, it is difficult to imagine that it once presented a viable and legitimate

challenge to democracy. But at the start of the century, conservative autocracy still

held sway in much of Europe and “dynasty” was the default form of government for

of Political and Social Science, Vol.60, p.210

27
George Louis Beer (1916) “America's International Responsibilities and Foreign
Policy” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol.66,
p.80
28
Woodrow Wilson (1918) Message to Teachers, June 28; quoted in Ikenberry
2001:127
29
Franklin H. Giddings (1917) “The Bases of a Just and Enduring Peace” Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol.72, p.86
 125

new states. Norway chose a king after gaining independence from Sweden in 1908,

as did Albania when it seceded from Turkey in 1913. With the exception of France

and Switzerland, until 1914 continental Europe remained monarchical; despite the

spread of parliaments, “parliamentary control over political life was far from

guaranteed; emperors and kings still ruled through their chancellors and prime

ministers.”30

In pre-war Europe, Imperial Germany represented the epitome of such

enlightened monarchy. As the historian Paul Kennedy notes, on the eve of the war

Germany was the only great power that combined “the modern, industrialized

strength of the western democracies with the autocratic…decision-making features

of the eastern monarchies.”31 It was widely admired even by democracy-minded

contemporaries as the model of a scientific and highly organized state.32 Urging the

U.S. to prepare for a tough fight, a journalist in 1916 described Germany as

typifying “the greatest military efficiency the world has ever seen.”33

30
Palmer et al 2002:587
31
Paul Kennedy (1989) The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change
and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, New York: Random House, p.214
32
The widespread American admiration of Imperial Germany, and particularly its
administrative efficiency, is documented in Ido Oren (2003) Our Enemies and US:
America’s Rivalries and the Making of Political Science, Ch 1, Ithaca: Cornell
University Press. As Oren notes, prominent pre-war American political scientists
like John Burgess and Woodrow Wilson admired elements of the German regime,
and the decisive break with the Germanophile tradition came as a result of the
conflict between the two countries.
33
Oswald Garrison Villard (1916) “Preparedness Is Militarism” Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science Vol.66, p.217. In a study of pre-
war military reforms, Resende-Santos notes that Imperial Germany provided the
model of military emulation for Japan, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia,
Paraguay, and Brazil. Joao Resende-Santos (2007) Neorealism, States, and the
 126

Beyond its military reputation, Germany’s prestige extended into the

management of economic affairs. As the U.S. Secretary of Commerce William

Redfield argued in 1915, Germany had become one of the three great global

traders of the day, along with Great Britain and the United States.34 Moreover, the

country’s trade was “distinguished by the application of science to business to an

unparalleled degree,” argued Redfield. “She presented a spectacle of organized

competence, utilizing her resources in men and material more effectively than

anyone else.” British commerce, by contrast, “lacked the application of science to

work. It was not highly organized in the German sense.” And while he was

optimistic about American’s entrepreneurial and innovative spirit, Redfield

conceded that the United States “did not use the scientific methods of Germany,

and our commerce as a whole lacked organization.”35

This Teutonic capacity for organization was often linked to the centralized

nature of the German state. Thorstein Veblen, in his 1915 book Imperial Germany

and the Industrial Revolution, sought to explain Germany’s “industrial advance and

high efficiency”.36 How, Veblen asked, did the country achieve such a dominant

economic position on the continent in so brief a time? The answer was to be found

in Germany’s late adoption of industrialization and the “dynastic” nature of its

Modern Army, Cambridge University Press

34
William C. Redfield (1915) “America’s International Trade as Affected by the
European War” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Vol. 60:1-16.
35
Redfield 1915:1-2
36
Thorstein Veblen (1915) Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution, New
York: The Macmillan Company, p.v
 127

system. England’s industrialization was achieved slowly, haltingly, and with the

accoutrement of wasteful cultural practices like conspicuous consumption by the

elites. As a latecomer, Germany was able to borrow proven practices and

technology, quickening the pace of economic development. Moreover, its

centralized state was able to “concentrate and push forward the economic

development” and prevent the wasteful consumption of output by the leading

classes.37

Germany’s pre-eminence before the war made its defeat all the more

momentous, its disgrace all the more visible. It lost the war, the empire, and any

prestige it had gained during its rise over the past five decades. Its economy was in

ruins, its political leadership discredited. Just before the war “German commerce

had reached a stage of wonderful development,” wrote the president of the

Hamburg Chamber of Commerce in 1920. But the war “brought the powerful

machinery of our commerce to a sudden stop…. On account of the war and the

subsequent peace treaty of Versailles our commerce has lost its means of

subsistence to a great extent.”38 In the same year, an advisor to the German

government reported that the country’s agricultural production had dropped to 40

percent of its pre-war levels. The loss of the Saar region and Alsace-Lorraine

deprived it of 75 percent of its pre-war ore supplies, while the physical

37
Walter Gurian (1939) “Review: Aspects of German Policies” The Review of
Politics 1.4, p.495
38
F.H. Witthoefft (1920) “Our Commercial Situation” Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science Vol. 92, p.96
 128

deterioration of plants in wartime reduced industrial efficiency by half.39 In the

course of a few years, Germany “plunged from a position on the world market that

was second only to Britain, and threatening to replace it,” wrote the economic

historian Paul Hehn, “to almost a second or third-class power.”40 Its political

transformation epitomized the sudden extinction of monarchical legitimacy. For

decades “the center of resistance to the Western democracies,” it was now

transformed into the democratic Weimar Republic.41

If the war offered a powerful test of rival regimes, its outcome supplied a clear

and dramatic answer. Germany’s precipitous decline dealt “a last blow to the

ancient institutions of monarchy and aristocratic feudalism.”42 Democracy, on, the

other hand, emerged as the clear winner. Only democracies had endured the

conflict with their political systems intact, and “now stood alone in appearing to

maintain political continuity,” notes Markoff.43 France, Britain, and the United

States “towered over the world,” writes Sontag. “Very quickly, it became usual to

speak of the Big Three – Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George, and Georges

Clemenceau – as the peacemakers who would shape a new and better world on

39
M.J. Bonn (1920) “The Main Features of Germany’s Economic and Financial
Situation” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol.92,
p.106
40
Paul N. Hehn (2002) A low dishonest decade: the great powers, Eastern Europe,
and the economic origins of World War II, 1930-1941, Continuum, p.395)
41
Sontag 1970:1
42
Palmer et al 2002:696
43
John Markoff (1996) Waves of Democracy: Social Movements and Political
Change, Pine Forge Press, p. 74
 129

the ruins of the old.”44 At Versailles, they dominated the negotiations to a

remarkable degree, producing the only postwar settlement in history made

exclusively by democracies.45 In the wake of the war, “the power and prestige

associated with democratic institutions were greatly enhanced.”46

Among the victors, the United States was the greatest beneficiary of the war – in

fact, the only great power besides Japan to benefit from the fighting.47 “The new

postwar distribution of power,” wrote Ikenberry, “left the United States as the

preeminent state.”48 This shift in the global hierarchy was widely noted by

contemporaries. “The change since 1914 in the international position of the United

States,” wrote the financial editor of the New York Times in 1926, “[is] perhaps the

most dramatic transformation of economic history.”49

The war forced Europe to rely on American capital, loans, technology, supplies,

and political leadership. “The war devastated Europe but made the United States

the world’s principal industrial, financial, and trading power.”50 The volume of

American exports increased sharply. As the volume of exports increased, the

United States became a capital-exporting nation and the center of international

finance shifted from London to New York. As Keynes reported to the British

44
Sontag 1970:2
45
Roberts 1999:271, 283.
46
Markoff 1996: 74
47
Kennedy 1987:327
48
Ikenberry 2000:119-20
49
Alexander Dana Noyes (1926) The War Period of American Finance, New York:
Putnam, p. 436-7, quoted in Frieden 2006:129.
50
Frieden 2006:132
 130

cabinet shortly after the war: “It is hardly an exaggeration to say that in a few

months’ time the American executive and the American public will be in a position

to dictate to this country on matters that affect us more dearly than them.”51

Between 1914 and the end of the war the country’s stock of gold almost doubled,

and now amounted to nearly half of the world supply.52

The economic power of the United States, already apparent by the turn of the

century, increased dramatically during the hostilities, becoming “a determining

factor in world prosperity.”53 The country “seemed to have all the economic

advantages which some of the other great powers possessed in part, but none of

their disadvantages.”54 Manufacturing production nearly tripled during the war. In

1913 Germany, Britain, France, and Belgium produced “substantially more” than

the United States; by the late 1920s the U.S. “was outproducing these countries by

nearly half.”55 It produced almost 40 percent of the world’s coal and more than half

of the world’s industrial production.56 Untouched by the deprivations of the war, it

had a relatively high standard of living. In addition, the U.S. enjoyed the

51
John Milton Cooper (1976) “The Command of Gold Reversed” Pacific Historical
Review 45.2, p. 219-21, quoted in Frieden 2006:134. See also Halperin 2004:32
52
Arthur Walworth (1977) America’s Moment, 1918: American Diplomacy at the
End of World War I, New York: Norton, p.4
53
Roberts 1999:340
54
Kennedy 1987:243
55
Frieden 2006:132
56
Roberts 1999:340. Kennedy notes that in the 1920s the U.S. had a larger output
than the other six great powers combined. Kennedy 1987:328, citing Hillmann,
“Comparative Strength of the Great Powers” in Toynbee, ed. World In March 1939,
p.421-22.
 131

advantages of “a large domestic market which allowed for efficiencies of scale.”57

In population, agricultural and industrial output, available investor capital, raw

resources - “in all these areas, the United States was unrivaled in size and

efficiency.”58

America’s industrial base allowed it to quickly catch up to Europe in military

strength, which had been relatively small compared to a Europe at the end of a

decade of enormous military spending. The country’s “underlying economic

dynamism allowed it quickly to match the Europeans once it was drawn into the

war.”59 During the time of its direct involvement in the war, between April 1917

and November 1918, the United States produced an immense supply of munitions

and materials. Production of war materials peaked at 270,000 rifles, 35,000

machine guns, 410 artillery units, 2700 tons of toxic gas, and 3850 airplane

engines per month.60 In 1915, the American army comprised 100,000 soldiers and

112,000 National Guardsmen, one-twentieth the size of the German Army. By the

end of the war, it managed to mobilize over 4.2 million people through universal

conscription. Of those, just over 2 million reached France and 1.4 million saw

active combat.61

57
Kennedy 1987:327
58
Ikenberry 2000:120
59
Ikenberry 2000:120
60
Leonard P. Ayres (1919) The War with Germany: A Statistical Summary.
Washington DC: Government Printing Office.
61
Colin Nicholson (2001) The Longman Companion to the First World War,
Longman, p. 248
 132

Through its armies, loans, and supplies of material, the United States had

determined the outcome of the war and now appeared poised to shape its

aftermath. “Victors, vanquished, and neutrals admitted that American intervention

had decided the conflict.”62 Its power loomed large on the continent; the American

model appeared to offer a potent combination of stability, legitimacy and strength.

“The American republic had risen to a position of power as Europe consumed

itself” and its role shifted “from a passive observer of the slow collapse of the

classical order to an active leader of attempts to reconstitute it.”63

The rise in U.S. material capabilities complemented and reinforced Woodrow

Wilson’s democratic rhetoric. He was “confident of the adequacy of America’s

material power to command the acquiescence of the exhausted combatants in

Europe” and saw America’s dramatic rise as an opportunity to spread its institutions

to the Old World.64 “When the war is over we can force them to our way of

thinking,” he told Colonel House in 1917, “because by that time they will, among

other things, be financially in our hands.”65 American power inspired democracy

by its success, and the prospect of American financial support encouraged other

converts. Where these were insufficient, pro-democracy rhetoric provided an

additional impetus for reforms. “The world looked with awe and expectation to one

man – the president of the United States,” writes Palmer. “Wilson occupied a lone

62
Palmer et al 2002:687
63
Walworth 1977:4
64
Walworth 1977: 17
65
Quoted in Arthur S. Link (1979) Woodrow Wilson: Revolution, War, and Peace,
Harlan Davidson, p.80; quoted in Ikenberry 2000:122
 133

eminence, enjoyed a universal prestige.” On his European tour in January 1918, he

was received “as the man who would lead civilization out of its wasteland.”66

Interstate War and Democratic Reforms

The Great War created a number of new states that adopted democratic

institutions, but it also furthered democratization in a number of states that existed

before the war, among both former autocracies like Germany and partial

democracies like Britain. Explanations that focus on the influence of major wars

upon state development are ambiguous about their effects on regime outcome. This

ambiguity can be clarified somewhat if the effects of war are separated into two

categories – military mobilization and military outcomes. These influences can

diverge even within the same war – preparing for major conflict can lead to

increased autocracy, while the conflict’s outcome may unleash democratizing

forces. Much of the bellicist literature is concerned with the effects of mobilization

on state development. An early example is the writings of Otto Hintze and John

Seeley, members of the so-called German historical school. They stressed that a

country’s geopolitical environment affects its mobilization strategy, which in turn

shapes its regime type. Hintze, a scholar of the Prussian state, argued that constant

preparation for war led to a standing army and a centralized state, while relative

safety within the international system, geographically defined by mountains and

oceans, created the internal opportunity for democracy.67 Seeley likewise argued

66
Palmer et al 2002: 687-8
67
Otto Hintze (1975) The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze, Felix Gilbert, ed.,
 134

that the hostility of the external environment shaped the state through the need for

universal military conscription. A threatening environment, as in the case of Prussia

or Russia, led to universal military service and an absolutist state; a relatively

secure, thallasocratic state like Britain or the United States avoided universal

service in the formative years of their history, and therefore adopted relatively

democratic institutions.68 Mobilization for war, Raymond Aron writes, is inevitably

autocratic:

[T]he citizen-soldier is part of a vast machine over which he has no

control. Group autonomy and liberty of opinion and expression
become a luxury that a country in danger cannot easily afford. It
fritters away material wealth amassed during the years of peace while
stinting on the individual rights once generously granted. The liberal
bourgeoisie fades away; the masses are ruled by soldiers and
organizers. Total mobilization is close to totalitarianism.69

According to this argument, then, mobilization for war – conflict or constant threat

thereof – leads to centralization of authority and despotism, with the corollary that

relative isolation from interstate conflict produces democracy.70 Yet an opposing

Oxford University Press

68
John Seeley (1896) An Introduction to Political Science, London and New York:
Macmillan and Co. Accessed online at http://www.archive.org/details/
introductiontopo00seel. See Hristina Dobreva (2006) “Second Image Reversed”
Reexamined, unpublished dissertation, Simon Frasier University, p. 42-53 for an
extended discussion and critique of the “Seeley-Hintze law”.
69
Raymond Aron (1951/2002) “From Sarajevo to Hiroshima” p.151 in The Dawn
of Universal History: Selected Essays from a Witness to the Twentieth Century,
Basic Books, transl. by Barbara Bray
70
See also Brian M. Downing (1992) The Military Revolution and Political Change:
Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe, Princeton University
Press. Mark E. Pietrzsyk (2002) International Order and Individual Liberty: Effects of
War and Peace on the Development of Governments, University Press of America.
Kelly M. Kadera, Mark J. C. Crescenzi, and Megan L. Shannon (2003) “Democratic
Survival, Peace, and War in the International System” American Journal of Political
 135

school of thought has long argued that mobilization for war produces democratic

institutions. “Throughout history, warfare has been a major democratizing force,”

wrote Walt Rustow, “because it has made necessary the marshalling of additional

human resources.”71 North and Weingast, for instance, have argued that warfare

led to the need for increased revenue, which forced the monarchy to cede

important political rights to the Parliament.72 Despite this limitation on his

sovereignty, the king was soon able to raise much more war revenue than in the

pre-Parliament days. With their property rights credibly secured, wealth holders felt

comfortable to lend and invest their capital.73 As North and Weingast suggest, this

credible commitment to property rights greatly increased England’s mobilization

capacity and set it on the long path toward global hegemony.74 The overall effect of

Science 47.2: 234-247. Michael Colaresi and William R. Thompson (2003) “The
Economic Development-Democratization Relationship: Does the Outside World
Matter?” Comparative Political Studies 36.4: 381-403. Karen Rasler and William R.
Thompson (2005) Puzzles of the Democratic Peace Theory: Theory, Geopolitics,
and the Transformation of World Politics, New York: Palgrave. William R.
Thompson (1996) "Democracy and Peace: Putting the Cart before the Horse?"
International Organization 50.1: 141-174.
71
Dankwart A. Rustow (1970) “Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic
Model” Comparative Politics 2.3, p.348. He cites Bertrand de Jouvenel (1948) On
Power as an example of this view.
72
Douglass C. North and Barry R. Weingast (1989) “Constitutions and
Commitment: The Evolution of Institutional Governing Public Choice in
Seventeenth-Century England”, The Journal of Economic History, Vol.49:803-832
73
On credible binding through constitutions, see Jon Elster (1984) Ulysses and the
Sirens, Cambridge University Press
74
Montesquieu long ago noted that freer states were able to levy more taxes. “It is a
general rule that taxes may be heavier in proportion to the liberty of the subject,”
he wrote in The Spirit of the Laws. “In moderate countries there is an indemnity for
the weight of the taxes, which is liberty. In despotic countries there is an equivalent
for liberty, which is the lightness of the taxes.” Baron de Montesquieu (1748/1949)
The Spirit of the Laws, vol.1, bk.13, ch.12: “Relation between the Weight of Taxes
 136

England’s wars in the seventeenth century, therefore, was to shift the locus of

power from king to parliament. Similarly, French wars in the next century

eventually forced the bankrupt king to gather the Estates-General, sparking the

events that led to the French Revolution. In general, then, mobilizing for war can

force states to grant rights to previously-excluded social groups in exchange for

their cooperation and increased revenue.

Cooperation of the masses became particularly important in modern warfare,

where industrial production and mass conscription requires the willing

participation of the nation as a whole. Gianfranco Poggi, in his study on the

development of the state, argued that the wars of 1792-1815 helped create a

century of great power peace in Europe because they had demonstrated to

European rulers the “threatening connection” between sustained, large-scale

modern warfare and social revolution.75 This was undoubtedly true in World War I.

Across Europe, the necessities of wartime mobilization gave women and working-

class men an unprecedented opportunity to gain political power and press for

social reforms. In return for their participation in the trenches and on the factory

floors, these groups were able to extract political concessions like voting rights and

and Liberty”, transl. by Thomas Nugent, New York: Hafner Publishing Company,
p.214. Absolutist regimes were forced to compromise with local power-holders,
leading to unequal tax burdens and inefficiencies. See Perry Anderson (1974)
Lineages of the Absolutist State, London: NLB; Hillay Zmora (2001) Monarchy,
Aristocracy, and the State in Europe 1300-1800, Routledge. The idea that taxation
follows representation is more than a revolutionary slogan; Montesquieu called it
“a rule derived from nature that never varies.” (Montesquieu 1748/1949:214)
75
Gianfranco Poggi (1978/2004) The Development of the Modern State: A
Sociological Introduction, Stanford University Press, p. 91
 137

welfare provisions. The postwar expansion of suffrage, the growth of unions, and

the rise of labor parties in these countries was made possible by mass conscription

and the wartime economy, which shifted the balance of power within European

societies toward the working classes. Mass mobilization produced what

Hobsbawm called the “strange democratization of war”.76

The war indeed ushered in a period of social change. As Barzun notes, “Class

barriers lost rigidity; conventions were relaxed. The soldier was cut loose from his

nine-to-five at the office or six-to-four at the factory, as well as from home and its

constraints.”77 For the well-off, Palmer writes, “it became embarrassing to show

their comforts too openly. It was patriotic to eat meagerly and to wear old clothes.

War gave a new impetus even to the idea of economic equality, if only to enlist

rich and poor alike in a common cause.”78 Writing in 1921, a journalist described

the wartime period in Britain as a “social revolution”: “Caste was for a time

abolished. University professors were acting as field laborers. Patrician women

were making munitions with factory girls. A great, strong, spiritual wind seemed to

have swept through all classes of English life.”79

These egalitarian impulses produced an atmosphere that encouraged social

reforms. Working-class soldiers in Sweden demanded suffrage with the slogan:

76
Eric Hobsbawm (1994) The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991,
Vintage Books, p.49
77
Barzun 2001:699
78
Palmer et al 2002:681
79
Philip Gibbs (1921) “The Social Revolution in English Life” Harper’s Magazine,
April, p. 561. The war had, Gibbs writes, empowered the “small traders, little
manufacturers, business adventurers without capital or power” (Gibbs 1921:562)
 138

“one man, one gun, one vote”.80 In Canada, the mass mobilization for war was a

critical catalyst in the post-war introduction of universal suffrage.81 As in the

Napoleonic conflicts a century before, the mass mobilization of society required to

wage it created a leveling impulse in all aspects of social and political life.

Meanwhile, the necessities of industrial production meant that the support of

ordinary men and women was needed if the war was to go on.

Mass conscription for the trenches drained workers from the factories and

created constant labor shortages. At the same time, the voracious consumption of

new and deadly firepower led to chronic shortages of supplies, producing a

tremendous increase in demand for factory labor.82 Like never before, war had

“extended its tentacles deep to the rear, spreading from the trenches into the fields,

the mines, and the factories."83 The American industrialist Howard E. Coffin wrote

in 1916: "Twentieth century warfare demands that the blood of the soldier must be

mingled with three to five parts of the sweat of the man in the factories, mills,

mines, and fields of the nation in arms."84 In short supply and high demand,

workers gained more bargaining leverage, and the need for a steady supply of ships

and cannons meant that labor unrest and industrial strikes could become

80
Downing 1992:253. Downing also notes that throughout history mass
conscription has acted as a catalyst for liberalization and franchise expansion.
81
Rueschmeyer et al 1992:279
82
Markoff 2006: 84
83
Martin van Creveld (1989) Technology and War: From 2000 B.C. to the Present,
Free Press, p. 163.
84
Quoted in Elizabeth Keir (2010) “War and Reform: Gaining Labor’s Compliance
on the Homefront” in Elizabeth Keir and Ronald Krebs, eds., In War’s Wake:
International Conflict and the Fate of Liberal Democracy, Cambridge University
Press, p.139.
 139

“potentially as damaging to the war effort as military mutinies.”85 Mass conscription

and the wartime economy strengthened the unity and organization of labor, men

and women alike, shifting the balance of power within European societies in its

favor.86 “In fighting for democracy abroad we are gaining two of the biggest

democratic principles at home,” wrote J. Borden Harriman, a member of the

Council of National Defense in 1918. “The first is the recognition of the rights and

dignity of labor, and the other is women's freedom, because never before have we

so clearly realized that the output of the machine is just as essential to victory as

the gun at the front.”87 This process was even more pronounced in England,

Harriman argued. “At this moment 1,413,000 women are replacing men in

industry in England,” she wrote. “Women, with the help of improved automatic

machinery, are able to do the work previously done by fully skilled workers.”88 The

need for mass armies also contributed to the push for democratization.

“Conscription has made a vital difference,” wrote an American observer in 1919.

“The State demanded the men it chose and sent them to Europe; it cannot deny

them a fair measure of freedom and happiness.”89 As a result of these forces, writes

Halperin, “powerholders became increasingly sensitive to the continued allegiance

85
Keir 2010:139 in Keir and Krebs, eds.
86
Halperin 2004:71. Rueschemeyer et al (1992:92) likewise argue: “The war and
its outcome changed the balance of power in society, strengthening the working
class and weakening the upper classes.”
87
J. Borden Harriman (1918) “How England Meets Her Labor” Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science Vol.78, p.80
88
Harriman 1918:81
89
Lindsay Rogers (1919) “The Literature of Reconstruction” The Sewanee Review
27.1:112
 140

of the men in the trenches and the women and men in the factories. Talk about

extending the right to vote flourished.”90 In Britain, a Lord Landsdowne became so

concerned that continuing the war with Germany might release democratic forces

(or in his words, “spell ruin for the civilized order”) that in 1917 he urged a peace

settlement to stop this process.91

The reciprocal bargain forged by the war undermines the often-repeated claim

that working-class participation in the war effort demonstrated the triumph of

nationalism over class solidarity.92 During the war, labor conflicts “continued

unabated and, in many places, increased in both number and intensity.” 93 The war

in fact proved to be a turning point in the evolution of organized labor in Europe.

Far from demonstrating labor’s submission to nationalism, working-class

participation in the war offered an opportunity to generate political concessions

and reflected a growing desire “that a better standard of living for the masses must

emerge with the coming of peace.”94 In Britain and other countries, it was widely

recognized that the war could not be won without the support of the workers. Their

participation had been “for the first time the critical condition for victory,” and it

had been “felt to be so by politicians, civil servants, trade unionists, and the

press.”95 At the end of the war, labor was more unified, better organized, “and in a

90
Markoff 2006:85
91
Quoted in Keir 2010:161 in Keir and Krebs, eds.
92
Halperin 2004:154; see Halperin 2004:154 fn. 14 for examples of this fallacy.
93
Halperin 2004:154
94
Rueschemeyer et al 1992:91-2. See also Halperin 2004:154
95
P. Abrams (1963) “The Failure of Social Reforms: 1918-1920” Past and Present
24, p.43-64; Cited in Halperin 2004:151
 141

position to back its demands with threats.”96 Given their new status, Halperin

notes, workers had reason to believe – and in some cases were promised – that

“through their patriotism and sacrifices, they might win the rights for which they

had struggled for over a century.”97 The postwar democratic reforms, argues

Charles Tilly, came about when “citizens (including female citizens) who bore the

terrible costs of war bargained with war-battered states for rights they had

previously lacked, which their military and civilian service visibly justified.”98

From Mobilization Strategies to War Outcomes

The two opposing views on the effects of mobilization can be partially

reconciled by recourse to different time horizons. The “mobilization leads to

autocracy” argument appears to fit wars before the nineteenth century, and

describes long-term institutional development of states before the advent of modern

mass warfare. The “mobilization leads to democracy” argument, then, applies to

wars since Napoleonic times, and deals with war’s effects on institutional

development immediately before and during wars.

But mobilization still tells only a part of the story about the effects of warfare on

domestic development. While the scholars noted above stress the role of worker

mobilization, they tend to ignore the all-important factor of the outcome of the war.

Though mobilization opened up opportunities for reform, whether those reforms

96
Halperin 2004:171
97
Halperin 2004:154-5. See also Eric Hobsbawm (1990) Nations and Nationalism
Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, Cambridge University Press, p.120-30
98
Charles Tilly (2007) Democracy, Cambridge University Press p. 64-65
 142

were adopted was contingent on which regime actually won. A German victory, in

other words, would have made postwar democratization – whether inside

Germany or in Europe as a whole – much less likely.99 In the case of World War I,

it was the interaction of the states’ mobilization strategies and the eventual victory

of one particular mobilization strategy over another. As Elizabeth Kier has argued,

states pursue different strategies to mobilize the people during war. They can

coerce workers into participation through martial law and harsh enforcement of

labor regulations, closing off opportunities for democratic reform. Another strategy,

however, is to bargain with labor by offering them political rights and including

them in wartime decision-making.100

Where outcomes matter – and where the bellicist theories of the state connect

to the theory of hegemonic shocks – is the ex post vindication or discrediting of the

mobilization strategies chosen in wartime. “The workers in the mass,” wrote the

editor of the Observer in 1919, “had to be assured a thousand times than in the

event of victory of their freely-accepted discipline over the more forced and serf-like

drill of the German system, unprecedented efforts would be made to raise the

common people to an altogether higher level of intelligent, responsible, and well-

conditioned citizenship.”101 In other words, the granting of political rights was

contingent on a favorable outcome for those states that adopted the bargaining

99
“[I]t is difficult to imagine a more democratic outcome,” writes Peceny, “had
Germany emerged victorious from the war.” Peceny 2010:5. See also Fritz Fischer
(1967) Germany’s Aims in the First World War, New York: W.W. Norton.
100
Kier 2010 in Kier and Krebs, eds.
101
J.L. Garvin (1919) The Foundations of Peace, London: Macmillan, p.323-4;
quoted in Halperin 2004:159; emphasis added
 143

strategy of mobilization. Had the Central Powers won the war, this strategy would

have been discredited, confirming the often-repeated suspicion that democracies

are less effective at mobilizing their populations for major war. The outcome of the

war provided a demonstration effect about the efficacy of competing strategies and

the institutional choices that accompanied those strategies. The bargaining strategy

was vindicated by the victory of the democratic great powers, while the coercive

strategy was discredited through the defeat of the autocrats.

A second, closely related path through which the outcome of the war affected

domestic reforms was by putting pressure on losing regimes. As other scholars have

pointed out, defeat can discredit losing elites, forcing them to bargain with the

masses or risk being thrown out of office entirely. 102 Shocks such as revolutions and

military defeats, argues Tilly, “undermine self-reproducing systems of control over

states and thereby weaken the elites that have the most to lose from

democratization. They open up room in which ordinary citizens can negotiate

consent to newly emerging systems of rule.”103 In Germany, wartime political

leaders found themselves replaced in 1918 via a popular rebellion backed by the

army. Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria also adopted democratic institutions at the

end of the war. The democratic great powers, on the other hand, found their

regimes strengthened by the victory. As mentioned above, only democracies

102
Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder (2010) “Does War Influence
Democratization?” p.23-49 in Keir and Krebs, eds. They do not find a link between
war and democratization. Skocpol (1979) has also argued that defeat in war creates
internal pressures for reform, and is in fact a necessary pre-requisite for
revolutionary regime transformations.
103
Tilly 2007:40
 144

maintained political continuity during and after the war – and their ability to do so

further enhanced the prestige of democratic institutions in the period following the

war. The crisis of defeat dislodged existing regimes, while the triumph of victory

solidified them.

In short, mobilization for war produced great hopes for social and political

change, and its outcome led to increasingly vehement demands for it.104 By the

early 1920s, their participation vindicated through democratic triumph, labor

movements and socialist parties found themselves in a position of unprecedented

power. In Weimar Germany, Austria, Sweden, and other states, socialist parties and

coalitions led their people’s transitions to new governments; Labour took power in

Britain in 1923, and the left won in France in 1924. In many cases, socialist parties

104
There is a large literature on why war outcomes favor democracy. My main
concern here, however, is not the why but the how – that is, not why democracy
won, but how this democratic victory vindicated certain mobilization strategies,
discredited autocratic rulers, and created incentives for democratic reforms. On
why major wars result democratic victories, see Mitchell et al (1999), who argue
that the dominant systemic effect of war is to increase democratization because
“non-democracies are more likely to experience regime change than democracies
as a result of war.” Sarah Mitchell, Scott Gates and Håvard Hegre (1999) "Evolution
in Democracy-War Dynamics." Journal of Conflict Resolution 43.6, p. 789. See also
Ricardo Sanhueza (1999) “The Hazard Rate of Political Regimes” Public Choice
98.3-4, p. 337-367. Bueno de Mesquita et al (1992) argue that regime
transformations are twice as frequent during and immediately after wars, and that
most of these transformations affect autocracies. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita,
Randolph Siverson, Gary Woller (1992) “War and the Fate of Regimes: A
Comparative Analysis” American Political Science Review 93.4, p. 638-46. See also
Dan Reiter and Allan C. Stam (2002) Democracies at War, Princeton University
Press. As Gates et al 2007:11 put it, “Given democracies’ general propensity to win
wars and autocracies’ greater propensity to expire in defeat, war is associated with
greater democratization.” See Desch (2002) for a dissent.
 145

maintained their presence as coalition partners through the 1920s.105 By bringing

labor parties to the forefront of political action, the war helped usher in a number

of social reforms. Government insurance schemes, eight-hour workdays, and other

elements of the welfare state were becoming more common. Belgium introduced

its first welfare legislation after the war, and Britain expanded its unemployment

insurance provisions in 1922.106 In Sweden, the German defeat in the war led to the

capitulation of the Swedish Conservatives, who had been stalling political reforms.

Unlike their counterparts in Germany, Swedish conservative did not have the

option of allying with a powerful landed upper class, and were politically isolated.

After the war they agreed to the introduction of universal suffrage and a

parliamentary government, in return for the preservation of the monarchy.107 In

Belgium, workers had organized several major strikes in support of universal

suffrage in the three decades before the war. All of these had been put down, often

with force. During the war, however, the government needed labor’s support and

gave the Socialist party a ministry. By the end of the war Belgium had adopted

universal male suffrage.108

The War and Female Suffrage

Only two European countries had allowed female suffrage before World War I,

105
Sheri Berman (2006) The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making
of Europe’s Twentieth Century, Cambridge University Press, p. 97; Frieden
2006:170
106
Halperin 2004:156-7
107
Rueschemeyer et al 1992:93
108
Markoff 2006:73-4
 146

Finland in 1906 and Norway in 1913. But between 1917 and 1924, over two

dozen countries adopted female suffrage at least temporarily. The enfranchisement

of women, writes Palmer, was the “most conspicuous innovation” of the postwar

period.109 Charles Beard, writing in 1927, noted that World War I, “supposed to

demonstrate manly valor at its highest pitch, accelerated the movement for woman

suffrage. Nearly all the new states created after that conflict conferred on women

the right to vote.” He concluded: “The feminist genie is out of the bottle.”110

Women received the right to vote in all the new states created by the war

except Yugoslavia, as well as in Great Britain, Canada, United States, Sweden,

Belgium, and other countries. (see Table 3.1, below) As with other forms of postwar

reforms, the role of the war was crucial in furthering their cause; its influence is

particularly visible, for example, in Canada’s expansion of the franchise, where the

vote was first extended to women in uniform, then to women with close male

relatives in the military, and finally, at the end of the war, to all female citizens.111

109
Palmer et al 2002:744
110
Charles Beard (1927) “Democracy Holds its Ground”, Harper’s Magazine,
November, p. 681
111
Markoff 2006:85
 147

Year Country
1917 Canada, Russia
1918 Austria, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany,
Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Great Britain112
1919 Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden, Ukraine, Albania, Isle
of Man, Belarus
1920 Czechoslovakia, United States
1921 Burma, Sweden, Armenia
1922 Ecuador, Ireland
1924 Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Saint Lucia, Tajikistan
Table 3.1 Female Suffrage Expansion, 1917-1924113

The war had drawn women into the labor force and demonstrated their

capacity to do “jobs which it had been thought only men could do.”114 The

insatiable need for troop replacements meant that women now streamed into

offices and factories. In the United States, the Council of National Defense

appointed a Women’s Committee to advise the government on how to use women

in the workplace, prompting journalist Ida Tarbell to write that “this was the first

time in history that a government had called a country’s woman-power into co-

operation. The summons made its impression. It was ‘recognizing’ women. The

women rose to the recognition.”115

112
Suffrage extended to women over 28; full female suffrage extended in 1928.
113
Iceland and Denmark extended suffrage in the 1910s; Greece also extended
female suffrage in the 1920s.
114
Palmer et al 2002:682. As Vinen notes, “The idle wife or daughter was one
aspect of the bourgeois rentier society that the First World War destroyed.” Richard
Vinen (2000) A History in Fragments: Europe in the Twentieth Century, Da Capo
Press, p. 113
115
Ida M. Tarbell (1917) “Mobilizing the Women” Harper’s Magazine, p. 842
 148

The number of women in the labor force was bound to fall after the war, as

veterans made their way back to the job market.116 But this experience in both

world wars was part of a social process in which women’s work was redefined and

women’s daily lives were reoriented around the national economy.117 Just as the

demand for labor empowered common laborers, it gave women a first chance at an

independent living. A journalist noted in 1921: “Any girl with her hair hanging

down her back or tied into a pigtail could get a wage that her father would have

envied before the war.”118 Jacques Barzun writes:

Women were indispensable to ‘war work’ and not solely as nurses and
entertainers of the troops, but as chauffeurs, bureaucrats, factory hands,
and ‘farmerettes’. They showed that they could perform as well as men
– often more conscientiously – in the reserved precincts of the male. It
was impossible after the war to deny them the vote by arguing their
incapacity.119

The increasing influence of labor also made female voters an appealing source

of conservative moderation. The immediate postwar period saw widespread labor

unrest, rapid social changes, and explosive union growth. “For those conservative

politicians who believed that women were intrinsically more conservative than

men,” writes Markoff, “enfranchising women suddenly seemed more appealing. If

116
Vinen is skeptical about the effects of war on female political empowerment at
the workplace and the voting booth. Although female employment increased as a
result of the war, this was always meant as a temporary measure: “Women’s jobs
were often in industries such as munitions, where workers were bound to be laid
off after the war…It was part of the wartime consensus eventually established in
most countries between unions, employers and government that the employment of
women should not be continued in peacetime.” (Vinen 2000:110)
117
Palmer et al 2002:682
118
Gibbs 1921:561
119
Barzun 2000:699-700
 149

the working classes had to be given the vote, it seemed to some to be safer to give

it to women, too.”120 Vinen in fact argues that female enfranchisement was not a

direct outcome of the war itself but a moderating counterweight to the postwar

labor movement, and that “the women who were most readily enfranchised – the

relatively old, property owners and war widows – were all welcomed into the

political fold precisely because they seemed to offer a counterbalance to the

revolutionary male proletariat” who was gaining his suffrage around the same

time.121 The histoical evidence suggests that women did support center-right

parties; in the Weimar Republic, for instance, women strongly supported the Centre

Party but rejected the “boisterous and aggressively masculine” Nazi Party.122 The

war thus spurred female suffrage both by mobilizing women in the workplace and

creating an incentive for a counterweight to the post-war labor vote.123

From the Ashes of Empires: World War I and the New Democracies

As the Great War neared its conclusion in the fall of 1918, a group of

dignitaries from central and eastern European nations, calling themselves the Mid-

European Union, gathered in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. To the peal of a

replica Liberty Bell, the group’s chairman proclaimed a new Declaration of

120
Markoff 2006:87
121
Vinen 2000:116
122
Vinen 2000:117
123
Jacques Barzun suggests another, more general factor – the disruption of normal
social routines brought by the war: “Watchful neighbors having scattered, each
spouse, now separated, gained sexual freedom if it was wanted, or at least escape
from a bad marriage…These freedoms, soon taken for granted, furthered the
feminist movement.” Barzun 2000:699
 150

Independence for Middle Europe, which promised “that the sufferings of the world

war shall not have been in vain” and that the principles of liberty, democracy, and

popular sovereignty will be “incorporated in the organic laws of whatever

Governments our respective peoples may hereafter establish.”124

The declaration’s optimistic message, coming in the closing months of a conflict

that had killed millions and devastated a continent, reflected the high hopes for

new democracies in the immediate aftermath of the war. The great European

empires of Germany, Austro-Hungary, Russia, and the Ottomans had collapsed. In

their place rose a number of new states that saw democracy as a way to modernize

their societies and harness the spirit of national self-determination. “The war broke

the old land empires of Europe, while inspiring dreams of new ones,” wrote the

historian Timothy Snyder. “It replaced the dynastic principle of rule by emperors

with the fragile idea of popular sovereignty.”125

124
The New York Times (1918) “Independence Hall Sees Nations Born” October
27, p.6.
125
Timothy Snyder (2011) Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, New
York: Basic Books, p.1
 151

New State Formed from the… Democracy? Principal Failure of

successor democracy?
state?
Hungary Austro-Hungarian Empire Partial Yes 1919
Austria Austro-Hungarian Empire Yes Yes 1933
Czechoslovakia Austro-Hungarian Empire Yes --
Yugoslavia Austro-Hungarian Empire Yes 1929
Turkey Ottoman Empire Partial Yes
Bulgaria Ottoman Empire Yes 1923
Germany German Empire Yes Yes 1933
Russia/USSR Russian Empire Yes Yes 1917
Finland Russian Empire Yes --
Latvia Russian Empire Yes 1934
Estonia Russian Empire Yes 1934
Lithuania Russian Empire Yes 1926
Poland Russian, German Empire Yes 1926
Armenia Russian, Ottoman Empire Yes 1920
Azerbaijan Russian Empire Yes 1920
Georgia Russian Empire Yes 1921
Table 3.2: New Democracies created by WWI

The resurrected Poland, its boundaries expanded into historically German,

Ukrainian, and Lithuanian regions by the post-war settlement, emerged from the

outset as a multi-ethnic state in which a third of the population was not ethnically

Polish. Like its neighbors, Poland began with a constitution “which contained

almost every conceivable guarantee of democratic government and almost every

promise of social reform.”126

For the long-suffering Ottoman Empire, the war had been disastrous. Romania,

Bulgaria, and especially Greece received most of its European territory, which was

now reduced to a toehold on the Bosporus. Its Arab lands were taken away to

become League of Nations mandates (only the Hejaz, now known as Saudi Arabia,

became independent.) Kurdistan was to become autonomous, and Armenia

independent, while Italy received islands in the Aegean. Only Istanbul and the

126
Sontag 1971:67
 152

Anatolian interior remained. Beyond territorial concessions, Europe re-established

strict financial controls that had so angered the Ottomans in the previous century.

The defeat, culminating in the embarrassing Treaty of Sévres, discredited the

country’s pre-war elites and led to the swift rise of Mustafa Kemal, who launched a

successful campaign for Turkish independence. Within two years, and with Soviet

help, the Ataturk drove off the Greeks and their western allies. Armenia was

reconquered and split with the Soviet Union. A secular Turkish republic was

declared in 1923.

Kemal was first and foremost a modernizer rather than a democratizer, but in

democracy’s brief glory days of the early 1920s, the two concepts could not help

but overlap, and his reforms reflected this temporary fusion. The 1924 constitution

provided for a Grand National Assembly, elected directly by universal male

suffrage via proportional representation (women received the vote in 1934).

Religion was purged from public and political life, though personal freedom of

religion was protected by the state. The law was secularized in a code based on the

Swiss model, the caliphate being officially abolished in 1924. To Kemal and his

followers, “the war demonstrated just how calamitous delay had been”.127 Here as

in central Europe it took the shock of a war for old elites to become discredited,

and for reforms to take place.

The defeated Russian Empire, like an old map peeling at the edges, shed a

number of territories along its periphery. The February revolution revealed the full

127
Frieden 2006:97
 153

weakness of the imperial government and inspired a number of independence

movements. In the north, Finland finally gained full autonomy and all three Baltic

states declared independence. Poland was reconstituted as a democratic republic

after more than a century of absence. In the Caucasus, the Russian collapse created

the democratic republics of Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. The latter became

the first Muslim nation to grant political rights to women, and adopted a Parliament

that was elected through proportional representation and included representatives

of Jewish and Armenian minorities.128

Within Russia itself, the war led to a moderate regime “made up of liberal

noblemen and middle-class leaders, generally democrats and constitutionalists”.129

It lasted only eight months, from February to October 1917, when a Bolshevik

coup pre-empted what would have been the Russian Republic’s founding elections.

The Russian case represents a compressed version of the sequence, where the

period of democratic transition was exceptionally short, and the failed

consolidation occurred very quickly. As in Germany, the transition itself was only

made possible by the extraordinary shock of the war, which brought together a

coalition of domestic actors that would not have ordinarily shared the overthrow of

monarchy as a common goal.130 The role of the army in this improvised coalition

128
Armenia adopted female suffrage in 1921, three years after Georgia and
Azerbaijan.
129
Palmer et al 2002:674
130
As Skocpol writes: “Born and tempered in warfare, insulated from, and supreme
against, the forces of society, the Russian state could only succumb through
massive defeat in total war. Thus World War I was to be a necessary cause – as
well as the occasion – of the revolutionary crisis that brought Imperial Russia to its
 154

was particularly decisive. In the failed 1905 revolution it was used to suppress

revolts, but after the battlefield defeats of 1917, “the dissolution of the army and the

deepening of agrarian revolt became intertwined. Former soldiers returned to the

villages to join in, and often lead, the land seizures.”131 A magazine article from the

time noted the broad assent for reforms at all levels of the army, where the

revolutionary movement made unexpected headway among officers as well as the

rank and file: “[T]he ease with which aristocratic regiments were won over to the

cause of democracy, and more especially the responsive attitude of officers of the

court battalions and of the General Staff, was as much of a surprise to the

revolutionists as it was to the Czar.”132

In February 1917 the troops in St. Petersburg mutinied, accompanied by strikes

and riots throughout the city, and the Provisional Government was established. It

made attempts “to stabilize the Russian Revolution in liberal-democratic form,”

introducing “the full panoply of civil liberties and setting in train the

democratization of local government .”133 A 1917 observer described the Duma

committee that had assumed power as “composed chiefly of Liberals and

Moderates and includes only two Socialists,” while the ultra-conservatives, the so-

demise.” Theda Skocpol (1979) States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative

Analysis of France, Russia, and China, Cambridge University Press, p.94
131
Skocpol 1979:136
132
Abraham Cahan (1917) “Living Landmarks of the Russian Revolution” Harper’s
Magazine, June 1917, p. 47
133
Skocpol 1979:207, Philip Bobbitt (2003) The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and
the Course of History, Anchor Press, p. 27-8
 155

called Blacks, were not represented at all.134 Western observers welcomed the

revolution as a triumph of democracy. “Does not every American feel that

assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the

wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few

weeks in Russia?” asked Woodrow Wilson in an April 1917 speech to Congress.135

But the war would undermine the provisional government just as it did the

monarchy that preceded it. Urban workers demanded industrial reform, national

minorities demanded greater self-determination, famers demanded the seizure of

estates and land redistribution, and the military pushed for a peace treaty. “On all

these issues the Provisional Government had to repudiate the wishes of the people,

and by so doing, it forfeited all popular support for its authority.”136 Because the

government failed to exit the war, the army left the pro-government coalition.

Because it failed to undertake industrial and land reforms, it lost the laborers and

the farmers. “Because it was unwilling and unable to abandon the war and to

sanction or stop the agrarian revolts, the Provisional Government could not escape

having its flimsy political bases swept away, as social conflicts deepened and

disorder spread in the cities, at the fronts, and in the countryside.”137 By November

the situation became so untenable that Lenin and the Bolsheviks were able to seize

the shards of power on the street.

134
Cahan 1917:47
135
Woodrow Wilson (1917) The President’s Address to Congress, April 2, 1917;
reprinted in The New York Times, April 3 1917, p.1
136
Bobbitt 2003:28
137
Skocpol 1979:210
 156

In Finland, after a four-month civil war and a brief experiment with monarchy,

a democratic republic was established in early 1919. A century of semi-autonomy

within the tsarist empire had provided the country with an aristocratic leadership,

mostly Swedish in origin, that “had learned to lead rather than dominate the mass

of Finnish people” and now did so as “representatives of a political and social

democracy in which the condition of the lower classes was steadily improved”

through land redistribution, cooperative movements, and agricultural

development.138 The republic’s founding elections were held in December of 1918

at the local level, followed by a parliamentary election several months later.

The three Baltic states all declared independence in 1918 and quickly moved to

put in place constitutions, parliaments, and universal suffrage (all three granted

women the right to vote the same year). Their constitutions provided for

proportional representation, legal equality, minority rights, and weak executives.139

The state supported the cooperative movement, and the private estates of Baltic

Germans were transferred to landless peasants.140 By 1925, for example, more than

70 percent of rural Latvians were landowners. The economic trajectory in these

states appeared to be toward capitalism “based on private ownership and

138
Sontag 1971:67
139
Daina Stukuls Eglitis (2007) “The Baltic States: Remembering the Past, Building
the Future” in Sharon L. Wolchik and Jane L. Curry, eds., Central and East
European Politics: From Communism to Democracy, Rowman and Littlefield, p.
234
140
Sontag 1971:67
 157

entrepreneurship.”141

The Austro-Hungarian empire was shorn of territories and separated into two

principal successor states, Austria and Hungary, as well as two new multi-ethnic

states: Czechoslovakia for Northern Slavs (Czechs and Slovaks), and Yugoslavia for

Southern Slavs (Slovenians, Croats, and Serbs). Austria became a democratic

socialist republic after the Entente powers blocked German-Austrian unification.

Free elections in February 1919 brought together a coalition of urban Socialists and

rural Christian socialists, though support for Communist representatives was

negligible.142 Hungary lost portions of its lands to Czechoslovakia, Romania, and

Serbia as punishment for allying with the Axis powers. In November 1918, the

Chrysanthemum Revolution brought to power Mihály Károlyi, a liberal count who

established the Hungarian Democratic Republic. As in Russia, the moderate

democratic government was unable to deal with demands from competing groups

and was replaced five months later by a Bolshevik “Republic of Councils”. Five

months after that, Admiral Miklos Horthy led a counter-revolutionary offensive by

the Hungarian military, installing himself as regent of a permanently vacant

monarchy. The system that emerged under Horthy was semi-authoritarian,

outlawing the Communist Party and limiting Jews’ access to universities (anti-

Semitism was permitted partly because so many Communists had been Jews).

Sontag suggests that the 1920s was a period “of rule for and by the old agrarian

141
Federigo Argentieri (2007) “Hungary: Dealing with the Past and Moving into the
Present” in Sharon L. Wolchik and Jane L. Curry, eds., p. 234
142
Sontag 1971:62-3
 158

aristocracy, behind the forms of popular rule,” in which dissent from aristocratic

government was suppressed.143 Palmer argues, however, that Hungary possessed at

least the “machinery of democracy” until the 1930s, meaning it had a constitution,

a parliament, elections, and political parties.144

Germany’s transformation from a monarchy to a republic symbolized the

changes sweeping across central and eastern Europe. Wilhelmine Germany was a

monarchy in which a small number of citizens elected two-thirds of the legislature.

The new Weimar Republic, by contrast, adopted universal suffrage for all male and

female citizens over twenty. In July 1919, after several months of deliberation, a

constitution was adopted that established a democratic republic. It included not

only “universal, equal, direct, and secret” 145 suffrage, but also proportional

representation, and procedures for recalls, referenda, and ballot initiatives. The

Kaiser was replaced by a popularly elected president, and a national legislature, the

Reichstag.146

In sum, nearly all of the new states that were created (or resurrected, in Poland’s

case) by the war adopted democratic institutions like parliaments, universal

suffrage, and proportional representation. The war not only drastically undermined

the power and legitimacy of monarchy, but also demonstrated that democratic

institutions could be efficient and resilient in a crisis, and that they could challenge

143
Sontag 1971:62
144
Palmer et al 2002:746
145
Beard 1927:682
146
Palmer et al 2002:749; Richard J. Evans (2004) The Coming of the Third Reich,
Penguin Press, p.80, 83
 159

and even defeat modern centralized autocracies both on the battlefield and the

factory floor. At the end of the war, power and ideology combined to create a

moment when democracy appeared to be the way forward. The dramatic shift in

the distribution of power among the major states was accompanied by a shift in

public rhetoric.147 The sudden collapse of monarchical regimes “made many

people optimistic about the prospects for democratic government.”148 The

alternatives appeared either moribund (in the case of monarchical absolutism) or

volatile (in the case of Communism). A fledgling communist regime had appeared

in Russia after the country’s brief flirtation with liberal democracy, but it was the

product of a war-born minority-forged coup facing a bitter civil war and foreign

invasion, a “tyranny nourished by misery” rather than a viable path for economic

and political development.149 The outcome, as is generally the case with

hegemonic shocks, seemed unambiguous. The “obvious victors has been the major

western democracies of the day, and the great losers were what politicians called

“autocracies”….Beyond its inherent normative appeal, democracy now appeared

147
For other surveys of the post-1919 balance, see Anton W. DePorte (1977)
Europe Between the Superpowers: The Enduring Balance, Chapter 3, Yale
University Press; David Thomson (1967) Europe Since Napoleon, New York: Alfred
Knopf, p. 622ff; Graham Ross (1991) Great Powers and the Decline of the
European State System, 1914-1945, Chapters 3-6, New York: Longman
148
Roberts 2008:283. Thomas Mann’s intellectual trajectory in this period reflects
the growing acceptance of democratic ideals. His 1918 Confessions of an
Unpolitical Man typified the way German politicians and intellectuals, in the words
of Fritz Stern, “denounced democracy as bourgeois hypocrisy and insisted that their
own system of politics was morally and pragmatically superior.” Stern 1997:16.
While he supported the Kaiser and denounced liberalism during World War I, his
1923 Von Deutscher Republik encouraged Germans to support the new Weimar
Republic and became an ardent opponent of the Nazis during the 1930s.
149
Sontag 1970:1
 160

“desirable in itself, or the mark of respectability in the international arena”.150 Such

widespread consensus on the attraction of democracy would not resurface until the

Soviet collapse seven decades later. It seemed to offer a path to both domestic and

international legitimacy, and for those rulers who saw little value in such trifles, it

was seen as a way to modernize, strengthen, and stabilize their own fragile new

states and societies, and ingratiate themselves with the new democratic hegemon.

Part of the motivation for new states to undertake liberalizing reforms was the

prospect of economic incentives and security guarantees from the United States,

the ostensible champion of the new democratic order. But in the aftermath of the

war, the United States offered little more than inspiring rhetoric, choosing to turn

inward during the isolationism of the 1920s. As Peceny puts it:

…the post-World War I democratic transitions should not be

considered examples of efforts to impose democracy through force.
The victorious Allies made almost no explicit efforts to insist upon the
development of democratic institutions and practices in target states.
None of the architecture of democracy promotion so common today
was present in 1919 Europe.151

Wilson’s rhetoric, Ikenberry writes, “was not backed up by offers of economic and

military assistance that might have made his settlement ideas more attractive and

credible”152 – and, perhaps, more durable. This was a mistake that American

policy-makers explicitly sought to correct after World War II. The consolidation of

150
Markoff 2006:87.
151
Peceny 2010:2-3
152
Ikenberry 2001:155
 161

fragile regimes was made all the more difficult by the absence of material support

from the rising hegemon.

The Democracy Backlash, 1922-1928

The post-WWI democratic wave was unprecedented both in the audacity of

its political aspirations and the near-complete failure of these aspirations in the face

of later crises and reversals. Even before the Great Depression produced an

authoritarian wave in the 1930s, despots and dictators began ascending to power

across Europe and around the world. Fledgling democracies fell in Russia (1917),

Hungary (1919), Italy (1922), Bulgaria (1923), Poland (1926), Portugal (1926),

Lithuania (1926) and Yugoslavia (1929). In addition, the new states of Armenia,

Georgia, and Azerbaijan, which had also adopted democratic institutions, were

reabsorbed back into the Russian empire by 1922, this time under a Communist

aegis. The optimistic period after the war, Ikenberry writes, “was a democratic high

tide rather than a gathering flood.”153

The causes of these failed democratic consolidations stemmed from factors

inherent in the dynamics of the initial wave. First, the shock of the war had brought

together extraordinary domestic coalitions that supported democratic reforms.

These ad hoc domestic alliances could not be sustained once the immediate crisis

had passed. Like a victorious international alliance that dissolves once its purpose

is served, these domestic coalitions struggled to hold together after the initial

transition period. As the pro-reform class coalitions and party alliances forged by

153
Ikenberry 2001:155
 162

the shock of the war faded, Europe entered what Karl Polanyi called “the counter-

revolutionary phase of the postwar period”:

When, in Central Europe, the social structure broke down under the
strain of war and defeat, the working class alone was available for the
task of keeping things going. Everywhere power was thrust upon the
trade unions and Social Democratic parties: Austria, Hungary, even
Germany, were declared republics although no active republican party
had ever been known to exist in any of these countries before. But
hardly had the acute danger of dissolution passed and the services of
the trade unions became superfluous than the middle classes tried to
exclude the working class from all influence on public life.154

A second, related reason for the failure was the overexpansion of democratic

institutions into countries that lacked the domestic preconditions normally

associated with democratic consolidation – factors like a large and powerful

middle class, economic stability, or previous history with democratic governance.

aught up in the wave of democratic optimism and Wilson’s democratic rhetoric,

leaders of new states adopted institutions that had little chance of being

consolidated in an atmosphere of economic uncertainty, political fragmentation,

and ethnic strife.155 As Roberts writes, “Initial optimism only intensified

dissatisfactions and disappointment felt with constitutional and liberal government

154
Karl Polanyi (1944/2001) The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic
Origins of Our Time, Boston: Beacon Press, p. 196; emph. added
155
As Markoff notes, some postwar leaders likely “sought merely a democratic
appearance, in order to appease challenging social movements and appear
respectable within the international community.” (Markoff 2006: 87) In these
“Potemkin” cases, some backsliding was inevitable since the democratic
institutions were a temporary façade for placating domestic challengers and foreign
peers. The overexpansion of democratic institutions as a byproduct of powerful (but
temporary) pro-democracy global norms echoes the backsliding of democratic
movements after the end of the Third Wave in the mid-1990s.
 163

in Europe when it seemed to fail…”156 The spirit of postwar democratic enthusiasm

inflated unrealistic expectations in countries whose prospects for its maintenance

faced a number of tough challenges. As Raymond Aron writes:

In countries restored or created by diplomatic decision, the model

was the Western-type democracy that had needed a century to take
root even in France. But these new countries were riven by
nationalist conflicts. Their middle classes, with the sole exception of
Czechoslovakia, were small and had no experience of power. So it
was not surprising that the large number of parties, adding
parliamentary quarrels to the underlying causes of division, soon
proved inimical to the survival of the state.157

The spirit of compromise and consensus required for parliamentary governance

could not be sustained in an environment of quarreling ethnic and social groups

brought together in artificially bounded territories. The newly-created states were

“to a large extent accidents of the war.” None of them, with the exception of

Poland, represented “a deeply felt, long-maturing, or widespread revolutionary

settlement.”158 Croatians complained of Serbian mistreatment in Yugoslavia;

Magyars of Romanian mistreatment in Transylvania, and so on. States born from

the war “were as divided within their new frontiers as they had been within the old,

and were separated from one another by even greater hostility than they had

experienced under German or Hungarian domination,” writes Francois Furet. “The

156
Roberts 2008:312
157
Aron 1951/ 2002:146
158
Palmer et al 2002:745
 164

Allies had miniaturized national hatred in the name of the principle of

nationhood.”159

Walter Bagehot, writing about France’s Third Republic, once noted that

parliamentary government often fails because it requires “that a nation should have

nerve to endure incessant discussion and frequent change of rulers.”160 For the

states of interwar Europe, such nerve required, in the words of Fritz Stern, “a

psychological stamina for ambiguity and uncertainty,” an attitude that that could

not sustain enough adherents in the interwar period.161 With the disappearance of

strong pro-democracy class coalitions and the absence domestic pre-requisites

conducive for its consolidation, the momentum for democratization could not be

sustained.

Russia, for example, began its revolutionary path in 1917 with a turn to

moderation and democratic rule, personified by the liberal, centrist figure of

Alexander Kerensky, leader of the Provisional Government. “Six weeks ago Russia

was an autocracy,” announced David Lloyd George in a speech in spring 1917.

“She now is one of the most advanced democracies in the world.”162 But liberal

democrats (represented by the Kadet party) could find no natural constituency

159
Francois Furet (1999) The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the
Twentieth Century, University of Chicago Press, p.58
160
Walter Bagehot (1874/1965) Bagehot’s Historical Essays, edited by Norman St.
John-Stevas, New York: Anchor Books, p. 449-50. Quoted in Fritz Stern (1992) The
Failure of Liberalism: Essays on the Political Culture of Modern Germany, Columbia
University Press, p.xxiv.
161
Stern 1997:20
162
Quoted in James L. Slayden (1917) “Disarmament and International Courts
Prerequisites to a Durable Peace” Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science, Vol.72, p.100
 165

among the largely agrarian population. Russia’s lack of a stable middle class meant

that anti-system parties like the Bolshevik could take advantage of peasant anxieties

to undermine support for the Provisional Government. Promising peace for soldiers

(Kerensky’s government unwisely decided to continue Russia’s involvement in the

unpopular war) and bread for peasants, the Bolsheviks were able to manipulate

public opinion to a sufficient extent to undertake a successful – and largely

bloodless – coup d’etat in November of 1917. The democratic coalition that

formed Russia’s government in February dissolved in the face of uncertainty, poor

decisions, and lack of middle-class support, replaced only nine months later by a

radical faction that praised democracy in theory and immediately began to

dismantle it in practice.

The collapse of the Russian empire created a temporary vacuum of power along

is peripheries. As a result, a number of new states sprung from its periphery that

proclaimed the universalist ideals of democracy and national self-determination. In

February 1918, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and the eastern (Russian) portion of Armenia

formed the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. Though each

nationality had wanted its own state, Wilson told the Azeri delegation at the Paris

Peace Conference that he wanted to avoid territorial fragmentation, and advised

them to form a union in order to achieve international recognition. When the union

split apart after only three months later, its constituent members created three

Democratic Republics. These states aspired to adopt the best practices of

democratic rule such as suffrage and a parliament based on proportional

 166

representation. Azerbaijan, for instance, set up a parliament elected on the basis of

universal suffrage (including female suffrage – the first Muslim country to do so). In

January 1920 the Allied Supreme Council formally recognized the new states, but

by that point the Bolshevik state was re-asserting its former territorial claims. The

Red Army occupied Azerbaijan in April 1920, Armenia (with Ottoman forces) in

December 1920, and Georgia in March 1921, ending their brief attempts at

democratization. These failed consolidations revealed another way in which the

crisis of the war created self-destructing democracies. The war had temporarily

weakened a losing hegemon to such an extent that sovereign states began peeling

from its peripheries. But as the country stabilized itself after a civil war, these new

territories were rapidly re-absorbed into the old empire, which had by now

transformed itself into a communist state.

Across eastern and central Europe, new countries were plagued by weak and

fragmented parliamentary system. Party “factionalism” – the bugbear of the 1930s

and a catalyst for the autocratic turn of that decade – was a problem for many of

these states from the start. In the Baltics, fragmented legislatures composed of a

number of small parties led to ephemeral governing majorities and short-lived

coalitions. In Estonia between 1919 and 1933 an average government lasted eight

months.163 The lack of political leadership was made worse by the absence of

unifying native figures during the period of Russian domination.164 Lithuania was

the first to falter, when in 1926 Antanas Smetona established an authoritarian

163
Eglitis 2007:234-5
164
Sontag 1971:67
 167

presidential regime. Latvia and Estonia managed to sustain democratic governance

through the 1930s, however, and cannot be considered part of the post-war

democratic rollback. The demise of democracy in these states (both succumbed in

1934) can be more properly attributed to the Great Depression and the

accompanying authoritarian wave of the 1930s.165

Poland also experienced paralyzing party factionalism in the postwar years, and

the country increasingly came to be ruled by Marshal Józef Pilsudski, widely

admired for his role in restoring Polish independence and in the war with the new

Soviet Union. Pilsudski acted as the country’s Chief of State until 1922, withdrew

from politics in the following year and seized dictatorial power in 1926, ruling until

his death in 1935.166 Hungary was another country in which a weak parliament

created the space for an authoritarian turn, although in this case the collapse was

much quicker. In October 1918 the liberal leftist count Mihaly Karolyi led the

largely bloodless Chrysanthemum Revolution in October 1918. The Hungarian

Democratic Republic, with Karolyi as president, was established on November 16.

Once again, the domestic conditions inside the country were not conducive for

democratic consolidation. The parliamentary government generated widespread

discontent among the elites by preserving a prewar-size civil service that operated

on a greatly reduced budget.167 Karolyi’s governing coalition ruled in parallel with

165
Eglitis 2007:234
166
Sontag 1971:67
167
Stanley G. Payne (1995) A History of Fascism, 1914-1945, University of
Wisconsin Press, p.26
 168

local revolutionary councils, composed of Social Democrats, which resembled the

Russian Soviets, creating a condition of dual power similar to Russia’s fatal

dvoevlastiye in 1917 that inhibited the parliament from exercising its authority and

undermined its rule in both cases. Hungary’s Social Democrats, for instance,

prevented Karolyi’s initiative of transferring land to peasants on the grounds that it

would promote capitalism. Mass unemployment, inflation, refugee flows and a

punitive armistice quickly drained public support for the new regime, until a

revolutionary Communist dictatorship was established in March of 1919, only five

months after Karolyi’s revolution. This in turn led to foreign intervention and a

counter-revolution by the conservative forces led by Admiral Horthy, who

established a conservative monarchy that governed the country until 1944.

In Bulgaria, postwar politics were dominated by the Agrarian Union until its

overthrow by a military revolt in 1923. The Union was a movement led by

Alexander Stamboliyski that pursued economic and political policies on behalf of

the peasants, who comprised nearly eighty percent of the population. 168 Despite

his popularity with the peasants, Stamboliyski found no support among either the

small middle class or the military. His party formed its own militia, called the

Orange Shirts, who intimidated the political opposition. As one of the Central

Powers in the war, Bulgaria was subject to a harsh peace treaty that reduced its

territory, limited its army to twenty thousand men, and forced it to pay a hundred

million pounds in reparations. As executor of the treaty, Stamboliyski became

168
Payne 1995:133
 169

increasingly unpopular with right-wing factions and the army, who finally carried

out a coup in June 1923. While Stamboliyski pursued a peaceful foreign policy and

genuinely sought to secure the political rights of the Bulgarian peasantry, his rule

exhibited a heavy hand in dealing with those who disagreed with his policies. As

with other countries in the region, Bulgaria’s political atmosphere was too volatile

to maintain even a semblance of democracy, though in this case the downfall came

from a rather low starting point.

Democracy failed not only in new states but also in places like Portugal, which

had some history with liberal constitutional rule, although of the oligarchic rather

than democratic sort. For a few years after the war, the Republican parliamentary

regime plodded along, “registering the greatest cabinet instability of any state in

Europe, accompanied by high inflation, a massive public debt, and only minimal

economic growth.”169 As in Bulgaria, Poland and Lithuania, a weak and fragmented

parliamentary system in combination with a lack of social and economic pre-

conditions for democratic development led to an intervention by the military, who

seized power in a nearly bloodless coup in May of 1926.

Nationalist tensions in new multi-ethnic states also undermined the

consolidation of democratic rule. The system of parliamentary democracy, reliant

on consensus and compromise, was not suited for the fractious, multi-ethnic

politics of Yugoslavia after 1919. It had existed since that time under the name of

the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes as a multi-ethnic parliamentary

169
Payne 1995:143
 170

state (though not a true democracy) dominated by Serbs. Despite Croatian

resistance, it “managed a chaotic semblance of parliamentary rule until 1929,”

when King Alexander – himself a Serb who found governing increasingly difficult

as the decade wore on – renamed the country Yugoslavia and established a

dictatorship.170 In retrospect it was surprising that the system managed to last as

long as it did, with political compromise so difficult to achieve in “so complex and

divided a polity.” 171

If Yugoslavia exemplified the absence of domestic conditions needed to sustain

democracy, the failure of democracy in Germany showed the immense but

temporary power of the war to create pro-democracy coalitions that dissolved as

the crisis passed. In his push for making the world safe for democracy, Woodrow

Wilson made the end of hostilities contingent upon German democratization

(unlike the French, who demanded unconditional surrender). As German defeat

began to seem more inevitable, the country’s leaders began backing democratic

reforms in the hopes of securing a more favorable agreement with the Allies,

particularly from the United States. In September 1918, General Erich Ludendorff

proclaimed his support for a German parliamentary government. Ludendorff was

far from a typical liberal. As Quartermaster General of the country’s army he

oversaw the daily operations of General Hindenburg’s government, a military

170
Charles Tilly (2004) Contention & Democracy in Europe, 1650-2000, Cambridge
University Press, p.230-31
171
Payne 1995:144
 171

dictatorship that ran the country during the last two years of the war.172 He

anticipated that the hegemonic influence exerted by the United States would allow

Germany to conclude a more favorable postwar settlement if it made a transition to

democracy. Along the same lines, in October 1918 the Kaiser asked the liberal

Prince Max of Baden to take up the chancellorship and begin settlement

negotiations with the Entente powers. (As a signal of his democratic intentions, the

Prince appointed a government that included representatives from the Social

Democrats for the first time in German history.) During this period, Wilson

continued to push for democracy as a pre-condition for an armistice. As Peceny

notes, “this external pressure helped generate the incremental steps” taken by the

Max von Baden government to liberalize Germany in October of 1918, so that

power shifted to the elected Reichstag while the Chancellor, the Cabinet and the

executive branch no longer reported to the Kaiser.173 These steps were taken with

the hope that American influence would lead to more tolerable surrender terms for

a democratic Germany. The fragile alliance of army officers, aristocracy, and

liberal parties hinged on a successful postwar agreement dominated by the United

States. After the war ended, however, Wilson lost his bargaining leverage both with

the Allies (and with France in particular) and among the United States congress,

who accused Wilson of leniency and pushed for a harsher peace. France insisted

172
Peceny 2010:9, See also Evans 2004:61; Martin Kitchen (1976) The Silent
Dictatorship: The Politics of the German High Command under Hindenburg and
Ludendorff, 1916-1918. London: Croom Helm; Klaus Schwabe (1985) Woodrow
Wilson, Revolutionary Germany, and Peacemaking, 1918-1919, transl by Rita and
Robert Kimber, University of North Carolina Press
173
Peceny 2010:11
 172

upon punitive indemnities and the dismemberment of the Reich as a way to

prevent another attempt at German hegemony. (Moreover, the insistence on

democratization in central and eastern Europe fell by the wayside as France began

to advocate strong alliances in the region to prevent the expansion of German

influence, regardless of their internal regime.) Britain’s Liberal Party was more

sympathetic to Wilson’s cause, but the December 1918 elections brought in a

conservative coalition that demanded a much more punitive peace. Wilson lost

even the support of his own Congress, as the Republicans won both houses in

midterm elections held days before the signing of the Armistice in November 1918.

During the election, the Republicans had accused Wilson of being soft on

Germany, and campaigned for unconditional surrender.174

The Allied victory thus not only destroyed the legitimacy of Germany’s

authoritarian regime and created a window of opportunity for political reform in

November of 1918, but also created incentives for erstwhile German conservatives

to adopt pro-democratic views. German transition to democracy immediately

before the end of the war resulted from “the contingent commitment to democracy

by elements of the authoritarian regime in the somewhat mistaken hope that a

republican Germany would earn a more lenient peace agreement than one

governed by Kaiser Wilhelm.”175 This embrace of democracy, however, hinged on

a favorable outcome in postwar negotiations with the Allies. When that outcome

174
Peceny 2010:14. See also Arno J. Mayer (1967) Politics and Diplomacy of
Peacemaking: Containment and Counterrevolution at Versailles, 1918-1919, New
York: Alfred A. Knopf
175
Peceny 2010:1
 173

failed to materialize, the incentive for democratization among the army and the

conservative elites faded as well, providing another blow to the uneasy pro-

democracy coalition created by the crisis of the war.176 Germany’s governing

“Weimar coalition” – the Majority Social Democrats, the catholic Center party, and

the liberal German Democratic party – was saddled with blame for the punitive

judgment brought upon the country at Versailles. These three parties had been the

foremost proponents of democratization before the war, and their failure to secure

a tolerable peace crippled their ability to govern through the 1920s. Between 1919

(the last time the Weimar coalition gained an electoral majority) and 1933, the

Reichstag did not sustain a majority government and was constantly challenged by

anti-system parties from both the extreme left and the extreme right. The initial

popularity of the Social Democrats stemmed in large part from middle-class voters

who saw a strong Social Democratic party as a defense against labor unrest and a

potential Bolshevik revolution. Germany’s military officers supported the

democratic reforms offered by the Weimar Coalition for that reason, as the

historian Richard Evans argues:

[T]he General Staff agreed with the Majority Social Democrats under
Friedrich Ebert that the threat of the revolutionary workers’ and
soldiers’ council would best be warded off if they worked in tandem
to secure a stable parliamentary democracy…this was an act of
expediency, not of faith….Within a short space of time, however, the
workers’ and soldiers’ councils had faded from the political scene,
and the need for compromise with the forces of democracy seemed
to many leading officers to have lost its urgency.177

176
Peceny 2010:12. See also F.L. Carsten (1972) Revolution in Central Europe:
1918-1919, University of California Press
177
Evans 2004:97.
 174

Business interests likewise stood behind democratic reforms for reasons that

were bound to disappear as the Communist threat receded. “Like other elements of

the Wilhelmine establishment,” writes Evans, “big business accepted the Republic

because it seemed the most likely way of warding off something worse.”178 But as

the threat of a Communist revolution faded, the temporarily parallel interests of

industrialists, the aristocracy and the forces of democracy began to diverge. The

Social Democrats’ representation in the Reichstag fell from an all-time high of 38%

in the 1919 elections to around 25% over the next decade.179 “The widespread

feeling after 1923 that the threat of a Bolshevik revolution had receded,” writes

Evans, “meant that the bourgeois parties were no longer so willing to compromise

with the Social Democrats in the interests of preserving the Republic as a bulwark

against Communism.”180

Between 1919 and 1933 the country saw twenty different cabinets, each lasting

on average less than eight months. Unstable coalitions created constant squabbles

and weakened the parliament’s ability to govern, “since all they could settle on was

the lowest common denominator and the line of least resistance.”181 While the

anticipation of beneficial American influence provided an additional incentive for

reforms, this influence did not materialize in the aftermath of the war and fatally

178
Evans 2004:112-3, citing Henry Ashby Turner, Jr. (1985) German Big Business
and the Rise of Hitler and Gerald D. Feldman (1966) Army, Industry, and Labor in
Germany, 1914-1918, Princeton University Press
179
Evans 2004:88. After gaining 163 votes in the 1919 founding elections, the
Social Democrats received 102 votes in 1920.
180
Evans 2004:96
181
Evans 2004:83
 175

crippled the governing Weimar Coalition. In short, the crisis of the war generated

two incentives for liberalization – fear of Communism and hope for an American-

led settlement – that disappeared in the postwar years, undermining the effort to

sustain German democracy.

In the interwar period, Czechoslovakia was the exception that proved the rule.

Created in 1918 and expanded to include Ruthenia in 1919, the Czechoslovak

Republic “brought together regions at very different levels of development

populated by people with very different experiences.”182 It adopted a constitution

based on the French and American models, with proportional representation, a

dual executive designed to keep the president weak, guarantees of individual rights

and freedoms, and an elected National Assembly that enjoyed a monopoly on

legislative initiative. The First Czechoslovak Republic was “a comparatively

modern, well-functioning democracy.”183 Despite tensions between Czechs and

Slovaks, it stood apart as the only east European state that retained democratic

institutions through the 1930s.184 In the second half of the 1930s it was an island of

democracy in a sea of despotism, finally succumbing to a German takeover in

1939.

The survival of Czechoslovakian democracy can be directly traced to the nature

182
Sharon L. Wolchik (2007) “The Czech and Slovak Republics: Two Paths to the
Same Destination” p.192 in Wolchik and Curry, eds
183
Lloyd Cutler and Herman Schwartz (1991) “Constitutional Reform in
Czechoslovakia: E Duobus Unum?” The University of Chicago Law Review 58.2, p.
513
184
For an opposing view, see Andrea Orzoff (2009) Battle for the Castle: The Myth
of Czechoslovakia in Europe, 1914-1948, Oxford University Press; Mary Heinmann
(2011) Czechoslovakia: The State That Failed, Yale University Press
 176

of the party coalitions. The so-called petka, a five-party coalition that ruled the

country for most of the interwar period, created a government “dominated by

disciplined political parties” and provided a measure of continuity and stability.185

While its neighbors experienced short-lived governments or takeovers by anti-

system parties, Czechoslovakia managed to maintain a degree of political

coherence and internal stability through the petka. Its members met regularly to

advise the prime minister and shape cabinet policies. These sessions ensured that

internal disagreements did not spiral out of control, prevented cabinet crises at

times of unrest (such as during the period of hyper-inflation in 1922-23), enabled

the government to maintain unity in the eyes of public opinion, and created rigid

discipline and a locus for political action when necessary.186 As a result, the

governing coalition never faced a significant challenge from anti-system parties.

The domestic conditions in Czechoslovakia, in short, were uniquely adopted to

maintaining democratic institutions in spite of general instability across the

continent.

For Czechoslovakia’s neighbors, however, the outcome was very different. As

E.H. Carr later wrote in The Twenty Years Crisis: “The liberal democracies scattered

throughout the world by the peace settlement of 1919 were the product of abstract

theory, stuck no roots in the soil, and quickly shriveled away.”187 Across much of

185
Wolchik 2007:193
186
R. J. Crampton (1997) Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After,
New York: Routledge, p.63
187
E.H. Carr (1939/1964) The Twenty Years Crisis: 1919-1939, Harper Perennial,
p.27.
 177

Europe, democracies “had to operate in a world in which it had many enemies, old

and new,” writes Roberts. “It had not been a widespread form of government

before 1914 and many Europeans were soon regretting the passing of the regimes

under which they had previously lived.”188 The political and economic instability in

the newly-created states further undermined democracy’s chances. As Frieden

writes:

The successor states started from scratch, the spawn of defeated

autocracies. They scrambled to turn former provinces into modern
nation-states in the midst of famine and economic collapse. The new
governments typically had few ways to pay their bills other than to
print money. The result was a wave of inflation that destroyed the
value of currencies, disrupted economies, and in extreme cases
threatened the social fabric of nations.189

While the outcome of the war propped up democracy on the podium of

universal acclaim, reality soon showed that these hopes had created the

democratic version of a stock market bubble on the European continent, one that

was bound to burst as the decade set in. Extraordinary ad hoc domestic coalitions

that came together to create the initial wave dissolved as the immediate crisis of the

war passed. In the absence of strong pro-democracy coalitions, domestic

circumstances in economically and socially undeveloped states could not sustain

the push for democratization.

188
Roberts 2008:284
189
Frieden 2006:134
 178

Conclusion

The First World War produced the century’s first democratic wave by

demonstrating democracy’s effectiveness to rulers, creating new states on the ruins

of autocratic empires, and increasing the organizational power of women and

working-class men. With its reliance on industrial production at home and mass

armies at the front, the war made the support of workers and conscripted soldiers

crucial for waging the war. The connection between mass mobilization and

democracy was not predetermined, but mobilization did open up opportunities for

reforms whose outcome hinged on the outcome of the war.

The defeat of autocracies and the emergence of the United States as a new

global hegemon produced a brief moment when democracy appeared to be the

only way forward. It was, in retrospect, an ill-fated victory. The fundamental

premise of the Versailles treaty – the idea of democracy as the answer to the

problems of modernity – was not established by the outcome of the war. The

democracies that emerged from the war were “never secure in their claims of

legitimacy in those states where this legitimacy was most closely tested.”190 The

Soviet Union after 1923 and Germany after 1933 – two states excluded from the

negotiations at Versailles – would in time offer their own visions of the modern

state. By the end of the 1930s, democracy appeared discredited and moribund.

Given the general tenor of that period, can we separate the democratic backlash of

the 1920s from the authoritarian, fascist-inspired wave of the 1930s? These

190
Bobbitt 2003:40
 179

distinctions are not always easy to draw, but one essential difference was the

revolutionary mentality of the anti-democratic movements. In the 1920s, classic

conservatives moved away from democracy to preserve the old order and exclude

the masses from political life. By the next decade, revolutionary conservatives

sought to demolish the old order, to bring the masses into politics, and to

fundamentally transform relations among social and economic classes – as detailed

in the next chapter.

The postwar democratic wave sowed seeds of its own demise as rulers and

coalitions, swept up in the post-war momentum, adopted liberal institutions in

countries that lacked the social cohesion, political pre-conditions or economic

stability necessary for democratic consolidation. Pro-reform coalitions that initiated

the changes dissolved as the crisis passed. In addition, those rulers who saw

democratization as a way to ingratiate themselves with the United States were met

instead with empty rhetoric instead of economic assistance and security

guarantees. In the beginning, those who “lacked a principled commitment to

liberal democracy embraced the liberal creed because they thought Wilson and the

victorious Allies would provide material benefits to those who jumped on the

democratic bandwagon,” writes Peceny. “Over time, the failure of the liberal great

powers to reward other states for embracing liberal institutions…led those who

only had a contingent commitment to democracy to abandon that commitment.”191

Wilson had hoped that Europe would accept his vision for the world “more by

191
Peceny 2010:3
 180

moral and ideological appeal,” as Ikenberry puts it, “than by the exercise of

American power or diplomatic tact.”192 In the end, that hope proved elusive. The

failure of the post-war wave can therefore be explained in part by the rising

hegemon’s reticence to use coercion or influence to promote democratic regimes,

relying instead on the expectation that emulation alone would create a world safe

for democracy.

In failing to resolve the major dilemma of the twentieth century – the design

and legitimacy of the modern nation-state – World War I was the first a series of

confrontations between democracy and alternative institutional arrangements. The

outcome of these confrontations were shaped in large part by sudden shocks to the

global distribution of power and the incentives for reform they created in states

around the world. In the end, the war was “indeed a victory for democracy, though

a bitter one,” writes Palmer. “For the basic problems of modern civilization,

industrialism and nationalism, economic security and international stability, it gave

no answer.”193 Its outcome inaugurated a struggle for influence and legitimacy that

ended only when the last remaining alternative imploded in 1991. But in the late

1920s, Europe’s first democratic experiment teetered on the edge of failure. It was

the Great Depression that sent it into the abyss of the interwar years.

192
Ikenberry 2001:155
193
Palmer el al 2002:696
 181

CHAPTER 4

A LOW DISHONEST DECADE

“We are at the present time passing through a certain

disillusionment about democracy.”
--A.D. Lindsay (1929)1

“As the clever hopes expire

of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth”
--W.H. Auden (1939)2

In 1942, Joseph Schumpeter published his Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy.

Now remembered chiefly as a paean to the “creative destruction” of capitalism, the

book was actually a eulogy for what Schumpeter saw as a dying system. Although

it was the ever-evolving nature of capitalism that made it the best system for

increasing productivity and standards of living, Schumpeter did not believe that

1
A.D. Lindsay (1951) The Essentials of Democracy, Oxford University Press, p.7,
quoted in Fritz Stern (1997) “The new democracies in crisis in interwar Europe” in
Axel Hadenius, ed., Democracy’s Victory and Crisis, Cambridge University Press.
2
W.H. Auden (1939) “September 1, 1939” in Another Time
 182

either capitalism or liberal democracy would be able to survive in the face of

fascism and socialism. Capitalism, he argued, “produced [an] atmosphere of almost

universal hostility to its own social order.” The replacement of the petit bourgeois

by giant corporations took “the life out of the idea of property....Dematerialized,

defunctionalized and absentee ownership does not call forth moral allegiance as

the vital form of property did.” And even as the progress of capitalism corroded its

own moral legitimacy, it spurred an alienated and hostile class of intellectuals who

further undermined the system’s appeal and incited movements that would call for

its replacement.3

Moreover, since democracy for Schumpeter was a “product of the capitalist

process” and therefore associated with its failure, their decline would be

simultaneous and mutually reinforcing. Like many of his contemporaries,

Schumpeter did not believe that the fractious nature of democracy was equipped to

handle the conflicts of complex modern societies, since “the democratic method

never works at its best when nations are much divided on fundamental questions of

social structure.” The real struggle, Schumpeter argued, would be between

socialism and fascism, in which socialism would eventually emerge as the winner.

He concluded with a “pessimistic prognosis” about capitalist democracy – not only

because of the system’s inherent inability to resolve serious class conflict, but also

because as more countries became socialist, democracy’s power and legitimacy

3
Joseph A. Schumpeter (1942) Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, p.143,142,
151. Page numbers refer to the third edition, New York: Harper and Row, 1950.
 183

would fade by comparison.4

Written in the late 1930s, the nadir of liberal democracy, Schumpeter’s

predictions echoed the views of many of his contemporaries. The growing

legitimacy and acceptance of fascist institutions reflected the hegemonic transition

that followed the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 and accelerated with the

Nazi ascent to power in 1933. Moreover, this reversal of fortune was directly tied

to the differences between fascist and democratic institutions. All across Europe,

writes Sheri Berman, “the political and economic policies and appeals offered by

fascists and national socialists proved to be widely popular. Tapping into the

widespread longing for some alternative to the reigning capitalist system and for an

end to class conflict and social divisions, fascists and national socialists managed to

achieve a surprising degree of support.”5 As Jeffry Frieden writes:

Governments in central, eastern, and southern Europe invoked a new

fascist ideal as they stamped out labor, the Left, and eventually all
opposition in the march toward militaristic self-reliance. The upper
tier of developing countries in Latin America, the Middle East and
Asia rejected Europe and North America to build national economies
on nationalist principles; the colonies prepared themselves to do the
same.6

The wave of fascism that swept the world after 1933 was the result of a growing

disparity between the declining democratic powers – Britain, France, and

especially the United States – and their vibrant non-democratic rivals, Nazi

4
Schumpeter 1942:297-8
5
Sheri Berman (2006) The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making
of Europe’s Twentieth Century, Cambridge University Press, p.151
6
Jeffry A. Frieden (2006) Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth
Century, W.W. Norton and Company, p. 228
 184

Germany and the Soviet Union. Amid the decay and fear of the 1930s (Auden’s

“low, dishonest decade”) the latter two stood as beacons of hope and models of

growth for leaders and masses alike. They had loudly rejected the conventional

politics and economics associated with the Great Depression, and presented

themselves as viable institutional alternatives to the failure of liberal democracy.

Electoral triumphs in 1933 and a fascist victory in the Spanish civil war three years

later “showed that fascists could win both in the polling booth and on the

battlefield. For many people, democracy did not seem up to the dynamic new

challenge.”7 The years of the Great Depression were a time “when the idea of

Parliament as a fraud and a folly, a slow-footed relic of a dying age, was a standard

faith of intellectuals on left and right alike.”8

This chapter traces the growth in influence of authoritarian movements and the

proliferation of institutions borrowed from Germany in Europe and around the

world in the decade between 1933 and 1943. Since Soviet relative power grew less

slowly in this period, and the adoption of Communist institutions did not reach

critical mass until after the war, in this chapter I focus primarily on the influence of

fascism.

In its timing and content, the wave of reforms conformed to the expected

patterns of the hegemonic transition. As the relative power of democratic regimes

declined, democracy increasingly became seen as stagnant, outdated, and

7
John Markoff, Waves of Democracy: Social Movements and Political Change, Pine
Forge Press, 1996, p.77
8
Adam Gopnik (2010) “Finest Hours” The New Yorker, August 30, p.81.
 185

inefficient. At the same time, as Germany began to increase its share of relative

power and eliminated the pernicious scourge of unemployment, other states began

to look toward fascism as a model for emulation. German economic expansion,

particularly into South America and Eastern Europe, also drew states into its orbit.

Germany and Italy also attempted to extend their influence through the financial

support of a number of fascist movements in Europe, the Middle East, and Latin

America. The onset of World War II began the final, coercive phase of the fascist

wave, as Germany and Japan set up a number of puppets and tutelary regimes

across Europe and Southeast Asia.

Thus all three mechanisms of emulation, influence, and coercion (in that

general order) contributed to the fascist wave between 1933 and 1943. In this

period, a number of states adopted fascist institutions and expressed admiration for

fascist innovations in the field of political economy. Fascist influence is easiest to

trace in states whose leaders proclaimed themselves as such – Italy, Germany,

Austria, Spain, Hungary, Romania, and Japan, and to a lesser extent Portugal and

Greece. The list expanded greatly during Nazi takeovers between 1938 and 1943.

At its height in the summer of 1942, the fascist order – fascist states, its occupied

territories, colonies, satellites, puppets and tutelary regimes – included half the

world’s population, or “virtually all of Europe and the Middle East and much of

Asia and Africa.”9 Hitler’s empire alone “stretched from the Mediterranean to the

9
Frieden 2007:215
 186

Arctic, from the English Channel to the Black Sea and almost the Caspian.”10

The timing of the fascist wave also demonstrates the importance of hegemonic

shocks in influencing institutional reforms. Mussolini seized power in 1922

(although his regime was not consolidated until several years later and opposition

newspapers continued until 1925). But as with the Russian revolution of 1917, a

new ideology alone could not inspire a fascist wave without an accompanying

hegemonic transition. Although a number of minor imitators sprung up in

Mussolini’s wake, very few of these movements achieved any measure of

popularity until after 1933. Stanley Payne, a prominent historian of fascism, noted

the paucity of philofascist groups in the 1920s, concluding that “the major diffusion

of fascist movements throughout Europe occurred during the following decade, in

the aftermath of Hitler's triumph.”11 Codreanu’s Legion of the Archangel Michael in

Romania, for example, was formed in 1927 but did develop any significant

following until the mid-1930s. Likewise in Hungary, fascist mass mobilization

efforts failed during the 1920s but succeeded in the following decade, encouraged

both by foreign example and the deepening frustrations of Hungarian society.12

The growing power of Germany meant that it could also exercise influence in

more direct but not coercive ways. This took the form of increasing trade ties with

regions that did not have established relations with Western colonial powers,

10
Randall Schweller (1998) Deadly Imbalances: Tripolarity and Hitler’s Strategy of
World Conquest, Columbia University Press, p.1
11
Stanley G. Payne (1995) A History of Fascism, 1914-1945, University of
Wisconsin Press, p.290
12
Payne 1995:138, 268
 187

particularly in Latin America and central Europe. In Latin America, for example,

Germany’s share of imports grew from 7.3% to 16.2% between 1932 and 1938.13

This enabled Germany to intervene in the economic affairs of its trading partners;

in Eastern Europe, for example, it forced Romania to reserve its mineral oils for

German export and sought to prevent the region’s economic integration.14 As

German power revived, neutrality became much more difficult for its neighbors,

who were forced to move closer toward a regime they may not have wished to

imitate otherwise.

But focusing on the overt expansion in influence and territory omits the more

subtle channels through which fascist influence manifested itself in nominally non-

fascist states. Beginning in the early 1930s, political leaders all over the world

began looking to Nazi institutional innovations without necessarily wishing to

borrow the accompanying ideological baggage. National labor services designed to

relieve unemployment, state-directed economies, systems of social welfare, mass

political mobilization and strong executive rule were all hallmarks of statist

innovations that took hold in the 1930s and later became essential components of

modern mixed economies. Berman, in her study of the evolution of social

democracy, concludes: “Several critical “innovations” championed by fascists and

national socialists – such as the notion of a “people’s party” and an economic order

that aimed to control but not destroy capitalism – became central features of

13
Hartmut Elsenhans (1991) “The Great Depression of the 1930s and the Third
World” International Studies 28.3, p.279
14
Elsenhans 1991:279
 188

Europe’s postwar order.”15

Because fascist expansion in the 1930s often proceeded by piecemeal

borrowing of fascist institutions, it is important to define what constituted a fascist

regime. More than any other regime type of the twentieth century, fascism eludes a

concise definition. The historian Stanley Payne calls it “the vaguest of the major

political terms” while Furet describes it as “a fuzzy, autodidactic amalgam”. 16

Defining fascism is a difficult task; although during the height of its appeal it drew

many intellectuals into its orbit, it lacked the theoretical and intellectual tradition of

either communism and democracy. Hitler “never quoted anyone, so convinced

was he of the absolute originality of his pronouncements.” 17 During the 1930s,

certain leaders called themselves fascists without embracing any of its institutional

features. Others rejected the label even as they assiduously imitated elements of

fascist regimes. At the same time, and particularly after World War II, “people of

every political persuasion, and especially socialists and communists, have tended

to attach the label of fascism so freely to whoever happens to oppose them as to

obscure all distinctions.”18

A single definition is complicated by the absence of a well-defined fascist

“program”. There were important differences even within the two archetypal states,

15
Berman 2006:151
16
Payne 1995:3; Furet 1999:3
17
Furet 1999:187
18
Peter H. Merkl (1980) “Comparing Fascist Movements” in Stein Ugelvik Larsen,
Bernt Hagtvet, and Jan Petter Myklebust, eds., Who Were the Fascists: Social Roots
of European Fascism, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, p. 752
 189

Italy and Germany. The German authoritarians were, strictly speaking, Nazis rather

than fascists. Whereas for fascism economy and society existed to exalt the state,

for Nazis the state was the paramount instrument through which culture, politics

and economics served to exalt the Aryan race. Its apotheosis was the Volk and the

Volksgemeinschaft rather than the government - and although this distinction was

more than cosmetic, its practical consequence in both cases led to the total

subjugation of the individual to the state apparatus. In this chapter I use the term

“fascism” to refer to both variants, following Payne’s advice to treat the word as “as

a general type or generic phenomenon for heuristic and analytic purposes.” The

fascist regime, he writes, “is an abstraction which never existed in pure empirical

form but constitutes a conceptual device which serves to clarify the analysis of

individual political phenomena.”19

In the 1930s, fascism was a broad but nevertheless distinct family of

authoritarian institutions bound by a shared philosophy of the state’s relation to the

economy and the individual. It arose as a response and a challenge not only to

communism and liberal democracy but also to classical conservative

authoritarianism. It rejected the autonomy of the economic sphere and the

individual inherent in liberal democracy, and subordinated both to the general

political will. In this it overlapped with communism, its sworn enemy. But while it

rejected the primacy of capitalism over politics, it never went so far as to abandon

the idea of private property or national tradition. (Indeed, it fetishized the

19
Payne 1995:4
 190

protection of private property as a defense against both communism and large-

scale finance capitalism, and found many supporters among small landowners. As

fascism portrayed it, communal ownership and collectivization of the land

presented threat from the left, while monopolies and large landowners threatened

the small property-owners from the right.)20Also unlike communism, fascism saw

the basic divisions of human communities shaped by national boundaries rather

than socioeconomic classes. And while Communism sought to break free from the

chains of the past, fascists sought a return to a mythical, prelapsarian age, free of

the diseases of modernity. In this they resembled the classic conservatives of

yesteryear, but this resemblance was only partial. As documented in the previous

chapter, democratic breakdowns began to occur soon after World War I. Given the

general authoritarian bent of the period, how does one separate democratic

breakdowns from the influence of fascist institutions? The distinction is indeed

difficult to trace in some cases. But with the exception of Italy, until 1933 what

replaced democracy in these states was traditional conservative rule. It is here that

the difference between fascist authoritarianism of the 1930s and traditional

authoritarianism of the 1920s becomes instructive. The crisis of the Great

Depression meant that authoritarian leaders could no longer remain content with

20
William Brunstein and Marit Berntson (1999) “Interwar Fascist Popularity in
Europe and the Default of the Left” European Sociological Review 15.2, p. 174. As
they put it, “no fascist movement became a major political party without having
mobilized the class of small property-owners….where the left abandoned small
property-holders by taking a maximalist stand on defence of small property, an
opening occurred for another party to defend small property rights (e.g. fascist
parties). By contrast, where the left took up the defence of small property, new
parties could not establish a foothold.” Brustein and Berntson 1999:162
 191

the classical authoritarian model. Instead of merely defending the status quo, the

government now had to step in to stimulate the economy with welfare programs

and deficit spending. The mobilization of popular support replaced the innate

classical-authoritarian distrust of mobs and rallies; staid hierarchy gave way to

charismatic, energetic leadership that promised action.

In short, the populist authoritarian regimes of the 1930s moved away from their

conventional law-and-order counterparts of previous years by borrowing elements

of fascist institutions. “The 1930s and 1940s were the period of fascist success,”

writes the historian Hugh Seton-Watson. “Inevitably fascist policies and institutions

were aped by others.”21 Germany’s growing power “stimulated rightist movements

and right-wing authoritarian regimes to adopt varying degrees of "fascistization" –

certain outward trappings of fascist style-to present a more modern and dynamic

image, with the hope of attaining broader mobilization and infrastructure.”22 This

process was not synonymous with fascism – but, Payne notes, “it would be grossly

inaccurate to argue that this process proceeded independent of fascism.”23 It had

borrowed the public aesthetics, the choreography, and the semiotics of fascism,

along with a new approach to political economy that emphasized the primacy of

21
Hugh Seton-Watson (1979) “The Age of Fascism and its Legacy” in George L.
Mosse, ed., International Fascism: New Thoughts and New Approaches, Sage
Publications, p.365. He cites as some “obvious examples” Gombos’ Hungary,
Stojadinovic’s Yugoslavia, and King Carol’s Romania.
22
Payne 1995:290. Harold Macmillan in 1933 euphemistically named this
selective imitation “orderly capitalism” (quoted in Schivelbusch 2006:12)
23
Payne 1995:15. Even when authoritarianism did not mean fascism, “it became
common for authoritarian regimes to imitate certain aspects of the fascist style.”
Payne 1995:290
 192

political will over the national economy.24 Fascists and authoritarians had common

enemies – big business, liberalism, Jews, and communists – categories that often

overlapped in the muddled rhetoric of the times. Common goals led to “numerous

instances of tactical alliances…between fascists and right authoritarians, and

sometimes even cases of outright fusion, especially between fascists and the radical

right…”25 When traditional authoritarian leaders sought inspiration for domestic

reforms, the fascist model presented a natural path for development. The kings of

Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Yugoslavia “ruled with the support of local

fascists,” and this relationship was symbiotic, writes Frieden: “Traditional

conservatives needed the fascists' mass base; the fascists needed the conservatives'

credibility with big business.”26 And although the new authoritarians of the 1930s

rarely approached the Third Reich’s “total coordination of all political, economic,

intellectual and biological activities in a revolutionary mass-based dictatorship,”

they nevertheless “borrowed features of fascism, establishing a corporative state,

outlawing independent labor organizations, and forbidding strikes.”27

Unlike the classic conservatives who fetishized tradition, fascists sought a break

24
This process parallels the creation of hybrid democracies of the past two
decades. These are states that have adopted the outward trappings of democracy
without undergoing more fundamental government reforms. In both instances such
adaptation shows the increasing power and legitimacy of a winning regime type
after a hegemonic shock. Fascism in the 1930s and democracy in the 1990s (as
well as in the early 1920s) had appeared so dominant and ascendant a regime that
political leaders felt compelled to imitate their institutions even when they did not
wish to actually transform their governments.
25
Payne 1995:16
26
Frieden 2006:210
27
Palmer et al 2002:800
 193

from the old authoritarian ways of rule. Masses would be mobilized rather than

shut out of politics. The sentiments that led to mass uprisings in nineteenth-century

Europe would now be vented into new channels of discontent through spectacular

rallies. Even though they were not always successful in this pursuit, fascist

movements “always sought to transcend the elitist parliamentary cliquishness of

poorly mobilized liberal groups or the sectarian exclusiveness and reliance on elite

manipulation often found in the authoritarian right.”28 In doing so they combined

modern mass politics with a reactionary mindset. Fascist leaders promoted

traditional values through the untraditional mobilization of popular discontent. “In

their original ideas they often closely resemble old-fashioned conservatives, but

their methods of struggle, indeed their whole notion of political organization,

belong not to the idealized past but to the modern age,” writes Hugh Seton-

Watson. “Their outlook may be nostalgic, and it is certainly elitist, but as a political

force they are more democratic than oligarchic.”29 As Rothermund points out, the

fascist cult of the leader “was more primitive and barbarian than the Italian and

German monarchies of prewar times. On the other hand it was very modern in its

use of the mass media and in its support of science and technology.” 30 Frieden

concisely sums up its contradictory impulses:

Fascists celebrated agrarian traditionalism but accelerated

industrialization. Their rhetoric trumpeted individualism and

28
Payne 1995:12
29
Seton-Watson 1979:357-8
30
Dietmar Rothermund (1996) The Global Impact of the Great Depression, 1929-
1939, Routledge, p.139
 194

independence, but their policies championed monopolies and

cartels. Fascist rallies gloried in the splendor of supposed imperial
pasts while demonizing the imperialist powers. Fascism concurrently
embraced both reaction and radical change, preached a return to the
moral certainties of a preindustrial idyll, but promised a rapid
advance to modern industrialism.31

Fascism was thus both a refutation of the past and the embrace of a pastoral,

idealized simulacrum of that past. It rejected a vulgar and decadent modernity even

as it sought to forge its own version of a hyper-modern state. Revolutionary

conservatives, nihilistic utopians, pastoral industrializers, elitist populists - in such

contradictions resides fascism’s paradoxical, ill-defined nature. It was above all a

negation of the world in which it resided (Hitler was, in the words of lapsed Nazi

writer Hermann Rauschning , “a prophet of nihilism”)32 that existed to create the

world anew. It was a particularistic, national creed that sought - and found -

imitators in countries and colonies spread widely around the world. (In 1928

Mussolini famously declared that fascism was “not for export” before embarking, a

few years later, on an ambitious program to do exactly that.)33 It managed to

combine a broad populism with a belief in the power of a select oligarchy: “The

appeal to the entire people and nation, together with the attempt to incorporate the

masses in both structure and myth,” writes Payne, “was accompanied by a strong

formal emphasis on the role and function of an elite, which was held to be both

31
Frieden 2006:211
32
Quoted in Furet 1999:187
33
Payne 1995:463. By 1934 Mussolini was promoting the ideology of “universal
fascism”.
 195

uniquely fascist and indispensable to any achievement.”34 Sorting through these

contradictions, Rothermund stresses “the rather eclectic and diffuse character of

fascist ‘ideology’ which attracted all kinds of people – often for very different

reasons. In this respect,” he argues, “fascism shared many traits with other populist

movements which also drew strength from diffuse sets of ideas rather than from

intellectual clarity.”35

But even if the ideas were diffuse, even if fascism is best conceptualized as a

loose family of institutions united by an overarching philosophy, what were some

of its family traits, and what was that philosophy? One distinguishing feature the

glorification of war and the militarization of party politics. For fascists “war was an

act of creation that determined everything that followed”36– appropriately enough,

since it was born out of the failure of peacemaking of World War I. Martial virtues

suffused daily politics, finding expression in militia and paramilitary groups (the so-

called “shirt movements”) that formed an integral element of party organization); in

the military insignia, terminology, and rituals that reinforced the idea of national

struggle; and even in the “male chauvinism and the tendency to exaggerate the

masculine principle in almost every aspect of activity.”37 Another feature was the

exaltation of youth as the cynosure of racial perfection and the encouragement of

34
Payne 1995:14
35
Rothermund 1996:140
36
Wolfgang Schivelbusch (2006) Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s
America, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany, 1933-1939, Metropolitan Books,
p. 39
37
Payne 1995:13
 196

youth movements. Charismatic leaders - exemplified by Hitler, Mussolini,

Belgium’s Leon Degrelle, or Spain’s Antonio Prima de Reivera - and the

accompanying cults of personality were another recurring theme. While a strong

authoritarian leader and a cult of personality are obviously not limited to fascist

regimes, “there was nonetheless a general tendency to exalt leadership, hierarchy,

and subordination,” writes Payne, “so that all fascist movements came to espouse

variants of a Führerprinzip, deferring to the creative function of leadership more

than to prior ideology or a bureaucratized party line.”38

Fascism displayed its greatest influence in the way it reorganized relations

between the society and the economy, and this was its other distinctive trait that

would later be adopted and absorbed by liberal democracy - transforming it, in the

process, into the social democracy of today. Fascists sought to subordinate

industrial capital to the needs of the state and the nation, in the process “creating a

new communal or reciprocal productive relationship through new priorities, ideals,

and extensive governmental control and regulation.”39 The managed political

economy of fascism combined Keynesian finances, state guidance of industry,

welfare schemes and labor programs that aimed to create full employment. Trade

unions and powerful industrialists were crushed, which provided an excellent

short-term solution to the problems of economic depression: “social frictions were

eliminated, wages were kept down, production stepped up and full employment

38
Payne 1995:14; See also Seton-Watson 1979:368
39
Payne 1995:10
 197

was quickly achieved.”40 Fascists’ relationship with business was not entirely

antagonistic; while they placed controls on the economy and encouraged autarky,

they also suppressed wages and supported heavy industry.41

Given the above elements, which countries in the 1930s would qualify as

fascist? The answer is not found in a simple enumeration of who converted and

who resisted. The division was never that clear-cut. As Payne puts it:

[A] rigorous "either-or" approach toward the problem of generic

fascism is fundamentally misleading. That is, the common reduction
of all putative fascisms to one single generic phenomenon of
absolutely common identity is inaccurate, while a radically
nominalist approach which insists that all radical nationalist
movements of interwar Europe were inherently different, though
correct in the narrow technical sense that not one was a carbon copy
of any other, has the opposite defect of ignoring distinctive
similarities.42

A strict definition would limit the list of fascist states to one - Italy. At the same

time, “there was a certain family relationship between a number of political

movements which played a leading part in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, and

which historians ought to see in their relations to each other.” 43 More expansive

definitions would also include Germany, Austria, Japan, Hungary, Romania, Spain,

and Portugal. In addition, Falangist movements saw a growth in power across in

Latin America, and philofascist movements expanded their influence in the Middle

East.

40
Rothermund 1996:139
41
Frieden 2006:213
42
Payne 1995:462
43
Seton-Watson 1979:357
 198

In interwar democracies, by contrast, the diffusion of fascist institutions

manifested itself not in the often small vote shares of fascist movements, but in the

absorption of their ideas by mainstream political parties. In these countries,

German ability to solve the problems of unemployment and social unrest through

state planning attracted a great deal of interest and admiration, and spurred

imitation driven by the need to compete in the international arena. Wrote Karl

Manheim in 1940: “Competition with [the totalitarian] states compels the

democracies to make use of some, at least, of their methods.”44 In many cases,

political leaders adopted features of fascist regimes while simultaneously rejecting

the ideological underpinnings that shaped their creation. The most widely adopted

feature was some degree of corporatism, or a state-directed economy. Whereas

liberal capitalism viewed politics and economics as separate spheres, Germany

injected political control into the national economy. This subordination of the

economic by the political took the form of extensive regulation, state planning

committees, industrial subsidies, price and wage controls, job creation programs,

and deficit spending.

A major difference between the fascist regimes and countries like France,

Sweden and the United States was that they chose to co-opt the labor movement

rather than destroy it. But the fundamental goal and the method by which the goal

was reached was still borrowed from fascist innovations – the establishment of a

mixed economy in which the state would regulate economic activity in order to

44
Karl Manheim (1940) Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction, New York,
p. 338; quoted in Wolfgang Schivelbusch 2006:190
 199

avoid the vices of capitalism. As Schivelbusch notes, the policy discussions in the

world’s remaining democracies “show how willing many people within the liberal

camp were to try to save the situation by jettisoning liberal ballast. Some suggested

reintroducing state-directed economies, like those during World War I; others

proposed imitating various Fascist models.”45 Even Britain, a bastion of free

enterprise, succumbed to the allure of authoritarian institutions. Late interwar

Britain “was a uniquely gloomy and fearful era, a morbid age that saw the future of

civilization in terms of disease, decay, and death” and experienced a loss of faith in

the free-market system.46 Central planning seemed to be the answer, and held

much appeal in the 1930s: “The successes of the planned economies in the 1930s

confirmed what many believed instinctively: market forces could not go

unregulated after the chaos of the slump.”47 These fears extended to issues of

everyday governance, such as public infrastructure; “There was much angst in the

1930s…about the speed with which fascist Italy and Germany were building

[roads], leaving muddled, democratic Britain in the dust.”48 “The mere efficiency of

such a system, the elimination of waste and obstruction, is obvious,” wrote George

Orwell about fascism in 1939. “However horrible this system may seem to us, it

45
Schivelbusch 2006:11-12
46
The Economist (2009) “Britain between the wars: A sense of dread” April 25,
p.86, citing Richard Overy (2009) The Morbid Age: Britain Between the Wars,
Allen Lane. Kennedy (1987:316) notes that Britain’s “ailing economy was shaken to
its roots by the world-wide slump after 1929.”
47
Alan Booth (1999) “The British Reaction” in W.R. Garside, ed., Capitalism in
Crisis: An International Perspective on the 1930s, Palgrave Macmillan, p.47
48
The Economist (2009) “Review of Joe Moran (2009) On Roads: A Hidden
History,” June 20, 2009, p. 89
 200

works.”49

The United States represents a paradigmatic case of fascist influence that

manifested itself in institutional imitation. The only categorically fascist party in the

country was the German-American Bund, a tiny and uninfluential organization

whose ranks peaked at fifteen thousand and whose members, many of whom

German immigrants, never stood the chance of winning actual political office.

Instead, fascist influence manifested itself through open interest in successful

German institutions by the New Dealers. In a case study of the United States

presented later in the chapter, I document the many ways in which American

intellectuals, civil servants and politicians expressed admiration for Nazi reforms

while rejecting the racial, authoritarian, and aggressive aspects of that regime. For

now a few examples will suffice. Rexford Tugwell, a member of Roosevelt’s brain

trust, openly expressed his admiration for Soviet planning and fascist corporatism.

Decrying the ideological foundation of fascism, Tugwell nevertheless described it

as “the cleanest, neatnest [sic], most efficiently operating piece of social machinery

I’ve ever seen. It makes me envious.”50 As late as 1938, Roosevelt ordered a report

on the Reichsarbeitsdienst, the German labor service, “not to procure propaganda

material against the Third Reich, but as a source of information and inspiration”.51

49
George Orwell (1941) “The Lion and the Unicorn”, original emphasis
50
Michael Vincent Namorato, ed. (1992) The Diary of Rexford G. Tugwell: The
New Deal, 1932-1935, New York, p. 139. Quoted in Schivelbusch 2006:32.
51
Norbert Gotz and Kiran Klaus Patel (2006) “Facing the Fascist Model: Discourse
and the Construction of Labour Services in the USA and Sweden in the 1930s and
1940s” Journal of Contemporary History 41.1, p.62-3
 201

Thanking the American ambassador in Berlin for the report, he wrote: “All of this

helps us in planning, even though our methods are of the democratic variety!’”52

Unsurprisingly, such syncretic imitation proved politically toxic after the

beginning of the war, and particularly after the Axis defeat in 1945. Any hint of

German influence was expunged from official statements. For example, when the

administration publicly discussed the adoption of Nazi labor institutions in 1938,

and actually integrated some of its elements into the Civilian Conservation Corps,

“there was no public outcry…By 1941 that would have been unthinkable.” Instead,

“The openness that had marked the late 1930s had vanished. In the face of the

second world war…anything that was or seemed to be German was unacceptable

to the American public.”53 The surprising extent of fascist institutional influence has

remained mostly ignored in American consciousness and historiography, for

predictable if self-serving reasons. After the war, “memories of the New Deal’s

common roots with its enemies were repressed, and postwar America was free to

enjoy a myth of immaculate conception of the liberal-democratic welfare state.”54

“Despite the horror of the Nazi period, or rather because of it, the parallels

between the German experience and those of other countries are important,” writes

Peter Gourevitch in a comparative study of political responses to the economic

crisis of the 1930s. “The economic policy experimentation of the early years of the

Nazi period is an enhanced form of what Sweden, the United States, and France

52
Quoted in Gotz and Patel 2006:63
53
Gotz and Patel 2006:65, 71
54
Schivelbusch 2006:14
 202

were groping toward in the 1930s and what most of Western Europe and North

American pursued after World War II: a mixed economy, with fiscal stimulus,

regulated markets, and some public ownership of production.”55 Countries

seemingly as diverse as Sweden, Germany, and the US “all experimented with

demand stimulus and corporatist market regulation in the 1930s.”56 The fact that

Germany’s influence did not extend beyond corporatist institutions in Sweden or

the United States does not diminish the fact that it served as an institutional model

for those states that loudly rejected Nazi ideology.

Decades later, with the benefit of hindsight and an instinctual moral revulsion

to fascism, it is difficult to appreciate how much sway this ideology had held in the

1930s. Here the prism of history can distort just as it clarifies. The historian

Raymond Sontag writes:

When we read of Lloyd George returning from a talk with Hitler filled
with praise for his host; when we recall the kind words Churchill had
for what Nazism was doing within Germany even while he was
warning of the menace of Nazi foreign policy; when we reconstruct
the many laudatory things Lord Halifax, so kindly and decent a man,
said in his conversations with Hitler in 1937; and when we note that
the same enthusiasm can be found in supposedly discerning
observers from other countries, then we marvel, because we see,
marching endlessly to their death, the millions of victims of Nazi
racism.57

Yet until the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Sontag notes, the Nazi revolution was

a largely bloodless affair. Until the late 1930s it had only a “few easily ignored

55
Peter Gourevitch (1986) Politics in Hard Times: Comparative Responses to
International Economic Crises, Cornell University Press, p.140
56
Gourevitch 1986: 25
57
Raymond Sontag (1971) A Broken World, 1919-1939, Harper and Row, p.265
 203

victims”; few inside Germany had actually been killed or imprisoned and even for

Jews physical persecution was “sporadic” until the Kristallnacht of November

1938.58 This relatively peaceful rise stood in stark contrast to Stalin’s Great Purges,

which took the lives of millions. Culturally, “the surface of German national life

had a color and enthusiasm absent from Russian life”. Geopolitically, “the shift in

the international position of Germany was more obvious than the rise of Russian

national power.”59

As a result of these factors, the Soviet Union was slower to attract imitators.

Most political leaders sought to contain capitalism in the fascist style, not to destroy

it in the Soviet one. Although Communism exerted increasing influence in this

period, its real moment of triumph did not arrive until the defeat of fascism in

World War II. And while the defeat of Axis powers led to an abrupt rejection of

fascist ideology in all but a few “risible backwaters”, in the late 1930s fascism

“was a serious contender for international economic supremacy…Neither

communism nor liberal democracy had had anything like the reproductive and

expansionary success of fascism.”60 Across Europe, there was implicit agreement

among all but the hardcore communists that “if a choice must be made, Nazi rule

would be less horrible than Soviet rule” – a view shared not only by the middle and

upper classes, but even the workers and peasants, who “found little to envy in the

convulsive changes going on in Russia. So, increasingly, it was the deepening

58
Sontag 1971:266
59
Sontag 1971: 268
60
Frieden 2006:215
 204

shadow of German power which lay on central and southeastern Europe.”61 For all

these reasons, the majority of this chapter focuses on the diffusion of fascist

institutions, while the expansion of communist influence is detailed in the chapter

that follows.

The Hegemonic Transition After 1929

The sudden onset of an economic crisis in 1929 discredited the capitalist-

democratic model championed by Britain and the United States. Originating in the

U.S., the Great Depression was seen as “the inevitable result of international, free-

market capitalism – a labile, accident-prone, uncontrollable, and irresponsible

system.62 Not only did the U.S. play the leading role in the financial crisis, it also

suffered more from it than other leading powers. According to Paul Kennedy,

punitive tariffs and the relatively unconstrained nature of American capitalism

meant that the downturn “hurt it much more than any other advanced economy.”63

Between 1929 and 1933 money income fell by 53 percent. The country’s GNP was

below 1929 levels throughout the decade, and remained there until 1941.

Unemployment, measuring 1.5 million people in 1929, reached a peak of 12.8

million just four years later, bringing with it a serious threat of social

destabilization.64 Industrial production also suffered - by the time of Munich, U.S.

61
Sontag 1971: 269-70
62
Schivelbusch 2006:105
63
Paul Kennedy (1987) The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change
and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, Random House, p.329
64
P. Fearon (1993) “Hoover, Roosevelt and American economic policy during the
 205

share of global manufacturing had dropped to its lowest level since 1910.65 For the

first time in the country’s history, more people were leaving the United States than

entering it.66

At the same time, the 1930s witnessed a rapid revival of German power.

Examining the shifts in national power during the interwar period, Kennedy

concluded that the relative power of the United States in the 1930s was “in inverse

ratio to that of both the USSR and Germany. That is to say, it was inordinately

strong in the 1920s, but then declined more than any other of the Great Powers

during the depressed 1930s.”67 Between 1933 and 1939 “Europe lived under the

shadow of Russia and Germany.”68 The relative decline of democracies was

exacerbated by their domestic politics, which favored disarmament. Both Britain

and France were hurt badly by World War I, and public opinion pressed for peace.

In the mid-1930s Britain and France were decreasing military expenditures, even as

Germany and other authoritarian states were rapidly expanding theirs.

1930s” in W.R. Garside, ed., Capitalism in Crisis: An International Perspective on

the 1930s, Palgrave Macmillan, p.114-5
65
Kennedy 1987:329
66
Tim Tzouliadis (2008) The Forsaken, Penguin Press, quoted in Richard Pipes
(2008) “Banished: ‘The Forsaken’ by Tim Tzouliadis” The New York Sun, July 30
67
Kennedy 1987:327
68
Sontag 1971: 269
 206

Figure 4.1: Germany vs. the United States. German relative power increases
steadily between 1933 and 1943, while American power decreases until the later
1930s, before recovering and increasing quickly in the early 1940s

Figure 4.2: Number of fascist states, 1930-1945. The number rises steadily between
1933-1930, then quickly increases with the onset of the war, and begins to collapse
as the war nears its conclusion.
 207

Figure 4.3: Annual global democracy score (measured by SIP) vs. percent of global
power (measured by CINC) under fascist regimes, 1930-1945. As the share of
power held by fascist states increases, the global average democracy score
declines.
 208

Figure 4.4: US Power (measured by CINC) and the annual global democracy score
(measured by SIP), 1930-1945. Both fall until the late 1930s; US power begins to
recover in the early 1940s, and global democracy begins to increase toward the
end of the war.

There were no immediate winners in the aftermath of 1929. Like most of

Europe, Weimar Germany was mired in unemployment and discontent; the Soviet

Union had just barely survived a civil war, foreign invasions and economic

collapse, and spent most of the 1920s retreating from socialism through its New

Economic Plan, which sought to establish market relations between the cities and

the countryside. The crisis of 1929 “hit Germany particularly hard.”69 Between

1929 and 1933, industrial production declined by nearly a half and national

income by a third; the collapse of the stock market depressed both savings and

69
Berman 2006:141
 209

investment.70 In 1933, with Germany on the verge of economic collapse, more

than six million Germans – over a third of the labor force – were unemployed.71

Germany’s decline in the late 1920s made its rise after 1933 seem all the more

spectacular. If 1989 was the great turning point for modern democracy, 1933

would prove to be the fascist annus mirabilis. The ascent of the National Socialists

to power in 1933 inaugurated a long period of national recovery, economic

expansion, and the quick end of unemployment. Between January 1933 and July

1935, employment rose from 11.7 million to 16.9 million.72 By 1939, policies of

full employment resulted in a labor shortage of approximately two million people.

Meanwhile, industrial production had more than doubled. “In 1933 Germany was

a disarmed and isolated power; by 1939 all Europe trembled in fear of German

power.”73

Germany’s rise was closely associated by contemporary observers with Nazi

policies and institutional reforms, and particularly with their eagerness to abandon

the economic and political orthodoxies associated with liberal democracy. “The

pursuit of new paths was a point of pride rather than a difficult break from tradition.

This allowed them to try out program after program until they figured out what

worked.”74 While Britain and France concentrated on cutting public spending,

70
Berman 2006:141
71
Sontag 1971: 261
72
Harold James (1993) “Innovation and conservatism in economic recovery: the
alleged ‘Nazi recovery’ of the 1930s” in Garside, ed., p.70
73
Sontag 1971: 261
74
Frieden 2006:212; Dissatisfaction with orthodox politics and economics
 210

Goering declared: “We do not recognize the sanctity of some of these so-called

economic laws.”75 Instead, the Nazis pursued an active policy of massive state

intervention in the economy, including deficit spending and mass employment.

The novelty of these programs consisted in redefining the government’s

relationship with the economy. Under the new policies, and in stark contrast with

the laissez-faire approach of liberal capitalism, “the economy would be made

subject to the primacy of political and social goals as defined by the national

leadership.” The Nazis shared “an ideological conviction that economic policies

should be integrated with an overall concept of the role of the state. For Hitler

economic problems were not insuperable constraints; they were issues to be

overcome by political will.”76 In early 1935, the Volkischer Beobachter, the official

propaganda outlet of the National Socialists, proclaimed: “all these capitalist

institutions have received a new foundation. The system is an instrument in the

hands of the politicians. Where capitalism still believes itself untouched, it has

already been harnessed to politics.”77

Unemployment was ended with a vigorous program of jobs creation - in the

first year, half a million farm and community jobs were created for young adults,

encouraged many fascist converts. Marcel Deat and Jacques Doriot of France and
Paul de Man of Belgium joined the fascists after becoming frustrated with the left;
Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists, founded his group after
leaving both the Conservative and the Labor Party. Richard Vinen (2000) A History
in Fragments: Europe in the Twentieth Century, De Capo Press, p.167
75
Quoted in Vinen 2000:179
76
W.R. Garside (1993) “The search for stability: economic radicalism and financial
conservatism in 1930s Europe” in Garside, ed., p. 20
77
Quoted in James (1993:90) in Garside, ed.
 211

another half a million to build public works like roads and bridges. Employees

were ordered to cut wages and received subsidies for new hires.78 The destruction

of labor unions was an important step in this process. While gaining security, the

German workers lost their freedoms. Collective bargaining ended in 1933, and

even switching jobs became difficult by the end of the decade.79 After the Nazis

“destroyed the labor movement and instituted a reign of terror in the workplace,”

businesses did not have to worry about inflationary wage increases.80 The

destruction of labor helped stimulate recovery by sending a strong signal to

businessmen that its problems were over: “no more strike waves; no more

Bolshevik threat; no more political instability. All this gave capitalists strong

reasons to catch up on a backlog of profitable investments. They brought money

out of mattresses and foreign bank accounts and sank it into a now-hospitable

business climate.”81

An often forgotten aspect of the National Socialist reforms was that they were

truly socialist. Hitler’s policies “benefited around 95 percent of all Germans. They

did not experience National Socialism as a system of tyranny and terror but rather

as a regime of social warmth, a sort of ‘warm and fuzzy’ dictatorship.” Social

reforms and the “real possibility for social advancement” account for the regime’s

78
Frieden p. 203
79
Sontag 1971: 264
80
Frieden p. 203
81
Frieden p. 212
 212

high level of mass support.82 These social reforms included free higher education,

help for families and children, pensions, health insurance, and a general expansion

of the welfare state.83

The overall result was the emergence of a command economy - government

controls over prices, wages, jobs, foreign trade, and the money market. As a result

of these measures, government spending rose from 18 to 27.5 percent of national

income between 1928 and 1938.84 Such aggressive stimulus policies would not

have been possible in a liberal democracy without threatening serious inflation, but

as Germany’s finance minister wrote with understatement, "National Socialism

introduced in Germany a state-regulated economy which made it possible to

prevent price and wage increases."85 The Nazis consciously avoided a Communist-

like attack on private property. Capitalism would be tamed, not destroyed;

capitalists would be allowed social status and a measure of profits, as long as they

continued to abide by the rules set by the political leadership and submitted

themselves to the greater national good.86

The rapid recovery thus took on a peculiarly Nazi-inspired path in the view of

82
Gotz Aly (2005) “Die Wohlfuhl-Diktator”Der Spiegel , Oct 2005, p.56; quoted in
Berman 2006:147
83
Berman 2006:147
84
Garside in Garside 1993:21
85
Quoted in Frieden 2006:203
86
Peter Hayes likens capitalism in Nazi Germany to a game of poker in which “the
house shuffles, deals, determines the ante and the wild cards, and can change them
at will,” a game in which “there is a ceiling on winnings, which may be spent only
as the casino permits and for the most part only on the premises.” Peter Hayes
(1987) Industry and Ideology, quoted in James (1993:91) in Garside, ed.
 213

contemporaries, who dubbed it the Wirtschaftswunder. The Nazis themselves

encouraged this perception, which served to legitimize their regime and increase

its attractiveness to foreign leaders searching for a way out of the Depression.

Foreign observers, in turn, concluded that these policies worked best in a system

that abandoned the chaos of democracy for the order and stability of fascism. In the

preface to the 1936 German edition of his General Theory, Keynes himself

suggested that his policies were "much more easily adapted to the conditions of a

totalitarian state" than to a democracy.87

The Great Depression was the only hegemonic shock of the twentieth century

in which democracy did not emerge as one of the winners – instead, it was widely

perceived to be its culprit. Democracy “seemed to have spent its vitality and

devolved into an economic order that increasingly polarized society into rich and

poor,” a system that appeared as unsuited for modern mass society as feudalism

had become for industrializing states a century earlier.88 The Depression “not only

challenged America’s economy and its political system, but also undermined the

central myths and beliefs on which the system was founded.”89 This sentiment

87
Quoted in Frieden 2006:212
88
Schivelbusch 2006:44.
89
Morris Dickstein (2009) Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great
Depression, W.W. Norton. Peter Gourevitch notes: ““In its ability to disrupt
existing political alignments, the Depression rivaled war.” (Gourevitch 1986: 160)
Not only did the crisis begin in the United States, but it was the widely
acknowledged lack of U.S. economic leadership that both made the Depression
worse and further undermined the legitimacy of the American system. In 1939,
E.H. Carr wrote: “In 1918 world leadership was offered, by almost universal
consent, to the United States…[and] was declined.” Carr (1939) The Twenty Years’
 214

extended far beyond America itself. “The panic which seized Europe west of Russia

in 1931 was not simply a financial panic,” wrote Sontag. “It was a crisis of

confidence. The accepted precepts for directing the life of man in society seemed

suddenly not to work.”90 The shock of the Great Depression "disproved cultural

paradigms of institutional rationality" and led to a more statist conception of a

modern democracy.91 “It was obvious that laissez-faire capitalism was finished,”

wrote George Orwell in 1940, “and that there had got to be some kind of

reconstruction.”92 A Los Angeles Times article from 1935 declared: “All Europe is

swinging either to the Communist or Fascist side, with the old parliamentary

government in eclipse…”93 In the same year, New Yorker editor E.B. White wrote:

“The experts say that capitalism is out,” and sardonically offered three alternatives:

Crisis, 1919-39, London: Macmillan, p. 234. Charles Kindleberger similarly argued

that a global economy needed a global stabilizer, as Britain had done until the
Great War; but after 1929, “the British couldn’t and the United States wouldn’t.”
Charles Kindleberger (1986) World in Depression 1929-1939, second edition,
University of California Press, p. 292
90
Sontag 1971:172. See also Frieden 2006:196: “[T]he Depression convinced
almost everyone of the bankruptcy of traditional economics and politics…during
the 1930s international markets collapsed, governments were forced to intervene to
save national economies, and people everywhere looked to replace failed
traditionalism.” Or: “People no longer looked to liberal democracy, which they
held responsible for the Depression, for protection and guidance. Instead, they
placed their trust in a new type of authoritarian state.” (Schivelbusch 2006:106)
91
Frank R. Dobbin (1993) "The social construction of the Great Depression:
Industrial policy during the 1930s in the United States, Britain, and France" Theory
and Society 22.1:1-56
92
George Orwell (1940) “Inside the Whale”, p. 236
93
Los Angeles Times (1935) “Democracy Wane Seen: Europe Declared in Two
Camps” September 21, p. A8
 215

“communism, fascism, and a lively state called chaos.”94

The remainder of this chapter focuses on tracing fascist influence and emulation

in Europe and around the world. The case studies focus in turn on Europe, Asia, the

Middle East, Latin America, and the United States. I conclude with a brief

discussion of the coercive phase of the fascist wave, beginning roughly in 1938.

Fascist Influence in Europe

Europe served as the locus of fascist imitation, and has thus received the most

attention from scholars of comparative fascism. By the middle of the decade, “most

continental European states were in the process of converting themselves into

syncretic national authoritarian systems, some of them following the Italian

example of creating a state party and introducing corporative economic

regulations.”95 Even before the beginning of Nazi conquests and annexations,

“countries across southern, central, and eastern Europe – from Portugal to Latvia

and from Germany to Greece – adopted some variant of autarkic fascism.”96 In

eastern and central Europe, the Depression led to a collapse in of international

lending and a fall in commodity prices. This resulting budget crises and restive

populations opened the door to right-wing authoritarians who often adopted

elements of fascist institutions, particularly a state-managed economy characterized

by price controls, the suppression of labor, autarky. In Western Europe (particularly

94
E.B. White (1935) “Notes and Comment: The Talk of the Town” The New Yorker,
March 9, p.9
95
Payne 1995:264
96
Frieden 2006:196
 216

in Scandinavia) European democracies “began to find an alternative in the middle

1930s” by imitating the interventionist economic policies, state planning measures

and social welfare programs of the fascists.97

Hungary

Fascism arrived later in eastern Europe, allowing governing elites in the region

to learn from the Italian and German experiences. This allowed them to keep

revolutionary fascists “at bay by alternately repressing them and stealing their

ideas.”98 A 1939 report to the British Foreign Office noted that the popularity of

fascist ideas in Hungary has led the government to borrow elements of their

political program.99 While both Hungary’s and Romania’s radical fascists

established total control only after German occupation (the Arrow Cross in

Hungary, the Iron Guard in Romania), “they also penetrated and influenced”

previous interwar governments in both countries, so that starting in the mid-1930s

these regimes “were pervaded by fascist ideas and practices, blended into more

conservative authoritarianism.”100

Among all the states in interwar Europe, “Hungary probably took the prize for

the largest assortment per capita of fascist-type, semifascist, or right radical

97
Frieden 2006:229
98
Michael Mann (2004) Fascists, Cambridge University Press, p.238. See also Vigo
(1975) for an edited collection of reports by British diplomats that elaborate on this
strategy.
99
John Keyser (1939), in Vigo (1975:354)
100
Mann 2004:238
 217

movements.”101 It suffered territorial and demographic losses following the war,

was governed briefly by a revolutionary Communist dictatorship in 1919, and

generated great discontent among the elites by preserving a prewar-size civil

service that operated on a greatly reduced budget. Anti-Semitism also became a

significant political force for the first time. As a result, by the 1930s Hungary

possessed a variety of groups supporting rightist anti-liberal nationalism, which

included (starting with the most moderate) the old conservative upper class, the

right radicals who championed a single-party authoritarianism, the radical national

socialist movements who advocated imitation of fascist elements, and the fascist

Arrow Cross movement of Ferenc Szalasi, which became the country’s largest

political movement in 1939.102

At the grass-roots level, a number of fascist organization with the label “national

socialist” proliferated in Hungary. The National Socialist party of Work was

founded in 1931, seeking to introduce Nazi social reforms into Hungary. In 1933,

three other national socialist parties appeared: the Hungarian National Socialist

Agricultural Laborers and Workers Party, the Hungarian National Socialist People's

Party, and Count Fidel Palffy’s National Socialist Party, whose attempts to form a

Hungarian SA and SS were banned by the government. The leaders of the three

movements formed a national socialist “directorium” in 1934, which quickly fell

apart over disagreements about the treatment of Jews. The infighting continued

through the mid-1930s, and none of the movements failed to make an impression

101
Payne 1995:267
102
Payne 1995:267-9
 218

on a national scale.103

As in other European countries, fascist movements that looked to Mussolini’s

Italy for inspiration appeared in the early 1920s but failed to capture the public’s

imagination during the relative stability of the decade. Gombos, the leader of the

so-called Szeged fascists (named after the city of the communist counter-

revolution), was forced to moderate his views to such an extent that Miklos Horthy,

the country’s regent for most of the interwar period, felt comfortable in co-opting

him as the Defense Minister in 1929, whereupon Gombos dissolved the main

political arm of the Szeged fascists, the Party of Racial Defense.104

The most significant (and also the most radical) Hungarian fascist movement

was the Arrow Cross or Hungarist organization founded by Ferenc Szalasi. Szalasi’s

concept of “Hungarism”, developed in the early 1930s, aimed at the creation of a

quasi-federal, multi-ethnic state ruled by Hungarians, a Carpathian-Danubian Great

Fatherland with Magyar as its official language. This design, however, required a

great leader to carry it out, and somewhat like his Romanian counterpart Codreanu,

Szalasi possessed a “mystical conviction” that he was supremely qualified to fill

that role. This grand vision also required a war to bring it to life, necessitating the

emphasis on martial virtues in daily life that came to define other fascist regimes of

the period. Like other revolutionary autocrats, Szalasi viewed war as “a utopian

cataclysm” that would “introduce the new millenarian world order to be led by

Hungarism”. The Arrow Cross stood for corporatism in economic life and a

103
Payne 1995: 270-1
104
Payne 1995:269
 219

national socialist economy in which large-scale banking and industry would be

nationalized, but private property and small businesses retained.105

The impact of the Great Depression led to the proliferation of the above-

mentioned groups and forced Horthy to abandon the moderate conservatism of the

past decade. He appointed Gombos as prime minister in 1932 (though requiring

him to first publicly denounce anti-Semitism). Gombos immediately made an

official visit to Italy, “establishing a pro-Italian tilt for the remainder of his

administration.”106 He commandeered the main government party, changing its

name and extending its reach throughout the country. He also established a youth

organization and a political militia, the Advance Guard, with a membership of sixty

thousand. This trend was accelerated by Hitler’s ascent to power in 1933, after

which, as in other states in Europe and around the world, “Nazi influence quickly

increased.”107 Gombos moved both the party and the state closer toward fascism,

and the country as a whole “into the orbit of Hitler’s Germany.”108 He visited Hitler

within a month of his election. Economic agreements that followed tied Hungary

closer to Germany, also increasing Nazi influence. In 1934 Gombos began

introducing a corporative system in Hungary; in 1935 he told Goring that “within

105
Payne 1995:272-3
106
Payne 1995:269
107
Payne 1995:269
108
Federigo Argentieri (2007) “Hungary: Dealing with the Past and Moving into the
Present” p.216 in Sharon L. Wolchik and Jane L. Curry, eds., Central and East
European Politics: From Communism to Democracy, Rowman and Littlefield
 220

three years Hungary would be reorganized into a national socialist state.”109 His

plans were disrupted, however, by a sudden illness and death at the end of 1936.

His successor, Kalman Daranyi, was a right-wing radical who stopped short of

revolutionary fascism.

The focus on Nazi activity in Hungary thus shifted away from the state, and

toward Szalasi after Gombos’ death. He visited Germany in 1936, and a few

months later “national socialist activity became even more visible in Hungary.”110

Szalasi's followers began organizing militias and calling for a coup, which led to

Szalasi’s brief arrest in 1937 and a forcible dissolution of his party, but this only

raised his status among the national socialists. In the same year his reconstituted

movement was joined by nine other like-minded off-shoots, merging into a greater

Hungarian National Socialist party. By 1938 his movement, generally known as the

Arrow Cross, had become an obvious threat to the state, and Hrothy moved to

protect himself by strengthening the powers of the executive. He gave himself the

power to unconditionally veto new legislation and dissolve parliament; he was

now regent for life, and the country’s regime as a whole moved to the right. To

appease the radical right, the government increased military spending and

restricted Jewish rights. The government also formed a political party designed to

outflank the Arrow Cross from the right, the called the Movement of Hungarian Life

109
Payne 1995:270
110
Payne 1995:273
 221

(MEM).111

In the elections of 1939, “the nearest thing to a democratic contest in

Hungarian history,” the Arrow Cross formed a coalition ticket with other national

socialist parties, although it had officially been dissolved by the government earlier

in the year.112 Despite the disenfranchisement of younger voters (men under

twenty-five and women under thirty) who formed the bulk of Nazi support, despite

fielding candidates in only half of the electoral districts, and despite “more than a

little government interference”, the national socialists officially received nearly a

quarter of the popular vote. The national socialists were now the largest political

force in Hungary, with the Arrow Cross as the country’s largest independent party.

By that point it claimed over a quarter million members in a country of seven

million people, numbers comparable to the popularity of Germany’s Nazi Party in

1932. Germany had in fact sent funds to assist the Arrow Cross electoral

campaigns, having seen its ideological influence increase in 1938-9.113

Despite the electoral success, the Arrow Cross was now deadlocked with the

government, which remained fully in control and would not countenance radical

experimentation. Szalasi, now in jail, tried to set his party on a legal path to power,

111
MEM was a typical example of a common ploy used by right-wing regimes to
forge a top-down political movement “that would employ some of the trappings of
fascism to rally support but would in fact be controlled by the state from above.”
(Payne 1995:275)
112
Payne 1995:275. The number of enfranchised voters had increased by nearly 50
percent in the last elections.
113
Payne 1995:276
 222

but this path “was now effectively blocked by a semi-authoritarian government.”114

As in Austria, Romania, Baltics, and other states, the state’s move toward the right

prevented the takeover by a revolutionary fascist movement, but did so by adopting

the authoritarian trappings and ideology of its most dangerous opponents. The

rapid rise of German power on the continent meant that “Hungarian revisionists

came to favor a German alliance,”115 and the country entered the war on the side of

the Axis in June 1941.

Austria

As in other European states, the Depression led to an increase in support for

Austrian fascism. In the 1930 elections the Nazis received 3 percent of the vote,

while the radical right Heimwehr movement received more than 6 percent. In that

year Heimwehr leaders adopted the Korneuburg Oath, which called for a

corporative authoritarian regime influenced by the ideas of Othmar Spann, the

country’s chief ideologist of corporatism.116 In a 1930 speech, the leader of the

Styrian Heimwehr Walter Pfrimer, speaking about the reasons behind the

manifesto’s adoption, said: “On all sides the conviction was evident that here in

Austria only fascism could now save us.”117

In the 1932 elections the Nazis amassed 16.4 percent of the vote, drawing

114
Payne 1995:276
115
Mann 2004:245
116
Payne 1995:247
117
quoted in Ludwig Jedlicka (1979) “The Austrian Heimwehr” p. 223-40 in
George L. Mosse, ed., International Fascism: New Thoughts and New Approaches,
Sage Publications, p.234
 223

support away from more moderate right-wing movements. With none of the parties

receiving a plurality of votes, the new Christian Social leader Engelbert Dollfuss

was forced to bring the Heimwehr (increasingly influenced by the Nazis) into his

coalition government to form a parliamentary majority. But after growing political

fissures and the resignation of parliamentary officers in March 1933, Dollfuss

established a dictatorship based on the Christian Socials in partnership with the

Heimwehr. Both the extreme right (the Nazis) and the extreme left (the Socialists)

were outlawed. After the defeat of a Socialist coup in February 1934, the Austrian

Nazis, who now were the chief opponents of the regime, launched a campaign of

terrorism that culminated in an attempted coup and the murder of Dollfuss in July

1934. The end result was a total suppression of the Nazis, but the government had

already shifted toward a corporatist, proto-fascist regime “copied from the Italian

model.”118 As in other cases in central and eastern Europe, the ruling government

pre-emptively suppressed revolutionary Nazis while simultaneously adopting

elements of their institutions. The German historian Ulrich Eichsstädt wrote that

Austria had already begun the path toward fascism after March 1933.119 In that

year, both Dollfuss and the Heimwehr leader Stahremberg promised Mussolini that

they would move toward fascism. Hoping to become the regime’s protector,

Mussolini encouraged Austria’s “conversion into a kind of satellite fascist state.”120

Austria’s new constitution, adopted in May 1934, was a thoroughly corporatist

118
Seton-Watson in Mosse, 365
119
Quoted in Jedlicka 1979:233
120
Payne 1995:247-9
 224

one, the second such document to be adopted in Europe (after Portugal’s charter of

1933). Parliament was replaced with a system of advisory councils composed of

seven corporate bodies. Independent political groups were outlawed; the only legal

political party was the Fatherland Front, a totalitarian government-created body

formed by Dollfuss in 1933 along “the lines of the fascist and national-socialist

parties.”121 In the following few years, Austria’s regime acquired “some of the outer

trappings of fascism common to most other dictatorships in the 1930s.”122 The

Fatherland Front organized a paramilitary group called the Frontmiliz in 1936, and

the following year created an elite militia called the Sturmkorps, modeled after

Germany’s SS. While the regime “copied from the methods used in Germany and

Italy” it was closer in form to the Catholic corporatist-authoritarian fascism of Spain

and Portugal (following the maxims of the papal encyclical Quadragesimo Anno)

rather than the militant, pagan, racist-biological variant of Nazi Germany.123 With

the Anschluss of March 1938, Austria was incorporated into the greater Third

Reich, and a number of former Heimwehr leaders were given high positions in the

SS.124

Romania

Like Hungary, Romania by the late 1930s was home to one of the largest native

fascist movements on the continent, the Legion of the Archangel Michael, also

121
Jedlicka 1979:237
122
Payne 1995:250
123
Jedlicka 1979:237-8
124
Payne 1995:250-2. Jedlicka 1979:235
 225

known as the Iron Guard. Romania was a territorial beneficiary of the Great War,

whose settlement doubled the country’s size. This expansion, however, created a

newly multiethnic state that faced enormous social and economic problems.

Divisions within the ruling Peasant Party after 1926 produced an ineffective

government that was unable to carry out reforms, and when the Depression struck,

a group of army officers engineered the return of King Carol, who had abdicated in

1925 after a series of romantic scandals. Though he promised to uphold the

constitution, Carol was an admirer of Mussolini and quickly moved to eliminate the

Peasant Party. In the following years, internal party divisions, prompted in part by

“the machinations of an increasingly authoritarian king”, created a fragmented and

unreliable political system. By 1933, in Romania as in most of its neighbors, “the

postwar democratic breakthrough seemed now to be leading toward a political

breakdown.”125

A number of philo-fascist authoritarian movements emerged in the early 1930s.

The more significant included the radically anti-Semitic National-Christian Defense

League (LANC) and the National Agrarian Party led by the poet Octavian Goga.

The National Socialist Party of Romania, founded by Colonel Stefan Tatarescu in

1932 was a direct attempt to emulate the Nazis.126 But the major new political

movement to appear after the collapse of the Peasant Party was the fascist Legion of

the Archangel Michael. It was led by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, who left the LANC

for not being sufficiently revolutionary. In 1930 the group formed a youth

125
Payne 1995:278
126
Payne 1995:279
 226

movement called the Iron Guard, and it was under this name that the group has

become more commonly known. The Legion’s leadership “had a strong sense of

affinity with (as well as differences from) the Italian and German movements and

occasionally used the term fascist to refer to themselves.”127 The Romanian version

of fascism embraced the Orthodox Church and declared it a crucial part of the

national organism, while Codreanu himself took on the role of a mystic warrior

who would lead the rebirth of Romania through spiritual and physical war. Other

than this religious component, the Legion “is generally classified as fascist because

it met the main criteria of any appropriate fascist typology,” while its leaders felt a

“common identity and partially parallel goals with other fascists.”128 The exaltation

of self-sacrifice in Codreanu’s theological heterodoxy brought it closer to secular

fascist movements. The Legion pursued the replacement of parliament with a

corporative assembly, and sought a more collective basis for the national economy.

For several years after its founding in 1927 it remained “a tiny sect, a common

experience for most fascist movements in the 1920s.”129 But 1932-33 brought

increasing Nazi influence and popular support. After the rapid growth in the Nazi

vote in Germany’s 1932 elections, links with Romania quickly increased. The 1933

elections brought a wave of intimidation and assault from the Legion, and the party

was banned by the government, its leaders arrested. But their popularity was now

growing rapidly, and Payne estimates their support at two hundred thousand votes,

127
Payne 1995:138
128
Payne 1995:280
129
Payne 1995:282
 227

which would have made them the third largest political movement in the country.

The following year the group reconstituted itself as the All for the Fatherland

movement.130

As in other states in the region, the threat of revolutionary fascism led the

moderate, semi-liberal government to move to the right. Corrupt elections gave the

government party a parliament majority, but the Romanian regime increasingly

functioned “as a controlled polity with only limited representation.”131 In the mid-

1930s, the government attempted to co-opt the Iron Guard by forming a parafascist

youth group, the Straja Tarii (Guards of the Fatherland), but its artificiality made

popular support nearly impossible. By 1936 the government gave up trying to co-

opt Codreanu and dissolved all political militias in 1936, membership in the Legion

continued to grow steadily, with over two hundred thousand members by the end

of 1937. At that point “German influence reached a new level.” Though the

Legion’s leaders noticed the differences between themselves and Nazism, they

were convinced that both their country’s and their party’s future lay with the

"national revolutions" of Hitler and Mussolini.”132

In Romania’s last elections before the war, in December 1937, the Fatherland

Front received nearly 16% of the vote, with unofficial counts at 25%, despite the

corrupt and partially manipulated elections. This result would have entitled them to

66 seats, but King Carol dissolved the parliament via a royal coup in February

130
Payne 1995:286
131
Payne 1995:284
132
Payne 1995:284-6
 228

1938.133 Other political parties were outlawed; Codreanu and his top Legionnaires

were executed. The Legion’s new leaders hoped to inflame an insurrection against

the king, but the Army’s loyalty held firm. The irony that had played out in Austria,

Hungary, the Baltics, and other places repeated itself in Romania: “the Legion,

which despised democracy, the bourgeoisie, and capitalism, required at least a

degree of bourgeois democracy to have the opportunity to build greater support

and/or to achieve power.”134

The government’s victory was short-lived, however. In September 1940 the king

appointed General Ion Antonescu to the position of prime minister, who quickly

forced the king’s resignation and assumed control. Antonescu ruled as the head of

the National Legionary State, a Legion-dominated regime in cooperation with

prime minister Antonescu. At this point the Legion became the only legal political

movement in the country, with key positions staffed by former members of the Iron

Guard. Several months later, Antonescu suppressed an attempted coup and

suppressed the movement, which became “a rump of voluble exiles squabbling

over the causes of their failure.”135 Romania formally joined the Axis alliance in

June 1941 and Antonescu continued to govern Romania until his arrest in 1944.136

133
Giovanni Capoccia (2005) Defending Democracy: Reactions to Extremism in
Interwar Europe, Johns Hopkins University Press, p.8
134
Payne 1995:289
135
Eugen Weber (1979) “The Men of the Archangel” p. 317-43 in George L. Mosse,
ed., International Fascism: New Thoughts and New Approaches, Sage Publications,
p.319
136
Cyprian Blamires, Paul Jackson (2006) World Fascism: A Historical
Encyclopedia, Vol.1, ABC-Clio, p.49
 229

Spain

For the first two decades of the twentieth century, Spain remained a feeble but

stubborn institutional monarchy, with a parliament alternating between two major

parties. Between 1909 and 1923 the country witnessed a succession of thirty-four

governments, until General Primo de Rivera took power in a coup, inaugurating a

military dictatorship that lasted for the next eight years. Lacking a clear program or

a coherent response to the onset of the Depression, the dictatorship collapsed

along with the monarchy in April 1931, resulting in the creation of the Second

Spanish Republic. It was the only new European regime to move “against the tide

of authoritarian and fascist politics” of the 1930s.137 Between 1931 and 1933 the

governing alliance of middle-class Republicans and Socialist reformers introduced

a number of controversial institutional reforms (such as the elimination of church

subsidies and the constitutionally-permitted secession of Catalonia), prompting a

conservative backlash. The election of 1933 produced a victory for the center-right,

after which disillusioned Socialists undertook an abortive insurrection in 1934. In

the elections of February 1936 a “Popular Front” of left-wing parties (including the

much-resented Marxists and anarcho-syndicalists) won a clear victory, setting the

stage for a civil war that began five months later.138

Fascist movements had been percolating in Spanish political life several years

before the war. Calvo Sotelo, the spokesman for the rightist opposition whose

137
Payne 1995:254
138
Roberts 1999:318
 230

murder triggered the start of the war, had been calling for an authoritarian

monarchy, state regulation of the economy, and the replacement of parliament

with a corporate chamber. He “admired Italian Fascism…and did not object if

critics referred to his goals as fascist.”139 But the more successful and ultimately

more durable fascist movement in Spain was the Falange Espanola (Spanish

Phalanx). Hitler’s triumph in Germany stimulated interest among right-leaning

businessmen, who “went shopping during the summer of 1933 for the leader of a

potential counterrevolutionary, demagogic Spanish fascism.” The outcome was the

emergence of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, oldest son of the former dictator. Over

the previous few years, de Rivera had shifted away from conservative monarchism

and toward Italian-style fascism, which served as “the vehicle for giving form and

ideological content to the national authoritarian regime attempted so uncertainly

by his father.”140

The Falange’s program, released at the end of 1934, called for a thoroughly

corporatist state and “exhibited all the main points of fascist doctrine”.141 De Rivera

was occasionally ambivalent about the violence associated with fascism, and

stopped designating himself as such in 1934; nevertheless, he represented a classic

case of an interwar leader who rejected the fascist label yet “never renounced the

fascist goals in [his] politics.”142

139
Payne 1995:256
140
Payne 1995:256, 259
141
Payne 1995:261
142
Payne 1995:263. As he emphasizes, despite certain unique features Spanish
 231

The outcome of the civil war led to the establishment of a nationalist military

regime headed by Francisco Franco and based on Falangist principles; its 1934

program now became official state doctrine. The choreography of Franco rallies

imitated Hitler and Mussolini, as did a number of institutions and party agencies,

such as the Auxilio de Invierno (Winterhilfe) or the Directorate of Popular Culture

(MinCulPop).143

The regime began to move away from categorical fascism as Hitler’s fortunes

began to ebb, though Payne notes that if Hitler had succeeded, “there seems little

doubt that Franquism would have become…more radical and overtly fascist in

form.”144 After 1943 it increasingly resembled “a Catholic, corporative, and

increasingly demobilized authoritarian regime.”145 By the 1960s it resembled less a

fascist state and more “an old-fashioned military dictatorship with bureaucratic and

capitalist support.”146

Portugal

Early interwar politics in Portugal were dominated by a series of attempted

coups that succeeded in establishing a rightist authoritarian regime by the military

in 1926. Dr. Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, a corporatist economist, became prime

minister in 1932, four years after the military dictatorship installed him as finance

Falangism shared “nearly all the general qualities and characteristics that would
compose an inventory of generic fascism.” Payne 1995:261
143
Payne 1995:267
144
Payne 1995:267
145
Payne 1995:267
146
Seton-Watson in Mosse 1979: 365
 232

minister. He remained in office until 1968, after a stroke led to his retirement.

Salazar introduced a corporative constitution in 1932, creating a chamber to

represent economic interests. A directly elected national assembly was also put in

place, with regular elections that were carefully controlled by the state.

This sort of moderation frustrated the more radical elements in Portuguese

politics, who formed a movement called Portuguese National Syndicalism in 1932.

The Syndicalists (also known as the Blue Shirts from their adopted uniform)

identified themselves with fascism and experienced a rapid growth in popularity

after the Nazis ascent to power in 1933. In that same year, Salazar began his Estado

Novo (New State) project, modeled after Mussolini’s Italy. He attempted to

eliminate the Blue Shirts through a combination of coercion and co-option. He

created his own student youth movement, the Accao Escolar Vanguarda (Student

Action Vanguard, or AEV), closed the Blue Shirt newspaper offices and removed

their leaders from government positions. At the same time, its moderate members

were invited to join the regime, where for the rest of the decade they “constituted a

sort of de facto fascistic pressure group within the state syndical system).”147 By

1934 Salazar had succeeded in splitting the movement, and it was officially

dissolved later in the year. Its remnants attempted a failed revolt against the regime

in 1935, which led to arrests and general suppression of the movement.

As in Austria, Hungary, and Romania, the governing regime outflanked a

takeover by fascist radicals by adopting fascist institutions. By the mid-1930s,

147
Payne 1995:315
 233

Salazar “indicated a willingness to consider a few of the trappings of fascism”; the

civil war that began in 1936 “carried his Estado Novo a little further in that

direction.”148 Wartime radicalization led to the establishment of a youth movement

and a paramilitary auxiliary, which both used the Nazi salute. Some scholars have

argued that Salazar’s regime cannot be considered truly fascist because it avoided

marches, rallies, and mass mobilization in general. But as David Raby argues, “this,

in a sense, can be seen as the other side of the coin of fascism” – fascist regimes

pursued intense mobilization when they faced a real threat from the radical left or

were preparing for a mass wartime effort – neither of which applied to the Salzar

regime.149 The Estado Novo persisted in an increasingly deteriorating form until a

bloodless coup in 1974 paved the way toward Portuguese democracy.

Greece

Between 1917 and 1936 Greece was “more similar to a Latin American country

than to anything else in Europe,” alternating between short-lived civilian and

military governments.150 This instability stemmed from the persistent polarization

between conservative monarchism and liberal republicanism. The restoration of the

monarchy in 1936 began a period of intensified discord, and after the main parties

failed to reach an agreement the king appointed as prime minster the nationalist,

148
Payne 1995:316
149
David L. Raby (1991) Fascism and Resistance in Portugal: Communists, Liberals
and Military Dissidents in the Opposition to Salazar, 1941-1974, Manchester
University Press, p.4
150
Payne 1995:318
 234

authoritarian General Ioannis Metaxas, who established a dictatorship in April

1936.151 Metaxas had not been popular – his party had received only 3% of the

votes in a national election three months earlier. His appointment led to a series of

strikes that Metaxas used to issue an emergency decree and seize absolute power.

He abolished parliament and proclaimed a “New State” in its place. Political

parties were abolished; trade unions came under state control and a corporative

structure was introduced, complete with price controls and extensive economic

regulations. The economic reforms also included a number of social welfare

measures, including unemployment insurance, minimum wages and limited work

hours, maternity leave, and stricter work safety standards. In November 1936,

Metaxas also created a mass youth movement called the National Youth

Organization (EON). His regime employed the fascist salute and occasionally

described itself as totalitarian (although it differed from traditional fascism in

lacking mass mobilization, and Metaxas told a British official that Salazar’s Portugal

rather than Nazi Germany provided the closest model for emulation). Nevertheless,

Metaxas aspired to join the nationalist, anti-liberal wave of the period, loosening

ties with Britain while moving closer to Italy and Germany.152 Nevertheless, Hitler

proceeded to invade Greece in April 1941 after a failed Italian offensive.

Finland

Fascist expression in Finland took the form of the Lapua movement, founded in

151
Capoccia 2005:8
152
Payne 1995:319-20
 235

1929.153 This was a religious, anti-communist, anti-democratic movement that

called for a more nationalist, pious, and authoritarian state, and a restructuring of

the economy along corporatist lines. It employed political violence against

opponents as a way to destroy communism by any means necessary. Between

1929 and 1932, Lapua had an “enormous impact on the choices and strategies of

the governmental parties.”154 It pressed the cabinet and the parliament to pass anti-

Communist legislation, and succeeded when communist groups were disbanded in

1930. Lapua then moved on to attacking the more centrist Social Democratic party,

and in its 1932 Tampere program declared itself ready to use violence to achieve

this goal. While it did not compete in elections, it exerted a strong influence on the

country’s main conservative party, the National Coalition (NC). The NC, a founding

party of the Finnish republic, had always displayed a hesitant attitude toward

parliamentary democracy and were enthusiastic supporters of Lapua’s goals. This

support continued even while all other conservative parties distanced themselves

from Lapua after its turn against the Social Democrats. As a result, between 1929

and 1932 Lapua had “a substantial impact on Finnish democratic institutions from

within, and more specifically on party interplay in parliament.”155

The party was banned after a failed 1932 coup, but quickly reorganized itself as

the People’s Patriotic Movement (IKL), which was similarly nationalist and anti-

153
Its precursor, the anti-Bolshevik Academic Karelia Society, never had more than
a few thousand members. (Payne 1995:311) As in many countries, it took the Great
Depression and the rise of Nazi Germany to bolster a sizeable fascist following.
154
Capoccia 2005:43
155
Capoccia 2005:44
 236

democratic. IKL modeled itself directly after Nazis, taking as its core tenet the idea

of kansakokoinasuus, a literal translation of the German Volksgemeinschaft. IKL

advocated the banning of political parties; individual freedoms and class interests

would be replaced by a powerful central authority and subsumed into the organic

body of the nation as a whole. Political representation would continue through a

corporatist system rather than electoral democracy. IKL members wore military

uniforms and had a youth organization modeled after the Jugend, but were careful

to avoid political violence due to the very real risk of a government ban.156

At its peak in the 1936 elections the IKL received 8.3 percent of the vote, but

was never able to achieve mass popularity; by the end of the decade its vote

percentage remained at 6.6%.157 Like its Lapua predecessor, however, IKL

exercised a disproportionate influence on party politics through the National

Coalition. In fact, it went further than Lapua in actually taking control of the NC

shortly after its creation in 1932; the NC did not return to classical pro-

parliamentary conservatism until 1935. Until then, the IKL’s influence “went well

beyond what its own parliamentary representation…would have allowed.”158

Poland

In Poland, a center-right regime dominated by Josef Pilsudski persisted until his

death in 1935. Pilsudksi had taken power in a 1926 coup after a period of

156
Capoccia 2005:45
157
Payne 1995:311-2. Capoccia 2005:45 puts the peak figure at 7 percent.
158
Capoccia 2005:46
 237

hyperinflation and short-lived coalition governments, but never intended to

establish a full dictatorship. In 1928 he founded the the Nonparty Bloc for the

Support of the Government, an umbrella organization that won a plurality of the

vote in that year’s semi-free elections.159

Like other multinational countries of the period, Poland experienced a growth

in minority nationalist movements that displayed protofascist features. In the east,

the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), formed in 1929, preached the

need for political violence and a strong central leader. Its moderate members

looked to Mussolini as a model, while the more radical (usually younger) members

were influenced by Nazism.160 The OUN received material support from Germany,

although extensive cooperation was precluded by the Nazis’ racial views of

Ukrainians. The other significant fascist organization of the period was the Polish

Falanga. Formed in 1935, the group advocated a catholic totalitarianism based on

the Spanish model from which it took its name and influenced by the political

theology of Romania’s Codreanu. The movement advocated the “radical

subordination of the economy to a program of national socialism.”161

After Pilsudki’s death in 1935, the government was controlled by the so-called

“Colonels” - members of the Polish army and Pilsudski allies who emphasized

authoritarianism and state control over the economy. Political repression increased,

159
Payne 1995:321
160
Paul Robert Magocsi (1996) A History of Ukraine, University of Toronto Press, p.
621
161
Payne 1995:322
 238

especially toward ethnic minorities. The 1935 constitution gave the president

increased powers while limiting the role of parliament. While direct elections were

maintained, that year the opposition parties boycotted the regime. Meanwhile,

government investment in the economy quickly increased - by the end of the

decade the state owned 40% of the country’s banking capital and 20% of the

industrial capital.162

In 1937 the Colonels constructed another national unity party to replace BBWR,

called the Camp of National Unity (OZN), a “crypto-fascist government party” that

attracted nationalists and university students with its program of clericalism, anti-

Semitism, and nationalism.163 Colonel Adam Koc, placed in charge of building this

party, was impressed by the Falanga and placed one of its leaders in charge of the

League of Young Poland, OZN’s youth section. OZN also began to advocate a

corporate authoritarian regime, but its increasing radicalism (which by 1937

included the call for a one-party state and purge of opposition leaders) displeased

some of the moderate Colonels, who forced Koc’s resignation and ended OZN’s

ties with Falanga in early 1938.164

The Baltics

In Lithuania, the main fascist movement was the Iron Wolf Association, the

radical wing of the nationalist Tautinninkai movement. Tautinninkai’s leader,

162
Payne 1995:322
163
Paul N. Hehn (2002) A low dishonest decade: the great powers, Eastern Europe,
and the economic origins of World War II, 1930-1941, Continuum, p.65
164
Payne 1995:322
 239

Augustinas Voldemaras, was appointed prime minister in 1926, when a military

coup brought to power president Antanas Smetona of the more moderate National

Christian Democratic Party. After 1931 Smetona tried to co-opt the Wolves by

nudging the government in an authoritarian direction and giving Tautinninkai

increased power. But in 1934 Voldemaras and Iron Wolf members attempted an

insurrection, leading to increased efforts at co-optation by Smetona. A new 1936

constitution introduced a corporatist reorganization of the economy and strong

presidential controls; Tautinninkai was given “a virtual monopoly” on political

organization.165 The Iron Wolves had been suppressed, but as in other European

cases, the state had achieved this only by adopting some of the institutional reforms

they had advocated.

Like Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia managed to avoid fascism through pre-

emptive authoritarianism that co-opted the corporatist features of fascist regimes. In

Estonia, the elected president Konstantin Pats seized power in 1934 after an

authoritarian-nationalist movement called the Estonian War of Independence

Veterans League (EVL, a paramilitary holdover from the 1917-8 war with the USSR)

won absolute majorities in major cities. Pats assumed emergency powers,

disbanded the EVL and arrested its leaders. The following year political parties

were replaced by a National Association, and the government introduced a number

of corporatist institutions such as the Chamber of Labour, which took over the

165
Payne 1995:323-4
 240

functions of the labor unions, curtailed since 1934.166 After 1938 Estonia managed

a partial return to democracy with a new constitution that limited presidential

power and restored some civil liberties.167

Likewise in Latvia, prime minister Karlis Ulmanis seized power in 1934,

ostensibly to prevent a coup by the Thunder Cross, a fascist movement formed in

the previous year. Ulmanis. Political parties were outlawed and opposition

newspapers ordered to shut down. Like Pats, Ulmanis introduced corporatist

institutions based on the fascist model in Italy, but did not pursue the partial re-

liberalization that occurred in Estonia.168 Both regimes, which Georg von Rauch

called “authoritarian democracies,” enjoyed popular support and maintained a

high level of economic growth; according to Payne, “their preemptive strategies

may indeed have averted worse ills,” but they did so through adapting the

corporatist features of the fascist economy.169

Yugoslavia

In Yugoslavia, King Alexander established a personal dictatorship in early 1929,

dissolving the parliament and abolishing the constitution. After his assassination in

1934, the country returned to a semi-parliamentary regime under monarchist

regency. Milan Stojadinovic, prime minister from 1935 to 1939, made an attempt

166
Georg von Rauch (1974) The Baltic States: the years of independence: Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, 1917-1940, University of California Press, p.155
167
Payne 1995:324
168
Rauch 1974:155
169
Rauch 1974:154; Payne 1995:325
 241

at authoritarian mass mobilization by forming the Yugoslav Radical Union in 1935.

Its members wore green shirts and called Stojadinovic “Vodja”, or “Leader”. In

1938 he assured Galeazzo Ciano, the Italian foreign minister, that his movement

would develop along the lines of Italian fascism, although in general he tried to

pursue a policy of neutrality.170

A number of nationalist groups operated in Yugoslavia in the 1930s, most of

them catering to the specific interests of Serbs, Croats, or Slovenes (although a few

attempted to promulgate a general Yugoslavian nationalism). Of these, the most

radical group was Yugoslav Action, which called for a state-directed economy and

authoritarian corporatism. It grew increasingly radical, was repressed by the

government in 1934, and reconstituted itself the following year as Zbor

(Convention). Like its predecessor, Zbor preached nationalism and corporatism, but

received only about one percent of the vote in both the 1935 and 1938 elections.

By the end of the decade it developed contacts with Nazi Germany, attempted

several insurrections, and was again suppressed by the government at the end of

1940.171

The most protofascist and consequential of the Yugoslav nationalist groups was

the Ustasha (Insurgent) movement of radical Croat nationalists, formed in 1929. In

partnership with Macedonian terrorists, the group was responsible for the

assassination of King Alexander in 1934. It wished for an independent and

authoritarian Croatia, and during the 1930s “developed increasingly ambitious

170
Payne 1995:325
171
Payne 1995:325-6
 242

goals and protofascist characteristics”. Like Zbor, the movement was repressed by

the Yugoslav government, but after the German takeover in 1941 it was given the

reigns of power in Croatia and developed “into one of the most destructive of all

the fascist-type movements.”172

Bulgaria

In postwar Bulgaria politics were dominated by the peaceful Agrarian

movement until its overthrow by a military revolt in 1923. Until 1934, the country

“lived under a nineteenth-century-style oligarchic parliamentary regime” in which

land distribution promoted internal stability.173 That year, a radical right-wing group

of military officers called Zveno (the Link) took power in a short-lived coup, but

were soon thrown out by the royalists, who inaugurated “a controlled but still semi-

pluralist parliamentary regime” that lasted until the death of King Boris in 1943.174

Bulgarian fascist movements included the Nationalist Fascist Zadruga, the

Bulgarian National Socialist Party, and the Bulgarian National Legions. But the only

fascist group to achieve any measure of popularity was the Ratnitsi (Warriors), a

quasi-military youth organization founded in 1936 and dissolved by King Boris in

1939. Although the king moved to suppress both the Communists and the radical

right, the rapid rise and menacing territorial ambitions of Nazi Germany forced him

172
Payne 1995:325, 326
173
Payne 1995:326
174
Payne 1995:327
 243

to adopt a pro-German foreign policy by the end of the decade.175 In Bulgaria as

elsewhere, a fascist movement was suppressed by an initially moderate

authoritarian regime, but at the price of moving further to the right. Restrictions on

Jewish economic activity appeared in 1939. When the Iron Guard took control of

Romania the following year and instituted a number of anti-Jewish measures, the

Bulgarian government adopted the Law of the Defense of the Nation, “so as not to

be behind Rumania in the expression of loyalty to Hitler,” wrote socialist politician

Dino Kazasov in scornful opposition.176 After early Nazi military victories in

Europe, King Boris took to calling himself Vozhd (Leader) in imitation of the Fuhrer.

All in all, the country was “unable to create an original and effective ideology that

could mobilize the people, and had instead committed itself to following the fascist

patterns more closely.”177

Minor European Movements

Ireland

The new Irish Republic lacked a real fascist movement. One contender was the

National Guard, a group formed in 1932, but this was “essentially a chowder and

marching society pressure group that never went beyond a moderately

authoritarian corporatism” and was quickly co-opted by the conservative party.178

175
Payne 1995:327
176
Quoted in Marshall Lee Miller (1975) Bulgaria During the Second World War,
Stanford University Press, p.94-5
177
Miller 1975:92
178
Payne 1995:306
 244

In 1935 General Eoin o'Duffy, a former national police chief, founded the National

Corporate Party (NCP, aka the Blueshirts) that was modeled more explicitly along

Nazi lines. The NCP tried to establish links with continental fascists and even sent a

pro-Nationalist battalion to fight in the Spanish civil war. For a time it even

attracted the support of W.B. Yeats, who wrote a series of marching songs for the

group.179 But the party never developed a durable following, and disappeared after

o’Duffy’s retirement from political life in 1937.

Switzerland

Switzerland had three philofascist movements, one for each of the country’s

ethnic group: the Union Nationale for French speakers, the Lega Nazionale

Ticinese for Italian speakers, and the National Front for German speakers. Of these,

the latter was the most genuinely fascist, although it remained small. Its stronghold

was the Schaffhausen district, where the party received 27 and 12.2 percent of the

vote in 1933 and 1935, respectively (in 1935 it succeeded in electing a deputy to

the Swiss National Council, the only time it was able to do so).180 Switzerland was

officially neutral during the war, but remained friendly toward Germany and

accepted German loot.

Denmark

Denmark never developed a popular fascist movement, although a Danish

National Socialist Workers Party (DNSAP), modeled on Nazism, appeared in 1930.

179
Cyprian Blamires, Paul Jackson (2006) World Fascism: A Historical
Encyclopedia, Vol.1, ABC-Clio, p.344
180
Payne 1995:309
 245

Despite internal disputes, the party received 1.8 percent of the vote and three

parliament seats in the 1939 elections.181 Denmark did not join the fascist wave

until the Nazi takeover in April 1940.

Netherlands

The main Dutch fascist movement was the National Socialist Movement (NSB),

founded in 1931. It developed “the full panoply of fascism, with elaborate rituals

and a party militia,” but rejected racism and welcomed Dutch Jews into the party.

“It proposed a corporate economic system and upheld freedom of religion as a

Dutch national principle. The NSB was able to take advantage of the depression to

gain nearly 8 percent of the vote in the Dutch provincial elections of 1935, the

largest vote for a new party in Holland under universal suffrage.”182

After this high point, the group began to acquire more fascist elements and its

popularity went into decline. “Conservative supporters were alienated, while the

democratic Dutch parties banded together to block any further growth. As

economic conditions improved, the NSB went into steady decline, gaining only 4.2

percent of the vote in the national elections of 1937 and losing most of that in the

provincial elections two years later.”183

Iceland

Since Iceland’s economy depended almost entirely on fish exports, the decline

181
Payne 1995:307-8
182
Payne 1995:302
183
Payne 1995:302
 246

of export prices brought about severe unemployment and social disruption. The

Icelandic Nationalist Movement (INM), the country’s fascist party, saw itself as the

solution to these problems. Established in 1933, it published a party platform that

showed unambiguous Nazi influence. The INM demanded a powerful state to

maintain order, protection of national health through racial selection and breeding,

end of class warfare, compulsory labor duty for all citizens, and, above all, the

elevation of the national interest above individual or group needs. Other political

parties would be abolished, with the Icelandic Communist Party (founded in 1930)

as its main target. The Allting, the country’s national parliament, would likewise be

dissolved and replaced by a corporate state. This state would then provide full

employment through industrial subsidies and loans and ensure a decent standard of

living for each citizen. The INM used the swastika as its emblem, and its members

frequently expressed their admiration for Hitler, “the poor common man who

rescued Germany from her enemies.”184

Despite the country’s economic problems, the INM failed to attract many

followers. It received only 0.7 percent of the vote in 1934 (proportionally much

less than even its Danish and Norwegian counterparts) and failed to gain a single

seat. By 1937 it did not even bother to participate in elections; its quasi-military

marching squad made their final appearance in May 1938, and in that year the

184
Asgeir Gudmundsson (1980) “Nazism in Iceland” in Stein Ugelvik Larsen, Bernt
Hagtvet, and Jan Petter Myklebust, eds., Who Were the Fascists: Social Roots of
European Fascism, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, p. 743-5
 247

party’s official propaganda outlet was published only three times.185

Norway

Vidkun Quisling's Nasjonal Samling (National Unity) party in Norway, founded

in 1933, was “by far the most important of the Scandinavian proto-Nazi

movements.”186 It had a party militia, called the Hird, and called for a corporative

system. The party received 2.2 and 1.8 percent of the vote in the 1933 and 1936

elections, respectively. Throughout the decade it grew closer to Germany, which

provided the party with financial support.187 Norway became part of the coercive

phase of the fascist wave in April 1940, whereupon it remained a Nazi puppet

regime until May 1945.

Belgium

“If I had a son,” Adolf Hitler told Leon Degrelle, the founder and leader of

Belgian Rexism, “I would wish him to be like you.”188 The Rexists represented the

major expression of fascism in interwar Belgium. Degrelle became disenchanted

with the moderation of Belgian Catholicism, founding Christus Rex in 1935. It was

a corporatist, authoritarian, and Catholic movement. As in other fascist movements,

both communists and finance capitalists were its sworn enemies. Financial

capitalism would be tamed, central banks tightly controlled; class solidarity would

185
Gudmundsson (1980) in Larsen, ed., p. 749; Payne 1995:308
186
Payne 1995:308
187
Payne 1995:308
188
Quoted in Pierre-Henri Laurent (1979) “Belgian Rexism and Léon Degrelle” p.
295-315 in George L. Mosse, ed., International Fascism: New Thoughts and New
Approaches, Sage Publications, p.295
 248

be established via corporatist order founded on traditional Catholic values. Political

parties, which had led to factionalism and corruption, would be outlawed;

parliament’s functions would be severely curtailed and executive power

strengthened. The Rexists advocated support for the middle and working classes

and small businesses, and the establishment of new industries to fight

unemployment.189

Degrelle’s rhetoric was “its most fascistic characteristic…heavily male, bluntly

frank and openly provocative.”190 His leadership led the movement to an early

electoral success - in the 1936 elections his party “stunned the Belgian electorate”

by winning 37 (of 202) parliamentary seats.191 This included about a third of all

right-wing votes and a quarter of the votes in the Walloon cantons (its main source

of support) and Brussels.192 This success was short-lived, however. The following

year, an overly confident Degrelle lost his bid for prime minister by a humiliating

margin. The movement never regained its previous popularity; the multi-ethnic

nature of the Begian state precluded a national following, since Flemish nationalists

drained off right-wing support. After 1936 Rexism moved increasingly toward

fascism and received substantial foreign subsidies from Hitler and Mussoini;

Degrelle visited Hitler and Germany and expressed support for the conservatives in

the Spanish civil war. By 1940 Degrelle was an active Nazi collaborator and led a

189
Capoccia 2005:41
190
Laurent 1979:309
191
Brustein and Berntson 1999:159
192
Laurent 1979:297
 249

volunteer brigade (the Volksführer de la Belgique) on the Eastern front.193

Fascist Influence in Asia

Japan represents the most familiar instance of non-European fascism, although

scholars continue to debate whether the regime was truly fascist or simply a

developmental dictatorship forged by emergency wartime expedients, some of

which were fascist in nature. Gregory Kasza, a historian of Japanese

authoritarianism, argued that “both the similarities and the differences” between

European and Japanese fascism were “substantial, and whatever conceptual

apparatus is employed, it should not lose sight of either.”194 One distinguishing

characteristic of Japanese fascism, Kasza points out, is its inversion of goals.

Whereas in Europe fascism’s significance was first as a political movement, second

as an ideology, and third as an institutional regime, in Japan this equation was

reversed – fascism, and particularly imitation of German institutions, shaped the

country’s institutions to a much greater degree than its political movements or

political thought. Given the institutional focus of my approach, and the instances of

direct institutional emulation discussed below, it seems appropriate to safely add

Japan to the roster of interwar fascist regimes and fascist imitators.

Japan had greatly profited from World War I, when Allied munition contracts,

demands for Japanese shipping, and the opening of markets previously accessible

only to Western colonial powers combined to give the country a rapid boost of
193
Laurent 1979:295
194
G.J. Kasza (1984) “Fascism from below? A Comparative Perspective on the
Japanese Right, 1931-1936” Journal of Contemporary History 19.4, p.607-27
 250

industrialization.195 But after a period of democracy in the 1920s, Japan began on a

steady path toward authoritarianism sparked by the Depression and the

concomitant rise of nationalism. The Depression had led to the collapse of silk

exports, and millions of farmers suffered from the decline in demand for their

goods. Manufacturing was also affected, and by 1932 half of Japanese factories

stood idle; working-class living standards fell accordingly.196 Nationalist groups

proliferated - Lebow estimates their number at 750 by 1936.197 Like their European

counterparts, Japanese intellectuals began to desert democratic principles in favor

of a fascist solution. “These intellectuals were drawn to European fascist ideas

because of their repugnance for contemporary party politics and the free market

economy”, wrote Richard Ned Lebow. “They imagined that fascism would be more

efficient, avoid debilitating clashes between unions and companies and strengthen

Japan internationally.”198 Japanese theorist of fascism Nakano Seigo argued that

democracy had “lost its spirit and decayed into a mechanism which insists only on

numerical superiority without considering the essence of human beings," insisting

that the Italian and German models offered “a form of more democratic

government going beyond democracy.”199

In 1931, a group of right radical army officers called the Land-Loving School

195
Kennedy 1987:299
196
Roberts 1999:358
197
Richard Ned Lebow (2008) A Cultural Theory of International Relations,
Cambridge University Press, p.406
198
Lebow 2008:406
199
Nakano Seigo (1995) "The Need for a Totalitarian Japan" in Roger Griffin, ed.,
Fascism, Oxford University Press. p.239
 251

launched a wave of assassinations, hoping to trigger the collapse of what they saw

as a corrupt state that was abandoning traditional Japanese principles. Though

quickly repressed, this marked the beginning of the destabilization of Japanese

democracy. Nationalism and militarism gained ground; parliamentary leadership

was replaced by “national governments” ruling in coalitions.200

After the 1936 assassination of Korekiyo Takahashi, a respected finance minister

who rallied against imperial expansion, the militant nationalists’ hold on political

and economic power was secure, and “the Japanese government took on many

fascist features”201 Remaining democratic elements of the system were discarded,

and the state began pursuing a policy of rapid industrialization and the

consolidation of large-scale industry and finance.202 The beginning of full-scale war

with China in 1937 was the last nail in democracy’s coffin. State authority was

rapidly expanded; the National Mobilization Law of 1938 gave it unprecedented

control over the economy and society.203 Thus, unlike its Italian or German

counterparts, Japanese fascism did not sweep into power via a mass movement;

instead, it was adopted by the state “from above”, and imposed upon the country

by the “existing political forces, military organizations and the bureaucracy.”204

Just as Prussia had served as a model of military reform after the Meiji

restoration, Nazi Germany was “a major inspiration to Japanese bureaucrats and

200
Payne 1995:332
201
Frieden 2006:214
202
Frieden 2006:215
203
Payne 1995:333
204
Lebow 2008:407
 252

ideologues” who wanted to regulate the economy and eliminate autonomous

interest groups. Japanese trade associations were structured after German state

cartels, as was the state women’s association, the state youth organization, and the

state agricultural association. The German Ministry of Propaganda also provided a

direct model for the Japanese Cabinet Information Bureau.205

China

Chinese fascism was spurred by the Japanese invasion of 1931, which led to the

emergence of several nationalist groups. The most prominent of these were the

Blue Shirts (aka the Kai-tsu P’ai faction), who can be described as the fascist wing

of Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT), a populist movement that governed China

for most of the interwar period. Created in 1932, the Kai-tsu P’ai were originally a

left-wing group but came to admire Nazi economic and social policies. They

sought to mobilize nationalist sentiment and accelerate the country’s

industrialization, and thus they “admired European fascism and were influenced by

it”.206 A Blue Shirt newspaper in 1933 welcomed Hitler’s rise to power,

characterizing it as a response to international oppression and predicting (mostly

correctly, as it turned out) the spread of fascism across the entirety of Europe.207 In

1936 their leader, Wang Jingwei, visited Germany and upon his return wrote that

205
Payne 1995:335
206
Payne 1995:337-8
207
William C. Kirby (2001) “China” in Stein Ugelvik Larsen, ed., Fascism Outside
Europe: The European Impulse against Domestic Conditions in the Diffusion of
Global Fascism, Boulder: Social Science Monographs, p.247
 253

fascist states “have already expanded their national vitality and augmented their

people's strength, and are no longer afraid of foreign aggression.”208 Another

leading spokesman for the group argued in 1937 that "Whatever we may think

about fascist and Nazi methods and policies, we must recognize the fact that their

leaders have secured the enthuisiastic support of their respective nations, and while

these regimes may have done "foolish, unwise, and even cruel things," Hitler and

Mussolini had done “more in a few years than many countries have done in

decades.”209 These sentiments found support among the general public - as early as

1933 a newspaper editorial argued that “fascism is the only tool of self-salvation of

nations on the brink of destruction…China cannot but imitate the fascist spirit

of…Italy and Germany.”210 The Nazis’ organic view of the nation fit nicely with

Chinese political tradition; as the Chinese newspaper People’s Tribune stated in

1936, the country’s leadership ought to “do very much the same sort of work as has

been achieved by Hitler” in terms of subordinating individualism to the communal

interest of the nation.211 In 1937 the group helped mobilize resistance to the

Japanese invasion of the mainland, but were soon dissolved by Chiang, who saw

them as potential rivals.212

208
Quoted in Kirby (2001:255) in Larsen, ed.
209
Quoted in Kirby (2001:255) in Larsen, ed.
210
Quoted in Kirby (2001:246) in Larsen, ed.
211
Quoted in Kirby (2001:256) in Larsen, ed.
212
Payne 1995:337
 254

Fascist Influence in the Middle East

Radical Arab nationalists of the 1930s “were at least as much influenced by

European fascism as movements in any other part of the world.”213 This was

strongly encouraged by both Germany and Italy as a way to expand fascist

influence in a region sympathetic to both anti-Semitism and western anti-

colonialism. Mussolini presented himself, ludicrously but sometimes successfully,

as a “defender of Islam” in Libya, where a Libyan Arab Fascist Party had

emerged.214 Both German and Italian propaganda machines were active in the Arab

world. In Payne’s view, “European fascism was taken more seriously in the Middle

East than anywhere else in the world” save for Japan, South Africa, and Bolivia.215

In Saudi Arabia, King Abdul Aziz sought and received German arms and contacts.

Syrian and Iraqi delegations attended Nurenberg party congresses. Mein Kampf was

published in several Arabic translations.216 At least seven different “shirt

movements” appeared in the region by the end of the decade (white in Iraq, tan in

Lebanon, blue and green in Egypt, and white, gray and iron in Syria). The three

most prominent movements in the region inspired by fascism were Syria’s Socialist

Nationalist Party, Iraq’s Futuwa movement, and the Young Egypt movement. All

213
Payne 1995:352; see also Lukasz Hirszowicz (1966) The Third Reich and the
Arab East, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Pubs
214
Payne 1995:352
215
Payne 1995:353; this influence proved to be more durable in that region than in
any other. By the 1980s “the regimes of Gadhafi in Libya and of Saddam Hussein
in Iraq would have more characteristics of a classic fascist regime than any others
in the world.” Payne 1995:353
216
Payne 1995:352
 255

three believed in their nation’s superiority; all three stressed self-sacrifice, martial

virtues, and territorial expansion; all three praised both German Nazism and Italian

Fascism.217

Syria and Palestine

Interwar Syria saw a flowering of radical pro-fascist youth groups like the Syrian

Socialist Nationalist Party (PPS) and the Iron Shirts. The PPS, founded in 1932, was

a true anti-system party, rejecting parliamentarism in all forms and advocating

totalitarianism with a strong leader at the helm. The party adopted the Hitler salute,

a curved swastika (zawba’a) as their symbol, and even sang their anthem to the

tune of "Deutschland über alles”.218 It’s worth noting that while the party’s founder,

Antun Saadeh, professed admiration for Hitler, he argued that his was not a fascist

organization. In a 1935 speech he proclaimed “The Syrian Social Nationalist Party

is neither a Hitlerite nor a Fascist one, but a pure social nationalist one. It is not

based on useless imitation, but is the result of an authentic invention.”219 Of course

such rejection was incompatible with the party’s explicit adoption of Nazi

symbolism, organizational methods, and political program. But like many of his

contemporaries, Saadeh was motivated by two related needs - appealing to their

217
Payne 1995:352. See also E. Marston (1959) "Fascist Tendencies in Pre-War
Arab Politics: A Study of Three Arab Political Movements," Middle East Forum,
35:19-35. Martin Kramer (1986) "Congresses of Collaboration: Islam and the Axis,
1938-1945" in Islam Assembled: The Advent of the Muslim Congresses, p.157-165
218
Daniel Pipes (1992) Greater Syria, Oxford University Press, p.100-101; Ehud
Yaari (1987) “Behind the Terror” Atlantic Monthly, June 1987.
219
Quoted in Gotz Nordbruch (2009) Nazism in Syria and Lebanon: the
ambivalence of the German option, 1933-1945, Taylor & Francis, p.45
 256

natural constituencies by shedding foreign links, and avoiding being portrayed as a

tool of foreign influence, which would lead to attacks from the country’s traditional

conservatives. Where fascist parties were banned by the country’s rulers, foreign

infiltration was usually the pretext.

In Palestine, pro-Nazi activity centered around Mufti aI-Hajj Amin al-Husayni,

who founded the Palestinian national movement and supported the 1941 coup in

Iraq. Amin al-Husayni fled to Nazi Germany and “actively assisted” the German

war effort.220 In nearby Lebanon, the political leader Pierre Gemayel founded the

Kataeb Party in 1936 after being inspired by the order and discipline of German

political life, which he witnessed first-hand during that year’s Olympic games.221

The country’s Tan Shirts (whose outfits were, confusingly, white, according to some

accounts) were also influenced by fascist ideology and organizational

techniques.222

Iraq

In interwar Iraq, political conflict centered around the rivalry of the pro-British

Hashemite group and a number of pro-fascist movements such as the White Shirts,

who viewed Nazi Germany as the sole power capable of challenging British

colonial rule in the region. This view was particularly strong among the Iraqi

220
Israel Gershoni and James Jankowski (2009) Confronting Fascism in Egypt:
Dictatorship versus Democracy in the 1930s, Stanford University Press, p.274
221
Robert Fisk (1990) Pity the Nation: The abduction of Lebanon. New York:
Nation Books, p.65
222
Gershoni and Jankowski 2009:273-4, see also fn2 p. 321
 257

military elite, culminating in the pro-Nazi coup of April 1941. Even before the

takeover, the country’s radical youth movement al-Futuwwa was explicitly based

on Hitler’s Jugend.223 In 1938 the movement sent a representative to the Nurenberg

Nazi rally, and soon after hosted the Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach.

Leading Iraqi intellectuals like Sami Shawkat praised the success of martial

patriotism instilled among the German youth; Shawkat himself advocated violence

as a means to Arab unity, and was a leading force in al-Futuwwa. The pan-Arabic

al-Muthanna club in Baghdad hosted speeches that praised fascist ideology and

institutions. In June 1941, members of al-Muthanna, together with al-Futuwwa,

staged a pogrom in Baghdad that killed approximately 180 of its Jewish residents.

Throughout this period, Germany made a concerted propaganda push among Iraqi

outlets; Germany’s representatives had direct contacts with three of the country’s

major newspapers, while two others subscribed to a German news agency.224

The Iraqi regime itself established close ties with Nazi Germany; Rashi Ali al-

Gailani, the country’s prime minister between 1933-35 and again in 1940, was the

country’s leading advocate for rapprochement with fascism and staffed his cabinets

with extreme nationalists. In his first term as prime minister he undertook an

223
A British report from 1946 documented the reorganization of the al-Futuwwa
along the lines of its German counterpart. See Matthew Elliot (1996) Independent
Iraq: The Monarchy and British Influence, 1941-1958, London: I.B. Tauris, p.46
224
Orit Bashkin (2008) The other Iraq: pluralism and culture in Hashemite Iraq,
Stanford University Press, p.58. For overviews of Nazi influence in Iraq, from
which I have drawn for the above, see also Robert Lewis Melka (1966) The Axis
and the Arab Middle East: 1930-1945, University of Minnesota, p. 62; Walter
Laquer (1956) Communism and nationalism in the Middle East, Praeger, p.179;
Phoebe Marr (1985) "The Development of Nationalist Ideology in Iraq, 1921-1941"
The Muslim World 75.2:85-101
 258

intense campaign of pan-Arab nationalization; in 1940 he attempted to establish

direct links with Nazi Germany via Italian intermediaries. By this point Great

Britain was concerned about al-Gailani strong anti-British views, threatened trade

sanctions, and forced him to resigned in early 1941, although he recaptured power

in a coup only two months later. Germany was now providing direct material

support to his regime, leading the British to invade.225

Iran

Reza Shah’s regime in Iran shared numerous similarities with European fascism.

Dubbed “the Mussolini of Islam” by the home press, he welcomed Hitler’s rise to

power and undertook a wide-sweeping campaign of nationalization in 1935,

changing the country’s name from Persia to Iran - “Land of the Aryans”. He praised

the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1936, and the country witnessed sporadic pogroms in

1938. In 1936 the Germany finance minister Hjalmar Schacht made a state visit,

followed by the leader of the German youth movement the following year, which

resulted in an exchange program between the Hitler youth and its Iranian

counterpart. As the country began moving into the German economic sphere,

relations with the previously dominant Britain quickly deteriorated. In 1937 Iran,

along with Turkey and Afghanistan, signed the Saadabad Friendship Pact, which

gave Germany preferential treatment in trade and access to Iranian raw materials;

Iran in turn received German credits, trade concessions and (beginning in 1938)

225
Cyprian Blamires, Paul Jackson (2006) World Fascism: A Historical
Encyclopedia, Vol.1, ABC-Clio, p.343
 259

weapons and military planes. A secret agreement in 1939 made Iran a provider of

food and natural resources for the Third Reich. At the end of 1939 Iran also signed

a Treaty of Friendship with Japan, although it remained officially neutral during the

beginning of World War II and entered the war on the Allied side in September

1943.226

Egypt

Egypt was another state where fascist influence was profoundly felt during this

period. As Payne notes, “there was much pro-German sentiment in Egypt.”227 Egypt

has also attracted the most attention from scholars of Arab fascism, possibly due to

its vibrant intellectual life in the 1920s and 1930s. For this reason, and because it

stands as such a representative case of fascist influence outside Europe, the rest of

this section is devoted to a more detailed case study of Egyptian politics during this

period.

The historian Nadav Safran argued that 1920s Egypt experienced a “progressive

phase” during the 1920s, when leading intellectuals advocated the social and

political values of Western liberalism and democracy. 228 As mentioned in the

previous chapter, the country had established a constitutional parliamentary regime

226
Cyprian Blamires, Paul Jackson (2006) World Fascism: A Historical
Encyclopedia, Vol.1, ABC-Clio, p.342-3
227
Payne 1995:352; see also Shimon Shamir (1976) “The Influence of German
National Socialism on Radical Movements in Egypt” in J.L. Wallach, ed. (1975)
Germany and the Middle East, 1835-1939, Tel Aviv, p. 200-204
228
Nadav Safran (1961) Egypt in Search of Political Community; summarized in
Israel Gershoni and James Jankowski 2009:6-7
 260

in 1923 and elected a prime minister the following year. But a decade later, Safran

argued, a “crisis of orientation” took place, manifesting itself in the rejection of

parliamentary politics and a turn toward authoritarianism, religion and nationalism.

By depressing agricultural prices world-wide, the economic crisis had severely

undermined the country’s exports. In addition, the country felt a strong sense of

disillusionment with the corruption and factionalism of parliamentary rule. In this

Egypt mirrored the ideological evolution of many states between the wars. As

Safran writes:

The great depression had given credence to the claims of Fascism,

Nazism, and Communism that liberal democracy was a decaying
system. The contrast between the misery, despair, and social discord
that pervaded the Western democracies and the discipline,
orderliness, and aggressive confidence that appeared to characterize
the totalitarian regimes made a deep impression on Egyptians, who
had seen in their own country a record of unmitigated failures of
democracy.229

The historian P.J. Vatikiotis similarly argues that “the temporarily successful

challenge Fascism and Nazism presented to the Western European democracies

undermined constitutional government as a model of emulation by non-European

societies….The echo in Egypt was quite resounding.”230 This echo was expressed

229
Gershoni and Jankowski 2009:7, citing Safran (1961:192); see also p. 187-193
230
P.J. Vatikiotis (1991) The History of Modern Egypt, Johns Hopkins University
Press, p. 315, see also p.187-193. The Egyptian scholar Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid-Marsot
likewise writes: "the crisis of democracies in the West had shaken the faith of many
in the value of democracy. Admiration for Fascism grew when Mussolini made the
trains run on time and forced the slackers to swallow castor oil. Some Egyptians
believed that these methods might have more success in Egypt than those of the
democratic institutions." (Gershoni and Jankowski 2009:8, citing Afaf Lutfi al-
Sayyid-Marsot (1977) Egypt’s Liberal Experiment, 1922-1936, University of
California Press, p. 229; see also p.227-31)
 261

by the rapid rise of political groups that advocated the rejection of liberalism, the

use of violence, and the adoption of a fascist regime to deal with democratic

corruption. The most prominent of these was the Muslim Brotherhood and the

Young Egypt movement.

The Muslim Brotherhood manifested its fascist influence in a number of wars -

the cult of a leader, the rejection of democratic divisiveness in favor of national

unity, the demand for autocratic politics, a quasi-military and uniformed youth

movement, a program of official anti-Semitism, and a general dedication to social

discipline and class solidarity.231 Lest these features appear to be political

conveniences that were only incidentally fascist, evidence of Germany’s influence

can be found directly in the writings of its members. Hasan al-Banna, the group’s

founder, wrote an essay praising the "militarism" and "masculinity" of the Nazis,

which he argued would serve as a model for the Muslim Brothers. Banna was also

impressed by the centralized nature of the Fascist and Nazi regimes, their

obedience to a central leader, and their ability to impose order.232 Al-Banna

rejected what he saw as the divisive partisan bickering of democracies. At the

movement’s Fifth Congress, he argued that the country’s political parties were

artificial creations that divided the nation and produced self-serving factions.233 He

repeated this view in an editorial, arguing that "the existence of the party system

231
Gershoni and Jankowski 2009:211
232
Gershoni and Jankowski 2009:211; the text is Hasan al-Banna, “Hal Nahnu
Qawm Amaliyun?” JIM, Jumada al-Ula 19, 1353, as quoted in Zakaria Sulayman
Bayumi (1979) al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, Cairo, p. 192-3
233
Gershoni and Jankowski 2009:227
 262

has become an obstacle on the road of revival and progress.”234

Nazi influence was also found in the movement’s direct links with its European

counterparts. The Muslim Brothers’ involvement in the conflict over Palestine

brought them into contact with Germany, which sought to influence the movement

through financial support. Documents seized by the British in 1939 showed that

the Brotherhood had received secret subsidies from the German News Agency in

Cairo through Palestinian intermediaries.235

Young Egypt, the country’s other prominent fascist movement, was also directly

influenced by Nazi symbolism and quasi-military organizational structure. In their

political outlook, use of public violence, and fealty to a central leader they “bore

an unmistakable similarity to contemporary European Fascist movements.”236

Although the two groups shared similar outlooks, Young Egypt went even

further than the Brotherhood in its denunciation of parliamentary rule and embrace

of dictatorship. In a representative essay, Hamada al-Nahil, a Young Egypt activist

at the Egyptian University, portrayed democracy as a disease, the deadly malady of

partisanship upon the body politic. The cure, for al-Nahil, was a dictatorship. This

was "the medicine of salvation as represented by discipline, and as brought by an

234
Quoted in Gershoni and Jankowski 2009:228
235
Gershoni and Jankowski 2009:213
236
Gershoni and Jankowski 2009:238. Describing the group’s features, they add
that they “closely paralleled the practices of Italian Fascism, German Nazism, and
the other fascist movements found on the northern side of the Mediterranean by the
1930s.”
 263

excellent doctor.... This excellent doctor is the dictator."237 Al-Nahil gave the

examples of Hitler and Mussolini as doctors par excellence who had restored

national confidence after a period of weakness.

After the tainted elections of March 1938, Young Egypt intensified their

rejection of democracy. Three months later, Young Egypt’s Secretary-General Fathi

Radwan wrote an essay titled ''Are We Propagandists of Dictatorship?" Radwan

agreed with his contemporaries that the system had failed to provide for the

nation’s needs:

We despise the parliamentary system that prevents and hinders

action that turns the country into a stage for oratory and theatrics…238
If it is dictatorship that will place a limit on the anarchy that has been
disclosed about our high officials, then we will be among the
supporters of dictatorship.... If it is dictatorship that can instill the
youth with strength and the nation with a militant spirit, filling the
people with electricity, vigor, and dynamism, then we will be
dictators to the bone.239

The leader of Young Egypt, Ahmad Husayn, also expressed repeated and open

admiration for the Fascist political system. In 1938, he referred to the “miracles” of

Germany and Italy in glowing terms, as examples of national recovery to be

emulated. Moreover, Husayn argued that fascism and Nazism “were the bearers of

much the same values as those that Young Egypt was trying to instill in the Egyptian

237
Quoted in Gershoni and Jankowski 2009:246
238
He elaborated: “The people are starving, yet the deputies wax eloquent; the
country is threatened with danger from within and without, yet the minutes of the
sessions contain only idle debates that delay more than they expedite affairs."
239
Quoted in Gershoni and Jankowski 2009:247-8
 264

people – faith and action.”240 Their miracles had been achieved because of "a

creed, a faith, a belief in themselves; this is what Young Egypt summons you to

emulate."241 By the late 1930s, the movement’s propaganda explicitly presented

itself as following the political trajectory of its German and Italian counterparts.242

While Young Egypt denied connections with outside fascist powers, British

reports from 1935 state that the movement had accepted Italian money passed

through a magazine that served as the outlet for Italy’s state propaganda in Egypt.

The British also report that the group had accepted Italian money for a propaganda

trip to Europe in 1935. When Egypt’s prime minister pursued a partial ban of the

group the following year, he justified it on the grounds that the movement was

working for foreign interests.243

In short, fascist influence in interwar Middle East found many adherents among

those frustrated with democratic incompetence and impressed with Germany’s

economic revival, internal stability, and projection of national unity. Many of the

leaders were forced to publicly renounce their connections to European fascism,

which perhaps explains why historiography has generally downplayed its influence

in the region. Nevertheless, the hegemonic transition of the 1930s was expressed

here in a wave of popular movements that imitated fascist ideology. Emulation and

influence (in the form of Nazi-sponsored subsidies and propaganda trips) were the

240
Gershoni and Jankowski 2009:249
241
Quoted in Gershoni and Jankowski 2009:249
242
Gershoni and Jankowski 2009:249
243
Gershoni and Jankowski 2009:239-40
 265

two mechanisms by which the hegemonic shock manifested itself in the region.

Fascist Influence in Latin America

In Latin America, the decline of the export-import development model

associated with the Depression allowed philofascist military dictatorships to

replace traditional oligarchs.244 Within a year after 1929, exports fell on average by

40 percent, and foreign investment declined sharply. As national incomes fell, the

traditional Europeanized political classes suffered loss of support. Nearly all

political regimes in Latin America fell between 1930 and 1934; between 1930 and

1933 the continent experienced the largest number of coups, uprisings, and

aborted insurrections since the wars of independence a century earlier. The

Depression “compromised liberal constitutional government as much in Latin

America as in Europe.”245 In the 1920s, Latin America had fourteen semi-

democratic (though elitist) regimes and six dictatorships. By the end of the

following decade, the region had fifteen dictatorships and five democracies.246

The fundamental causes of this authoritarian turn were the onset of the

Depression and the growth of anti-democratic sentiment that followed it,

intensified by the appearance of successful alternative models in Europe. The result

was a wave of right-wing, anti-Communist, populist new dictatorships, headed by

244
Peter H. Smith (2005), Democracy in Latin America: Political Change in
Comparative Perspective, Oxford University Press, p.28.
245
Roberts 1999:374-5
246
Paul W. Drake (1994) “International Factors in Democratization” paper
presented at the Center for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, Juan March
Institute, Madrid (November 4, 1994), p.4
 266

military strongmen who rejected the liberal economic policies of agrarian

oligarchies and landowners. A lack of territorial ambitions, the multi-ethnic

composition of most states, and low levels of mass mobilization dampened the

spread of fascist ideology. But as in other regions, leaders of Latin American states

were able to borrow institutional elements of fascist and communist states without

implementing their ideological or racial policies, although some of the new

dictatorships of the 1930s “were favorably disposed toward Italian Fascism or

Nazism and permitted or occasionally even encouraged pro-fascist propaganda.”247

I hasted to add that the above-quoted Payne does not consider the similarities

sufficient to consider these regimes fascist (with the partial exception of Argentina),

but as with the rest of the chapter my interest is in sources of institutional

inspiration and not nomenclature.

Like their European counterparts, the new caudillos rejected democracy and

looked toward fascist solutions for their problems. Borrowing from Italian and

German corporatism, they promoted import-substituting industrialization, which

took the form of protecting domestic markets and, inevitably, a greater role for the

state. 248 Although Soviet planning was also a source of admiration, its influence

remained limited not only because the leaders were instinctively anti-Left but also

because preventing a slide toward communism ensured the cooperation of the old

247
Payne 1995:340.
248
Elsenhans 1991:284. Roberts 1999:375
 267

oligarchies.249

Brazil

After a decade of instability, Brazil underwent a military coup in 1930. For the

next fifteen years, the country was ruled by Getulio Vargas, “a nationalistic dictator

with semifascist leanings.”250 Vargas did not develop his own national party, but

preferred to govern by balancing competing groups, among the most important of

which were the Acao Integralista Brasileira (Brazilian Integralist Action or AIB).

Founded in 1932, the Integralists were the country’s main fascist movement and

the first popular mass movement in the country’s history. It was a highly centralized

and hierarchical group headed by a charismatic leader named Plinio Salgado, who

cultivated a Hitler-like appearance. Its members wore green shirts and used the

Nazi salute; they advocated a corporatist (“integral”) and authoritarian state. The

Integralists contained “most of the distinguishing characteristics of European

fascism,” and in the mid-1930s they “generated more support than any other

protofascist movement in Latin America,” numbering between two and four

hundred thousand members.251

Throughout the 1930s, Germany expanded its influence in Brazil by increasing

trade ties with the country. In the five years after 1933, it became the second-

largest importer of Brazilian coffee and cocoa, and the largest market for the

249
Roberts 1999:376
250
Frieden 2006:226
251
Payne 1995:345-6
 268

country’s cotton. In 1937, Vargas announced the creation of an Estado Novo,

modeled after the Italian and Portuguese regimes of Mussolini and Salazar. Vargas

dissolved the parliament, curtailed presidential elections, abolished political

parties, and substantially increased his decree powers. He also cultivated good

relations with Nazi Germany.252 As in many European cases, the Integralists came

to an end when a moderate authoritarian regime moved closer to fascism and

suppressed its more radical competitors (as had been the case, for instance, with

the Portuguese National Syndicalists after Salazar’s shift to the right). The

movement was officially dissolved in 1937, and after two failed coup attempts was

decisively suppressed.253

Argentina

General Jose Uriburu’s takeover of Argentina in 1930 marked the country’s first

dictatorship of the century. He has been preceded by General Irigoyen, who came

to power in 1928 and represented the export-oriented agrarian oligarchy. This

meant opposition to any interference with free trade and a refusal to deal with the

Great Depression through political measures. 254 His inaction allowed Uriburu to

take control with the help of the far-right Argentine Patriotic League, a nationalist,

anti-Semitic, and anti-Communist paramilitary movement. Uriburu launched

reforms that included a corporatist regime and a state militia called the Legion

252
Rothermund 1996:141-2
253
Payne 1995:346
254
Rothermund 1996:141
 269

Civica.255

A profascist military group, the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos (GOU), brought a

new regime into power in 1943. They imposed a dictatorship and pursued a

foreign policy more favorable to the Axis; during the war, the government “was

more sympathetic to Germany and Italy than was any other major government in

the Western Hemisphere.”256 The defeat of the Axis two years later forced them to

moderate their policies, and in the 1950s this moderation eventually took the form

of Peronism, a mix of populism, nationalism, and industrialization.257

Chile

In Chile, fascist influence found expression in the National Socialist Movement

(MNS, aka the Nacis). Founded by the half-German Jorge Gonzales von Marees in

1932, the Nacis argued for a corporatist economy and a stronger, more centralized

executive. In that year Chile began a return to liberal democracy after years of

political unrest that followed the onset of the Depression. Rising unemployment

and declining exports led to the resignation of dictator Carlos Ibanez del Campo in

1931, after which the Nacis “became a small but important actor in the political

development of the country.”258 Naci militias clashed with left-wing radicals and

their political leaders successfully stood for public office; in the 1935 municipal

255
Payne 1995:347
256
Payne 1995:347
257
Frieden 2006:226
258
Mario Sznajder (1993) “A Case of Non-European Fascism: Chilean National
Socialism in the 1930s” Journal of Contemporary History Vol.28, p.270
 270

elections the party elected two candidates to city councils, and in the 1937

parliamentary elections three of its candidates entered the parliament. In the

following year, twenty-nine Nacista municipal council members were elected into

office, mainly in large cities. Thus in just six years, the movement “became a

political force to be taken into account, not only because of its electoral

competitiveness but also because of its activism and violence “ which resembled its

European counterparts.259 In April 1938 the Nacis attempted to overthrow the

government through a violent insurrection and were harshly suppressed by

parliament; the attempt mobilized anti-fascsit sentiment and helped the formation

of a left-wing Popular Front take the elections in October 1938.

Mexico

Mexico saw a number of violent nationalist movements emerge in the wake of

the Depression. At the grass-roots level, the most important Mexican philo-fascist

movement was Union Nacional Sinarquista (National Synarchist Union), which

started in the 1920s as a peasant movement but began to attract middle-class

supporters by the following decade. The Sinarquistas advocated non-violence

(despite attacks from the state), land and income redistribution, and a corporatist

state.260 At their peak in 1943 they reached a membership of over half a million,

making them the country’s largest mass party.261

259
Sznajder 1993:271-2
260
Roger Griffin (1993) The Nature of Fascism, Routledge, p.149
261
Payne 1995:343
 271

The most prominent fascist movement in Mexico were the Gold Shirts, founded

in 1934 by General Nicolas Rodriguez, who were pro-authoritarian, anti-Semitic

and anti-Communist, and who “directly aped German and Italian styles”.262 In this

period Mexico itself was evolving into a one-party corporatist state and the

leadership was thus able to co-opt much of the Gold Shirts’ support. In the early

1930s, president Plutarco Elfas Calles “toyed with the idea of fascistizing aspects of

the Mexican regime” and encouraged the creation of a quasi-military force, the

Accion Revolucionaria Mexicana (ARM).263 President Lazaro Cardenas, who took

office in 1934, pursued a program of social reforms that focused on employment

programs and guarantees of living standards. In 1938 he nationalized foreign (that

is, British and American) oil wells and placed the public sector at the center of his

industrial policy. “[I]n part to defuse American concern, [he] invoked Roosevelt's

New Deal as a model.”264

Peru

The most prominent fascist movement in Peru was the Union Revolucionaria

(UR), which used the fascist salute and developed a party militia called the Black

Shirts. The UR, modeling themselves after Mussolini’s Italy, were anti-democratic,

populist, and nationalist, but after a failed bid in the 1936 elections the party

262
Payne 1995:342
263
Payne 1995:342
264
Frieden 2006:226
 272

gradually lost support.265 Following its demise, the Peruvian Fascist Brotherhood

became the major outlet of Peruvian fascism, led by the former prime minister Jose

de la Riva-Aguero y Osma. While the group initially received some support, it

quickly faded after Peruvia entered the war on the side of the Allies.266

Bolivia

Bolivia was one of the least developed countries in the region, and had lost a

war with Paraguay in 1935, making it one of the likelier candidates for supporting

frustrated nationalists. The economic crisis led to a search for institutional

alternatives, and the fascist option received increasing support. The influence of

Italian and German ideas “was often admitted by Bolivian leaders” and a radical

coalition came to power in 1936 advocating a corporative state.267

The country had its own version of the Falange, the Falange Socialista Boliviana

(FSB). The group was founded in 1937 and looked toward Spain and Italy as

models; as a result, its fascist leanings were corporatist, anti-Communist, and

Catholic in orientation. Another significant fascist movement was the Movimiento

Nacionalista Revolucionaria (MNR), founded in 1940 and open in its admiration of

European fascism. It sought nationalization of industry and a corporatist state; in its

foreign policy it leaned toward Germany and Italy, seeing them “as allies in

revolutionizing the international division of power and wealth.” A military junta

265
Payne 1995:343
266
Philip Rees (1990) Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890,
Simon and Schuster, p.324
267
Payne 1995:343-4
 273

that took power in 1943 “immediately adopted a pro-Axis policy and included

three of the most fascistic leaders of the MNR in its cabinet.268

Fascist Influence in the United States

As a country that has always posed itself as the antithesis of authoritarian

values, the United States seems to offer a difficult case for the theory of hegemonic

shocks. But as Kenneth Waltz argued in Theory of International Politics, because a

social science theory can always find confirming instances, its real test is how it

deals with the hard cases – that is, those cases where we would not expect the

dynamics predicted by the theory to be present.269 (The classic case is the 1894

Franco-Russian alliance conforming to the predictions of balancing theory.) If

hegemonic shocks are an important factor in domestic institutional reforms, we

should expect to see a growing acceptance of fascism in the United States, and the

adoption of fascist or fascist-inspired institutions by American policy-makers.

At the mass level, the increasing support for fascist ideas in the United States

was reflected in the growth of pro-German organizations and the rise of nationalist

movements like the Black Legion, an offshoot of the Klan. Anti-semitism was also

institutionalized in university quotas and admission policies to social organizations.

This sentiment reflected a major plank of the Nazi platform, the elimination of class

conflict and the creation of an organic national community. A contributor the

American Review, a major intellectual outlet espousing the virtues of fascism in the

268
Payne 1995:344
269
Waltz 1979
 274

1930s, wrote: “If the State as to be the symbol of an organic folk then it followed

that divisive opposition within the nation could not be tolerated.”270 In practice this

led to a strong undertone of anti-Semitism. The infamously anti-Semitic T.S. Eliot,

writing in the Review about the dangers of “free-thinking Jews”, argued: “The

population should be homogenous; where two or more cultures exist in the same

place they are likely to be either fiercely self-conscious or both become

adulterate….A spirit of excessive tolerance is to be deprecated.”271

Populist pro-German discourse is reflected perhaps most clearly in the radio

career of Father Coughlin. Coughlin, who blamed the Jews for the Depression and

enjoyed the second-largest radio audience in the country (after Roosevelt’s fireside

speeches), frequently quoted Goebbels and praised the Nazis’ quest for full

employment and racial purity. He broke with Roosevelt in 1934, forming a

National Union for Social Justice whose 1936 candidate received nearly 900,000

votes. After the mid-1930s, Coughlin became the country’s foremost public

apologist for Franco, Mussolini and Hitler, while his followers organized local

Christian Front paramilitary groups. He was finally silenced by the Church in early

1942.272

The only other significant and ideologically fascist grass-roots movement in the

United States was the German-American Bund, “which aspired to be a slightly

270
Albert E. Stone, Jr. (1960) “Seward Collins and the American Review: Experiment
in Pro-Fascism, 1933-37” American Quarterly 12.1, p.10
271
Quoted in Stone 1960:11
272
Payne 1995:351
 275

watered-down Nazi Party for the United States.” 273 Despite bizarre attempts to

“cross over” by juxtaposing images of the Founding Fathers with swastikas, the

movement failed to attract American nationalists. Its membership peaked at

approximately fifteen thousand, made up almost completely of German immigrants

and naturalized Germans. An Italian equivalent was the Fasci all'Estero, an even

smaller and less significant group organized by Italian-Americans. 274

While the anti-Semitic ideology prevalent in the 1930s contributed to the

acceptance of fascism, policy-makers at the elite level tended to separate fascist

ideology (seen as hateful and aggressive) from its institutions (seen as novel and

effective), emphasizing their desire to discard the former while emphasizing the

latter. The bulk of the evidence for fascist emulation comes from the openly

admitted admiration of fascist reforms by the American political and social elite in

the 1930s. During this period, fascist institutions attracted praise not only from

American scholars and intellectuals, but also from policy-makers, government

bureaucrats, and senior political leaders including Roosevelt himself. Although this

admiration and desire for emulation was often tempered by the need to preserve

American liberties, the influence of European authoritarians was crucial in shaping

the reforms of the Roosevelt revolution. In tracing this influence, I will focus first on

the scholars and intellectuals, and then discuss imitation of fascist institutions at the

elite policy level.

In 1933, the Chicago Daily Tribune published an article on the decline of

273
Payne 1995:351
274
Payne 1995:351
 276

democracy around the world. “Democracy is waning before the steady stride of

dictatorships,” it began, citing William Ogburn, a professor of sociology at the

University of Chicago who until recently had been a member of Roosevelt’s

consumer advisory board. More surprising than this oft-repeated observation was

Ogburn’s reaction to it. “I look forward to the decline of democracy and to the rise

of a system of government that will utilize some of its principles, but will

nevertheless be an entirely different system of government,” he said. “I look

forward to a system of representation in accordance with social and economic

grouping.” Ogburn predicted “a greater intimacy” between business and

government, and advocated price fixing boards to keep price increases from

overtaking purchasing power. “The government that is speediest is the one that will

survive,” he continued. “An executive with the power to act such as that given

President Roosevelt will meet requirements of speedy action and will be able to

cope with rapid changes. A dictator can represent better than a legislature…”275

Surprising as these comments seem today, they represented a very common

sentiment among American scholars and intellectuals of the 1930s. In his history of

the discipline of American politial science, Ido Oren repeatedly demonstrates how

US scholars and other intellectuals encouraged the US to borrow elements of Nazi

and Soviet institutions during the 1930s. The reformist mood of the period, which

“diagnosed America as seriously but not terminally ill” led political scientists to

search for solutions in the authoritarian success stories. During the Depression,

275
Chicago Daily Tribune (1933) “Democracy Giving Way to New Government
Plan, Says Ogburn”, August 26, p. 4.
 277

Germany and the USSR represented “models of administrative efficiency and social

planning,” and in a time of deep social and economic crisis, American intellectuals

“were understandably curious about political and social forms emerging elsewhere

in the world as they earnestly (though not always critically) searched for

remedies…”276 These were not marginal radicals, but successful mainstream

political scientists, APSA presidents, and journal editors. The vast majority were not

actual fascists or communists – they did not call for a proletarian revolution or a

nationalistic dictatorship, and often hastened to point out the regimes’ more

objectionable aspects. Nevertheless, they sought to study these regimes in a

scholarly, detached, value-neutral fashion, and to distinguish between efficient

institutions and hateful ideology.277 They favorably portrayed Nazi and Soviet

regimes as laboratories for economic, social, and political experiments, and urged

the US to “emulate what they regarded as the more positive aspects of the Fascist

and Communist states.”278

These “positive aspects” commonly included administrative reform, centralized

leadership, and greater state involvement in the national economy. An unwieldy

administrative structure was one of the chief vices commonly attributed to

American democracy of the period. Since German public administration had long

276
Ido Oren (2002) Our Enemies and US: America’s Rivalries and the Making of
Political Science, Cornell University Press, p. 18, 48. In doing so, they “expressed
positive curiosity about, and even downright admiration of, certain Nazi policies
and practices” (Oren 2002:47)
277
Oren 2002:87
278
Oren 2002:58. See also Robert Allan Skotheim (1971) Totalitarianism and
American Social Thought, Holt, Reinhart, and Winston.
 278

been held up as a model of effective a rational bureaucracy, scholars naturally

turned to Nazi Germany as a model of emulation. At a 1934 philosophy

conference, Columbia University professor William Pepperell Montague used the

phrase “Fabian Fascism” to describe his proposals for the future of the New Deal.

The “Fabian” component implied gradual and evolutionary reform, a “civilized

version of Fascism”. Montague foresaw a dual system of “fascistic communism and

democratic capitalism…capitalism for those who can afford it accompanied by

communism for those who need it.”279 Professor Roger Wells, in a 1935 APSR

article, “commended the Nazis for rescuing German municipal government from

the “excesses of the multi-party [Weimar] system.”280 In a 1936 book, former APSA

president W. F. Willoughby urged Americans to “make a searching examination” of

the revolutionary institutions erected in Italy, Germany, and Russia, with an eye

toward “the possible incorporation in popular government of the advantage of

autocracy”. One such advantage, according to Willoughby, was the Nazis’ ability

“at a stroke” to attain “the superior advantages of the unitary over the multiple

[federal] form of government.”281 A 1936 APSR article, noting the shift in power

from American states to the federal government, proposed that “this process of the

279
Quoted in Schivelbusch 2006:37, citing W.P. Montague (1934) in Actes du
huitiéme congrés international de philosophie á Prague, 2-7 septembre 1934,
Prague, 1936, p. 481.
280
Oren 2002:80, citing Roger Wells (1935)
281
Oren 2002:82, citing W. F. Willougby (1936) The Government of Modern
States, rev. ed., New York: D. Appleton, vi, p. 111
 279

internal balance of power may be fruitfully examined in Nazi Germany today.”282

The Nazis “have acted where others have merely planned and studied,” the author

concluded. “They have converted Germany from a federal to a centralized unitary

state.”283 Similarly, James Pollock, a prominent scholar of German politics, thought

that adopting Nazi institutions would increase the effectiveness of American

government. At its worst, he argued, America’s doctrine of the separation of power

“simply means stopping action. One thing we can learn from the dictatorships

which are springing up all over the Europe is that there are times and emergencies

when we must have action,” he told a newspaper. “We have reached a stage in our

government when we need a system a little more conducive to the development of

leadership.”284

Seward Collins, editor of the American Review, became one of the more

prominent advocates of American-style fascism in the mid-1930s, and his

publication attracted contributions from a number of scholars and intellectuals.

“The question of politics,” he wrote in the inaugural issue, “resolves itself, broadly,

into a discussion of the succession of Fascism to parliamentarism; or at least some

form of authoritarian government supplanting pluto-democracy…”285 For Collins,

fascism was “the revival of monarchy, property, the guilds, the security of the

282
Albert Lepawsky (1936) “The Nazis Reform the Reich” American Political
Science Review 30.2, p.324
283
Lepawsky 1936:348
284
Quoted in Oren 2002:77
285
Quoted in Stone 1960:3
 280

family and the peasantry, and the ancient ways of European life.”286 His

contributors, reflecting the mood of the times, expressed a profound

disenchantment with liberal capitalism and democracy after the Great Depression.

For them, the economic collapse was deeply connected to the “pluto-democratic”

political order.287 New York University professor J.S. Hoffman, a frequent

contributor to the Review, wrote: “Obviously there is no solution but a

revolutionary solution, for the tottering American political system of today is

perhaps the best demonstration of those anti-authoritarian principles which have

brought about the wreckage of modern society. There must be a revolution – a

constructive revolution in behalf of authority, order, and justice…”288 Centralization

of government authority was a central component in such a revolution. “My aim

right now is to get more and more power for the President, whoever holds the

office,” Seward wrote. “I hope it may be Roosevelt for some time to come.”289

American-style monarchy, in the words of another contributor, “would provide a

continuing authority, within which tradition might grow. Democracy lives from day

to day. Dictatorship thinks only of the immediate future. Monarchy can both guide

the present and foresee what’s ahead.”290

Related to the desire for monarchy was a need to limit suffrage, which was

286
Quoted in Stone 1960:9
287
One contributor summarized this view in one sentence: “Democratic institutions
are, in fact, the political expression of the phase of capitalism economics.” Quoted
in Stone 1960:7
288
Quoted in Stone 1960:6
289
Quoted in Stone 1960:7
290
Quoted in Stone 1960:8
 281

portrayed as a return to the ideals of the Founding Fathers. “If we are to retain any

sort of free, representative government that guarantees liberty and justice with

decency and effectiveness in operation,” wrote a contributor in 1936, “universal

suffrage will have to be abandoned in favor of some restricted, selective scheme

such as was in force and held to be a desideratum by the statesmen of 1787.”291

Soviet ideas also found admirers during this period. Imitation of Soviet

practices found fewer supporters than its German counterparts, since the country’s

complete rejection of capitalism (in contrast to Germany’s attempts to tame it) was

anathema to American political culture. Nevertheless, during the 1930s Marxism

gained a significant following on U.S. college campuses, which have remained its

strongest bastions to this day. Gabriel Almond, whose friends fought in the Lincoln

brigades during the Spanish civil war, wrote his 1938 dissertation as a critical

examination of America’s “plutocratic class”.292 Robert Dahl, David Easton,

Seymour Martin Lipset, Herbert Simon, Ithiel de Sola Pool, and other scholars who

rose to prominence after World War II displayed an interest in communism that

ranged from brief flirtation to deep commitment.293 In a 1931 textbook on civic

291
Quoted in Stone 1960:10
292
Oren 2002:18. Almond’s dissertation was published sixty years later; see Gabriel
Almond (1938/1998) Plutocracy and Politics in New York City, Boulder: Westview.
In it, Almond argues that because of the disproportionate political influence of the
very wealthy, “it was an error to speak of the American political system as a
democracy.” p. xxii.
293
Oren 2002:18. Transcripts of Robert Dahl and David Easton interviews, APSA
Oral History Collection, University of Kentucky Library; Herbert Simon (1991)
Models of My Life, New York: Basic. Seymour Martin Lipset (1999) “Out of
Alcoves” Wilson Quarterly (winter 1999); biography of Ithiel Pool in American
 282

engagement, Charles Merriam avoided mentioning the elimination of civil rights in

the Soviet Union and noted with admiration that Soviet reforms had produced ”a

form of democratic nationalism.”294

It was only after America’s entry into World War II and the onset of the Cold

War that the discipline of political science discarded its infatuation with German

and Russian models and shifted toward nationalist conservatism. Once these

regimes became direct rivals to the United States, political scientists “developed

amnesia regarding their past accomodationism and reached a consensus that these

regimes were antithetical to American democracy.”295 As noted above,

accomodationist reviews and articles were featured in APSR as late as the end of

1939. The discipline’s flagship journal ceased publishing such items only after the

outbreak of the war.296

An interest in emulating fascist institutions was not limited to scholars or

public intellectuals. In seeking to break from the liberal orthodoxy of the past, the

Roosevelt administration also looked toward solutions within Nazi Germany and

Soviet Russia. Roosevelt came into office determined to reshape the structure of

National Biography Online, www.anb.org.

294
Quoted in Oren 2002:61, citing Charles Merriam (1931) The Making of Citizens:
A Comparative Study of Methods of Civic Training, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, p. 222. See also Peter G. Filene (1978) Americans and the Soviet Experiment,
1917-1933, Harvard University Press.
295
Oren 2002:18-19
296
Oren 2002:87. One consequence of this shift, Oren notes, was the subsequent
stigma attached to the study of public administration, which entered “a prolonged
period of institutional decline and estrangement from political science” after the
war. (Oren 2002:88) After the 1930s, it was no longer possible to argued that an
efficient bureaucracy could be studied in a value-neutral way, or that it would
always lead to rational and positive outcomes.
 283

American government. "The nation was more than ready,” writes the historian

Arthur Schlesinger. “Many people had an anguished sense of crisis. For some,

society itself seemed confronted by the specter of dissolution.”297 Many policy-

makers saw unchecked capitalist competition as the source of the country’s

problems, and sought to use state planning and corporatist institutions as the

logical solutions to the economic crisis. Both fascism and the New Deal relied on

strong, charismatic leadership to pursue these reforms. To their contemporaries,

“Hitler and Roosevelt were both charismatic leaders who held the masses in their

sway – and without this kind of leadership, neither National Socialism nor the New

Deal would have been possible.”298 Roosevelt wholeheartedly rejected the ideology

of fascism, but his decision to breach the long-standing norm of presidential term

limits was but one small manifestation of a growing acceptance of the need for a

strong (and if necessary, long-lasting) central executive.

Beginning in 1933, the New Deal transformed a highly decentralized

economy with limited social insurance into a regulated mixture of public and

private programs, complete with massive public works, government deficit

management, collective bargaining, and business regulation. Many of these

reforms, particularly their corporatist elements, bore an unmistakable similarity to

fascist and communist institutions, a fact that the administration did not seek to

hide. They did stress, however, that this imitation was pragmatic and policy-

oriented, not ideological. In October 1933, Roosevelt told his Secretary of the

297
Arthur Schlesinger (2003) The Coming of the New Deal, Vol.2, Mariner Books
298
Schivelbusch 2006:49
 284

Interior, Harold Ickes: “What we are doing in this country were some of the things

that were being done in Russia and even some things that were being done under

Hitler in Germany. But we are doing them in an orderly way.”299 The racial and

totalitarian aspects of Nazi policy did not find mainstream admirers across the

Atlantic, but in politically more neutral areas such as a labor services and business

cartelization, argued Gotz and Patel, “the USA was interested in Germany’s

experiences.”300

Coming into office, Roosevelt quickly abandoned the orthodox policies of

fiscal tightening. The dollar was taken off the gold standard and devalued. Within a

hundred days, the new administration adopted programs to support agriculture,

build large-scale public works, regulate industrial prices, and encourage businesses

to cartelize and set prices. “These early measures smacked to many of fascism,”

according to Frieden, and led to opposition in the Supreme Court, which declared

the more controversial measures to be unconstitutional.301 Nevertheless,

government regulation entered new spheres of business life, from electric utilities to

banking and monetary policy. “The consensus among political scientists and

economists of the time,” writes Schivelbusch, “was that the United States under

Roosevelt in the spring and summer of 1933, had, in a process of voluntary

299
Quoted in Lewis S. Feuer (1962) “American Travelers to the Soviet Union, 1917-
32: The Formation of a Component of New Deal Ideology” American Quarterly 14,
p.147
300
Gotz and Patel 2006:63
301
Frieden 2006:233
 285

consolidation, transformed itself into a postliberal state.”302 The fixing of prices and

production in the oil and airline industries; the establishment of the Securities and

Exchange Commission, the Wagner Act of 1935, and the National Labor Relations

Act of 1936 – all these were parts of an effort, according to Peter Gourevitch, to

inject corporatism into a liberal political economy. “Agriculture, labor, and some

elements of business were allowed to organize their markets, providing some

shelter from unrestrained market forces.303 Arthur Schlesinger, in The Coming of the

New Deal, recounts an anecdote about Roosevelt’s second fireside char, in which

the president talked about “a partnership in planning” between government and

business. While preparing the speech, an aide said to him, “You realize, then, that

you're taking an enormous step away from the philosophy of equalitarianism and

laissez-faire?” After a moment of silence, Roosevelt replied: “If that philosophy

hadn't proved to be bankrupt, Herbert Hoover would be sitting here right now. I

never felt surer of anything in my life than I do of the soundness of this passage.”304

Economic planning by the state thus became a major element of New Deal

reforms. “By 1933 the advocates orderly planning, who had been gaining converts

as the Depression worsened, were listened to with respect.”305 The Agricultural

Adjustment Act (AAA) and the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933

were two major elements of early New Deal recovery programs. Both sought to use

302
Schivebusch 2006:14
303
Gourevitch 1986:152
304
Quoted in Schlesinger 1993:98
305
Fearon in Garside 1993:127
 286

central planning to create a measure of stability that could not be accomplished

through traditional capitalism. A 1933 study of American Agriculture concluded:

“[T]he competitive system is breaking down ... The comfortable theory of the

identity of mass prosperity with the unrestricted pursuit of private gain no longer

serves.”306 Centralized planning could be used to curb destructive competition

between businesses, balance supply and demand, and resolve problems of

overproduction in industry and agriculture. The AAA thus introduced price and

production controls to farmers, who “had always believed that their task was to

grow as much food and fibre as possible.”307 The NIRA, AAA’s industrial

counterpart, also sought to set prices, output and employment levels by

encouraging special committees to draw up codes of “fair” competition.308 During

the public unveiling of NIRA, “when Roosevelt referred to the industrial

associations that had been reconstituted by the codes as ‘modern guilds,’ those

fluent in the jargon may well have recognized the reference to the corporatist

system associated with Fascism.”309

Many of these major reforms took Italy and Germany as a source of inspiration.

James Whitman notes that “a startling number of New Dealers had kind words for

306
E.S. Mead and B. Ostrolenk (1933) Voluntary Allotment. Planned Production in
American Agriculture, University of Pennsylvania Press, p.1, quoted in Fearon in
Garside 1993:127
307
Fearon in Garside 1993:129
308
Fearon in Garside 1993:133. By early 1935, 546 basic codes and 185
supplementary codes covered about 95 per cent of the industrial work force.
309
Schivelbusch 2006:30
 287

Mussolini” – as did, of course, a number of American conservatives.310 Rexford

Tugwell, a member of Roosevelt’s brain trust, openly spoke out about the virtues of

the fascist order, as did internal NRA studies.311 Decrying the ideological

foundation of fascism, Tugwell nevertheless described it as “the cleanest, neatnest

[sic], most efficiently operating piece of social machinery I’ve ever seen. It makes

me envious.”312 An NRA bureaucrat wrote in 1935: “The Fascist Principles are very

similar to those which we have been evolving here in America and so are of

particular interest at this time.”313

The similarities between the early New Deal reforms and fascist corporatism

were widely noted by contemporaries. Fortune magazine declared that "[t]he

Corporate State is to Mussolini what the New Deal is to Roosevelt…"314 Such

comparisons were made not only by Roosevelt’s opponents (although they often

sought to drawn unflattering parallels), but also by observers and policy-makers

who considered themselves allies of the administration. Writing in the Spectator,

liberal journalist Mauritz Hallgren noted: “We in America are bound to depend

310
James Q. Whitman (1991) “Of Corporatism, Fascism, and the New Deal” The
American Journal of Comparative Law 39.4, p. 747. See also John Diggins (1966)
“Flirtation with Fascism: American Pragmatic Liberals and Mussolini’s Italy”
American Historical Review 71, p.487-506
311
Whitman 1991:747
312
Michael Vincent Namorato, ed. (1992) The Diary of Rexford G. Tugwell: The
New Deal, 1932-1935, New York, p. 139. Quoted in Schivelbusch 2006:32
313
Janet C. Wright, “Capital and Labor Under Fascism” National Archives, Record
Group 9, Records of the National Recovery Administration, Special Research and
Planning Reports and Memoranda, 1933-35, Entry 31, Box 3. Quoted in
Schivelbusch 2006:203-4
314
Quoted in Whitman 1991:748
 288

more upon the State as the sole means of saving the capitalist system. Unattended

by black-shirt armies or smug economic dictators – at least for the moment – we

are being forced rapidly and definitely into Fascism…”.”315 A 1934 article in the

North American Review noted: “The New Dealers, strangely enough, have been

employing Fascist means to gain liberal ends. The NRA with its code system, its

regulatory economic clauses and some of its features of social amelioration, was

plainly an American adaptation of the Italian corporate state in its mechanics.”316

Liberal journalist and civil rights leader Oswald Garrison Villard wrote in the

Political Quarterly: “No one can deny that the entire Roosevelt legislation has

enormously enhanced the authority of the President, given him some dictatorial

powers, and established precedents that would make it easy for any successor to

Mr. Roosevelt, or for that gentleman himself, to carry us far along the road to

fascism or state socialism.”317 A 1934 article in Haper’s noted: “It is in the very

nature of planned recovery, its methods and its objectives, that we find the

tendency which, if developed to its logical conclusion, arrives at the fascist stage of

economic control. Mild measures have failed and by their failure have prepared the

way for accentuating the tendency toward fascist control.”318 And George Soule,

315
Mauritz Hallgren (1933) Spectator, August 18, p. 211. Cited in Schivelbusch
2006:28
316
Roger Shaw (1934) “Fascism and the New Deal” North American Review 238,
p. 559. Quoted in Schivelbusch 2006:28).
317
Oswald Garrison Villard (1934) Political Quarterly 5, p. 53-54. Cited in
Schivelbusch 2006:29).
318
J. B. Matthew and R. E. Shallcross (1934) “Must America Go Fascist?” Harpers
Magazine 169, p. 4. Cited in Schivelbusch (2006, p. 29)
 289

the liberal editor of The New Republic, wrote in his 1934 book The Coming

American Revolution: “We are trying out the economics of Fascism without having

suffered all its social or political ravages”319

Beginning in about 1935, the administration also began a program of welfare

expansion, sometimes called the second New Deal, which included social

insurance and job-creating government programs. In that year Congress passed the

Social Security Act, creating the country’s first system of national insurance. 320 It

also approved a five billion dollar allocation for unemployment relief, the largest

peacetime allocation in the country’s history. When Roosevelt described mass

unemployment as “the greatest menace to our social order” in 1934, he was

echoing the concerns of many political leaders around the world.321 And like many

other leaders, Roosevelt was intensely interested in the German solution to this

problem – Reichsarbeitsdienst, a labor service that organized the unemployed into

work projects that required little or no skills. After 1933, “it was Hitler’s

government in Germany that offered the prime example of a labour service in

practice. Even more problematic was the fact that the Third Reich advertised the

idea of the labour service as a true symbol of National Socialism…international

perception of the German labour service was largely shaped by this

319
George Soule (1934) The Coming American Revolution, New York, p. 294.
Cited in Schivelbusch 2006:29).
320
Frieden 2006:234
321
Gotz and Patel 2006: 57
 290

propaganda.”322 The Nazi success in quickly eliminating mass unemployment

made the Reichsarbeitsdienst a focus of global interest throughout the 1930s,

stimulating intense interest and discussion among policy-makers in other countries,

who “scrutinized its various functions as a public works scheme, an educational

institution and a pre-military organization. The German institution was regarded as

influential, and some experts saw it as a model for other, similar organizations

throughout the world.”323 As a result, the German labor service “left a deep

imprint” on the minds of American policy-makers.324 When the administration

sought to train air mechanics for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), they

looked to the Reichsarbeitsdienst and the Flieger-HJ, a branch of Nazi youth

devoted to aviation, as organizational models. The New York Times reported on the

administration’s interest in these institutions, and when aviation classes were

introduced into the CCC, “the Nazi experience had obviously been a source of

inspiration”.325

All these measures dramatically increased the power of the federal government.

By 1936, federal expenditures outweighed state and local spending combined,

when they had been only a third of these in the late 1920s.326 The New Deal

“provided the most important extension of the power of the federal authorities over

322
Gotz and Patel 2006:57, 59
323
Gotz and Patel 2006:59
324
Gotz and Patel 2006:59. They conclude (p.62-3) that “these developments show
an unexpected willingness to study the Third Reich as a source for policy ideas.”
325
Gotz and Patel 2006:63
326
Frieden 2006:235
 291

American society and the states that had ever occurred in peacetime and one that

was to prove irreversible.”327 In their reliance on the power of the state, American

policy-makers borrowed institutional elements from the rising authoritarian states.

“Commentators freely noted areas of convergence among the New Deal, Fascism,

and National Socialism. All three were considered postliberal state-capitalist or

state-socialist systems, more related to one another than to classic Anglo-French

liberalism.”328 Social planning, a state-directed economy, public works projects,

and strong central leadership and a growing acceptance of collectivism were all

common features of these institutional bundles, although the American version had

retained far more individual civil liberties than its European counterparts.

The reforms of the hegemonic transition of the 1930s demonstrated that

democracy could still solve difficult problems of political and economic

organization – but that it could do so only by adopting institutional elements of

non-democratic regimes. When the Republicans returned to power in 1953, they

continued to oppose the expansion of government power but preserved the major

reforms of the 1930s, “a tacit admission that the New Deal had not intended to

destroy capitalism but to preserve and revive it.”329 Democracy had survived only

by imitating elements of successful authoritarian regimes, reflecting the institutional

dynamics of the hegemonic shock of the Great Depression.

327
Roberts 1999:369
328
Schivelbusch 2006:13
329
Palmer et al 2002:777
 292

The Coercive Phase of the Fascist Wave, 1938-1943

The final phase of the fascist wave was characterized by territorial conquests,

annexations, and the creation of satellites, puppets, and tutelary regimes. It was at

this point that the wave reached an all-time peak. In the summer of 1942 the fascist

order encompassed half the world’s population, or “virtually all of Europe and the

Middle East and much of Asia and Africa.”330 Fascist territories in Festung Europa

“stretched from the Mediterranean to the Arctic, from the English Channel to the

Black Sea and almost the Caspian.”331 In Asia, Japan had established puppets in

China and all over Southeast Asia.

Institutional waves that spread via coercion are the most dramatic and least

theoretically interesting mechanisms by which hegemonic shocks create sweeping

domestic changes. The coercive fascist wave spread via the sheer, newly-acquired

power of hegemonic fascist states – Germany, Japan, and to a lesser extent Italy. It

was the first such attempt since Napoleon’s bid for European hegemony, which had

left a deep imprint on the institutions of affected states. Like other coercive

authoritarian waves (for example, the postwar Communist wave in eastern Europe),

its consolidation dynamics differ from those of democratic waves. Coercive waves

tend to fail because other states eventually balance against the coercive hegemon,

as was the case with the Napoleonic wars. The end of the fascist wave came not

from failed consolidation but from external forces; namely, defeat by the Allied

330
Frieden 2006:215
331
Randall Schweller (1998) Deadly Imbalances: Tripolarity and Hitler’s Strategy of
World Conquest, Columbia University Press, p.1
 293

forces. In the rare case where a coercive wave endures, as in postwar Eastern

Europe, it must be continuously held together by the hegemon or risk falling apart

from its sphere. Autocratic and democratic regime consolidations in the wake of

shocks therefore proceed along different paths.332

Fascist Italy was the first to use direct annexation to spread its regime via

coercion. Mussolini envisioned his regime as a return to the glory of Ancient Rome,

complete with grand visions of territorial expansion. In October 1935 Italy invaded

Ethiopia; the following year the new colony was merged with Somalia and Eretria

(Italian possessions since 1889) to form Italian East Africa, an entity that lasted until

1941.333 In April 1939 Italy took over Albania (until its liberation in November

1944). With the onset of general war, Italy made attempts at Egypt, Tunisia, and

Greece between 1940 and 1943. It added British Somaliland to its conquests in

1940, only to have the British liberate it at year later.

Germany’s attempts were far more successful, in line with its far greater share of

military power. At the peak of Nazi success in Europe, only Switzerland, Sweden,

Finland, Britain, and Ireland remained free. Hitler’s victories between 1938 and

1941 “gave him control of the greater part of continental Europe, something

332
In rare cases a coercive wave maintained by a hegemonic actor can consolidate,
but it does so only by becoming a single political entity, as in the case of China or
Japan. These are cases in which the balancing mechanisms fail. See Victoria Hui
(2005) War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe,
Cambridge University Press. John A. Ferejohn and Frances McCall Rosenbluth, eds.
(2010) War and State Building in Medieval Japan, Stanford University Press.
333
Vaclav Smil (2010) Why America is Not a New Rome, MIT Press, p.10
 294

unprecedented since the height of Napoleon's power.”334 The conquest was part of

a plan to establish a fascist order all over Europe, with a dominant Germany greatly

expanded to the east.

Direct expansion began with the Austrian Anschluss in March 1938. In

September 1938, the Munich agreement gave Germany Sudetenland, the German

region of Czechoslovakia. A few months later, Hitler offered Poland satellite status,

and after a refusal signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact that carved up Poland and the

Baltics between the two rivals. Poland was invaded and taken over in a matter of

weeks in August-September 1939, setting the stage for the lull of the “phony war”

that lasted until the following April.

In May 1940, Hitler invaded and defeated France. Norway, Denmark, Belgium,

Holland and Luxembourg were also conquered that spring. Three small territories

taken by Belgium in 1919 were re-annexed, as well as bits from western Poland

and northwest Czechoslovakia. Luxembourg and French Alsace-Lorraine became

incorporated into the Reich. In April 1941, the Germans over-ran Yugoslavia and

Greece. Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were both dissolved, split between

German and Italian military occupation, a puppet regime in Serbia, and a satellite

state governed by the Ustashi in Croatia. Further east, in the Baltic states, Ukraine

and western USSR, Nazi occupation led to the creation of “overarching military

334
Payne 1995:375. “The Germans controlled almost exactly the same
geographical area as Napoleon. Organizing a new "continental system," they made
plans to govern, exploit, and coordinate the resources, industry, and labor of
Europe.… In every country they found sympathizers, collaborators, or
"quislings"…” (Palmer et al 2002:812)
 295

occupation authorities, special German economic agencies, and the SS racial and

police administration.” 335 The initially successful invasion of the Soviet Union in

June of 1941 marked the apogee of Hitler’s power and the peak of the fascist wave.

In November of that year Japan launched a series of its own invasions and a raid on

Pearl Harbor.

By the beginning of 1941 Hitler had “blackmailed or, by territorial concessions,

cajoled” Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary into joining the Axis and became junior

partners in the fascist coalition.336 Yugoslavia and Greece were occupied in April

1941 after Italy’s troops were repelled in the latter.

The Axis also pushed into North Africa. An Italian campaign eastward from

Libya crossed into Egypt in September 1940, but a British counteroffensive swept

them out a few months later; the British also took over Ethiopia and dismembered

Italian East Africa. But the elite Afrika Korps under the command of General

Rommel reversed Italian losses, attacking Libya and forcing their way through

Egypt, where the British made a final stand with the Suez Canal at their back.337

Hitler “recognized the need for certain allies, for acquiescent satellite states,

and for friendly neutrals,” and this produced :a new configuration of states under

German leadership and/or domination that the Nazi press sometimes hailed as the

new "united states of Europe.” (see Table 4.2)338

335
Payne 1995:377
336
Palmer et al 2002:815
337
Palmer et al 2002:816
338
Payne 1995:376
 296

Direct Annexation Austria

Czech Sudetenland
Danzig
Polish West Prussia, Poznan, and Silesia
Luxembourg
Belgium (Eupen and Malmedy)
Alsace and Moselle (France)
Northern Slovenia
Banat (Yugoslavia)
Direct German Polish government general
Administration (civil) “Ostland” (Baltics)
Ukraine
Norway
The Netherlands
Direct German Belgium and part of northern France
Administration (military) Forward military districts in the USSR
Tutelary Satellite or Puppet Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia
Regime Croatia
Serbia
Montenegro
Greece
Italy (1943-45)
Satellite Denmark
Finland
Hungary
Romania
Slovakia
Bulgaria
Vichy France
Italy (1941-43)
Friendly Neutral Spain, Switzerland, Sweden
Distant Neutral Portugal, Ireland, Turkey
Table 4.1: The Fascist Order in Festung Europa. Adopted from Payne 1995:376

Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 inaugurated a new stage in

the expansion of the war, aided by Romania, Hungary and Finland in the side of
 297

the Axis. Bulgaria was friendly to Germany, providing economic cooperation and

free transit for German troops, and receiving a slice of Yugoslavia as a reward. New

fascist satellite states included Slovakia (1939), Vichy France (1940) and Croatia

(1941).339 Of the five official neutrals, three collaborated with the Fascist regime in

some capacity (Spain, Switzerland, Sweden). Spain could not be completely

neutral, given Franco’s fascist sympathies. The Nordic countries received the most

“lenient” treatment out of all occupied states – Denmark was permitted to retain its

autonomy until later in 1943, and the Netherlands were governed by a civilian

Nazi administration “who created a simulacrum of internal Dutch autonomy.”340

Meanwhile, in the Pacific the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December

1941 as they launched a simultaneous attack on the Philippines, Guam, Midway,

Hong Kong, and Malaya. Moving over land through Malaya, they captured

Singapore two months later. By 1942 they conquered the Philippines, Malaya, the

Netherland Indies, New Guinea, the Aleutians, and Burma. They controlled the

Indian Ocean and threatened both India and Australia. The goal was the creation of

a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere under Japanese leadership and without

European interference, and “everywhere they found ready collaborators among

enemies of European imperialism.”341

But the defeat and unconditional surrender crushed any hopes for fascism as an

alternative regime path. Not only had Germany’s share of relative power collapsed

339
Payne 1995:376
340
Payne 1995:377
341
Palmer 2002:817
 298

in the wake of the defeat, but the decline was the result of a dramatic military

confrontation. This was especially damaging since

Nearly all fascist movements, with only a few minor exceptions, had
appealed to war as the ultimate test, the nation's most validating
mission. To have failed in the final test of what was largely even
though not exclusively – a fascist war put the seal on the inviability
and self-destructiveness of the fascist enterprise…the final defeat was
so thorough and unconditional that fascism was itself discredited to a
degree unprecedented among major modern political
movements…342

In the aftermath of the next hegemonic shock, the United States and the USSR had

emerged as winners, while Germany was utterly defeated and its regime lost all

legitimacy among former imitators. The century’s third hegemonic shock had left

only two institutional bundles competing for influence – democracy and

communism. Because both had proven victorious, both regimes experienced waves

of domestic reforms in their favor in the years following the end of the war – a

subject for the next chapter.

Conclusion
The rapid growth of Germany and the USSR in the 1930s was directly tied to

their institutional innovations – the same innovations that vividly set them apart

from the stagnating liberal democracies of the same period. As a result, the statist

features of their economies became increasingly attractive to observers. As Sheri

Berman observed:

With economic collapse and social chaos threatening much of

Europe, publics began to renew their demands for the stability,

342
Payne 1995:436-7
 299

community, and social protection that modern capitalist societies

seemed unable to provide. At this point fascism and national
socialism charged onto the stage, offering a way out of the downward
spiral, a new vision of society in which states put market in their
place and fought the atomization, dislocation, and discord that
liberalism, capitalism, and modernity had generated.343

The dynamics of the hegemonic transition of the 1930s were thus a direct

influence on the timing and content of the wave of institutional transformations

during this period. Even would-be liberals were persuaded by the seemingly

miraculous German recovery. “In my view what China needs is an able and

idealistic dictator,” wrote a Chinese political scientist in 1934. “There are among us

some people, including myself, who have undergone long periods of liberal

education. These people naturally find undemocratic practices extremely

distasteful. But if we want to make China into a strong modern nation, I fear there is

no alternative except to throw aside our democratic conviction.”344

Besides attracting countless overt and covert imitators, fascism expanded its

influence via increasing economic power, and coerced a number of territories into

fascist rule. Under attack from both the extreme left and the extreme right, capitalist

democracy survived by emulating the successful elements of both of its

competitors. In doing so it demonstrated a degree of institutional adaptation

unanticipated by either its critics or by many of its supporters. Democracy had now

defeated its second great competitor of the twentieth century, after the triumph over

monarchy failed to establish a stable democratic world. But another alternative still

343
Berman 2006:5
344
Quoted in Charles Kurzman (2008) Democracy Denied, 1905-1915:
Intellectuals and the Fate of Democracy, Harvard University Press, p.253
 300

remained, and in the wake of World War II this final challenger seemed poised to

offer both a dangerous challenge and a legitimate alternative to democratic

governance and economic management.

 301

CHAPTER 5

TWO WAYS OF LIFE

“At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose
between alternative ways of life.”
-- Harry S Truman (1947)1

“Whether the Marxist situations all over the world become Communist
preserves depends mostly on the relative strength and policies of the
Western and the Soviet camps.”
-- Adam Ulam (1960)2

For Germans the year 1945 became known as stunde null – zero hour, the period

when Europe’s history was fundamentally altered by forces outside of itself.

Cleaved by the force of two messianic powers, Germany became the symbol of a

struggle between competing visions that offered two mutually exclusive utopias.

This chapter examines the aftermath of the largest military conflict of the twentieth

century, the power transition that came in its wake, and the waves of institutional

1
"Address to Joint Session of Congress on Aid to Greece and Turkey," 12 March
1947. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman,
January 1 to December 31, 1947 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government
Printing Office, 1963), pp. 176-80.
2
Adam Ulam (1960) The Unfinished Revolution: An Essay on the Sources of
Influence of Marxism and Communism, Vintage Books, p.10.
 302

reforms that flowed from that transition.

Alone among the hegemonic shocks of the twentieth century, World War II

produced not one but two rising great powers, the United States and the Soviet

Union. Each emerged with its military, economy and global reputation greatly

strengthened by the joint triumph over the Axis. Reflecting this duality, the war’s

aftermath witnessed two distinct waves of institutional reforms that embodied the

competing visions proffered by the superpowers. Despite the profound differences

in their content, both regime waves diffused through a mixture of coercion (through

occupation and nation-building), influence (via the expansion of trade, foreign aid,

grants, and newly-forged international institutions), and emulation (by outsiders

impressed by the self-evident success of the two systems).

The aftermath of World War II also provided a dramatic illustration of how

rising great powers can take advantage of hegemonic shocks to advance the

construction of international institutions that act as conduits for their influence. In

normal political life, the reform of institutional architecture is a slow, complex,

inertia-laden process; hegemonic shocks, however, offer a temporary window of

opportunity to wipe the slate clean. In the wake of the war, both the Soviet Union

and the United States used their enormous power and influence to construct a new

institutional architecture that helped them perpetuate control and influence over

the states embedded within it.

This chapter first examines the power transition that took place in the years

immediately following the war, and the resulting forces that promoted waves of
 303

regime change in its wake. I then turn to the mechanisms of coercion, influence

and emulation though which the Soviet Union and the United States pursued

regime reforms and attracted regime imitators in countries around the world in the

wake of the war.

The Transition to Bipolarity

The war had profoundly altered the international distribution of power. Europe

had ended the war shaken and defeated, even within the victorious allied

members. Postwar per capita GDP among the continental Allies was less than 80

percent of its 1939 levels, and in most it was lower than in the early 1920s.3

“Morally and economically Europe has lost the war,” wrote the British writer Cyril

Connolly in 1945. “The great marquee of European civilization in whose yellow

light we all grew up…has fallen down; the side-ropes are frayed, the centre pole is

broken, the chairs and tables are all in pieces, the tent is empty, the roses are

withered on their stands…”4

France and Britain, first-rank European powers for centuries, were reduced to

supplicants reliant on American intervention – financial in the case of Britain,

physical in the case of France. The descent of the latter from the ranks of great

powers was made clear by the humiliating defeat of June 1940, followed by four

years of subservience and occupation. As late as 1938, British military strategy

3
Jeffry A. Frieden (2006) Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth
Century, W.W. Norton and Company, p. 261
4
Cyril Connolly in the journal Horizon, September 1945; quoted in Tony Judt
(2005) Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, Penguin Press, p.206
 304

positioned France as the continent’s pre-eminent military power, the bulwark

against German aggression and perhaps even the Soviet menace further east. But,

as historian Tony Judt writes in his history of postwar Europe, “in six traumatic

weeks, the cardinal reference points of European inter-state relations changed

forever. France ceased to be not just a Great Power but even a power, and despite

De Gaulle's best efforts in later decades it has never been one since.”5

Britain fared little better. Its victory “revealed Britain's decline, and Roosevelt

did nothing to halt it,” notes Francois Furet. “Britain emerged with honor but in a

weakened condition, heroic but anemic, less and less sure of its mastery over the

Commonwealth and lacking its traditional capacity as referee in Europe.”6 Alone

among the former European powers it was perceived as something of an equal to

the two superpowers, at least in the closing stages and immediate aftermath of the

war.7 But fighting had left the country nearly bankrupt and no longer able to

maintain its far-flung empire. Great Britain “emerged from six years of total war

exhausted, impoverished, and numb.”8 It had become the largest debtor nation in

the world, and in the process shed approximately a quarter of its national wealth.9

5
Judt 2005:113
6
Francois Furet (1999) The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the
Twentieth Century, University of Chicago Press, p.362
7
A 1944 book by political scientist William T.R. Fox, Superpowers, which
introduced the term, carried the subtitle “the United States, Britain, and the Soviet
Union – their responsibility for peace”. Similarly, in the following year political
scientist David J. Dallin published a book titled The Big Three: United States,
Britain, and Russia (New Haven: Yale University Press).
8
Paul Johnson (2009) Churchill, Viking Press, p.143
9
G. John Ikenberry (2000) After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the
Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars, Princeton University Press, p.167
 305

In doing so, it “fell to secondary status after World War II: America and Russia

eclipsed her; she was shorn of empire; her economy suffered; and she no longer

exrted decisive influence upon the structure of the international system,” write van

Wingen and Tilemma.10 “Great Britain's moment was past,” writes Roberts. “Her

eminence was illusory and temporary, though morally enhanced by recollection of

her stand almost alone in 1940 and 1941.”11

For the defeated Axis states, feared conquerors only three years earlier, the

decline was far more dramatic. Their industries were in ruins, their people

scattered, the reputations of their regimes irretrievably damaged not only by their

defeat but also by their conduct during the war. Per capita industrial output in the

postwar Axis countries was less than half of its prewar levels; in Italy and Japan this

set output back to its 1910 levels, in Germany to roughly 1890. German living

standards, roughly equal to those of Great Britain before the war, were barely one-

third of British levels in 1946, on par with Peru.12

Nor were the conditions in western Europe propitious for recovery. Economic

revitalization required imports of industrial equipment, food, and raw materials, at

a time when Europe had lost its ability to pay for these imports. Its empires, which

had provided access to markets and materials at favorable rates, were

10
John Van Wingen and Herbert K. Tillema (1980) “British Military Intervention
after World War II: Militance in a Second-Rank Power” Journal of Peace Research
17.4, p.291
11
Robert 1999:440
12
Frieden 2006:261; as Frieden puts it, the war “had thrown back the winners'
economies twenty-five years, while those of the losers had lost forty, fifty, even
seventy-five years.”
 306

disintegrating. At the same time, the Cold War had pushed them out of markets in

central and eastern Europe. Compounding the damage was the fact that the

continent had also lost the ability to raise money from foreign investments, which

had been sold to pay for the war.13 By 1945, western Europe, the former locus of

the international system, was dependent “on a dangerously contingent source to

fund its imports” – UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA)

expenditures, lend-lease, and direct spending by American troops and government

agencies.14

The Rise of Soviet Power

The war’s outcome demonstrated that the attempt to modernize through fascism

had failed.15 That regime, so recently a paragon of efficiency and order, was now in

the words of a 1945 New York Times editorial “a beaten and discredited system.”16

In its place stood two rival ideologies whose representative countries emerged

victorious from the war. The United States and the Soviet Union began the postwar

period with the strength and reputations greatly enhanced. Militarily, the Red Army

had achieved a stunning victory over Germany. The defeat of Nazi Germany, a

country that many pre-war contemporaries viewed as an industrial goliath,

“suggested that the Soviet system had considerable real-world vigor.”17 This

triumph played a key role in the attraction exerted by Communism in the years
13
Frieden 2006:261
14
Roberts 1999:448
15
Schivelbusch 206:189
16
The New York Times (1945) “Democracy on the March”, October 14, p.E8
17
Gale Stokes (1993) The Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Collapse of
Communism in Eastern Europe, Oxford University Press, p.8.
 307

following the conflict. Despite the importance of American participation, the war

had been won on the Eastern Front – the graveyard of 506 Nazi divisions and 10

million German soldiers (compared to 3.6 on the Western Front). With its victory,

the Soviet Union annexed territory from Finland in the north, Poland in the center,

and Bessarabia from Romania; Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were re-absorbed after

a German-imposed interlude. The addition of Ruthenia at the expense of

Czechoslovakia and the occupation of Sakhalin, Manchuria, and North Korea gave

the USSR direct access to Hungary and China.18

More importantly, the Red Army dominated the continent and occupied an

unbroken cordon sanitaire from the Baltic to the Black Sea. By the middle of 1945

every country east of the USSR except Greece had governments led either by

communists or coalitions in which communists shared power. The Red Army

occupied Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, and Czechoslovakia; it was the first to enter

Berlin. Only the quick advance of General Montgomery blocked the Red Army

from moving north through Germany toward Denmark; by this point it “constituted

the greatest military force Europe had ever seen.”19 The military triumph “had

proved its military strength, its social cohesion, the patriotism of its population. It

lent Stalin an unassailable negotiating position at the end of the war….

Communism had won the war and thus a new lease on history.”20 Its armies “had

proved far better instruments for the extension of international communism than

18
Kennedy 1987:361-2
19
Judt 2005:117
20
Furet 1999:350
 308

revolution had ever been.”21 The end of the war “inaugurated the short period – a

dozen or so years – during which Soviet Communism exercised its greatest

fascination over the twentieth-century political imagination.”22 The collapse of the

German juggernaut left a power vacuum in central and eastern Europe, which the

USSR rushed to fill.

Figure 5.1: Soviet share of hegemonic power, 1930-1960. Soviet power increased
rapidly in the second half of the 1940s.

The Soviet economy, though shaken by the war, was recovering rapidly; living

standards improved (albeit from a very low point), and between 1945 and 1950

21
Roberts 1999:440
22
Furet 1999:361
 309

industrial production doubled, exceeding prewar levels.23 The economic trends

were especially important since they signaled the viability of the system to

audiences in the developing world. "The USSR now is one of the mightiest

countries of the world,” declared Molotov in 1946. “One cannot decide now any

serious problems of international relations without the USSR."24 The defeat of the

Nazis “more than reversed the disastrous post-1917 slump in Russia's position in

Europe,” writes Paul Kennedy. “Indeed, it actually restored it to something akin to

that of the period 1814-1848, when its great army had been the gendarme of east-

central Europe.”25 Despite the devastation of the war, the Soviet Union emerged as

the most formidable military power (in conventional weapons) on the European

continent. At the end of the war it had four million active soldiers and the control

of territories far larger than its pre-war or even pre-Soviet boundaries.26 Even

skeptics who protested against the values of communism expressed begrudging

admiration for its success. “No one can deny…[that] the ruthlessness of the Soviet

leaders paid dividends,” wrote Granville Hicks, a lapsed Marxist who had

renounced Communism after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. “I grow impatient with

those who argue that the Soviet regime must be virtuous because it triumphed in

war, but there can be no argument about its power.”27

23
By 1949 industrial production also exceeded prewar levels everywhere in Eastern
Europe. Frieden 2006:274-5
24
Quoted in Kennedy 1987:365
25
Kennedy 1987:361
26
Palmer et al 2002:835-6
27
Granville Hicks (1946) “The Spectre that Haunts the World” Harper’s Magazine,
June, p.537
 310

The war had proven to be Communism's greatest challenge and, through the

very magnitude of that challenge, its savior. The victory “combined the two gods

that make or break historical times: power and ideas,” allowing the USSR to

credibly present itself as a viable alternative to capitalist development.28 “The usual

arguments against capitalism-the tyranny of trusts, the scandal of poverty in the

midst of plenty – remain in the forefront of people's minds,” wrote Raymond Aron

in 1944. “At the same time, the efficiency of the Communist regime's performance

during the war has refuted some classical arguments on the inevitable decadence

inherent in a bureaucratic economy.”29 A rise in power meant not only the power

to coerce, but also the power to attract, both through the allure of communism and

the perceived deficiencies of the alternative. “Millions of people do live in

insecurity or downright poverty,” wrote Granville Hicks in 1946, “and whether

capitalism is responsible or not does not matter so long as it is on capitalism that

they put the blame.”30 If capitalism represented the past, communism held the

promise of a bright future, particularly for European intellectuals who witnessed the

decay of the old bourgeois order. It “excited intellectuals in a way that neither

Hitler nor (especially) liberal democracy could hope to match,” writes Judt. It was

“exotic in locale and heroic in scale”; it was “directed towards impeccably

universal and transcendent goals. Its crimes were excused by many non-

28
Furet 1999:349
29
Raymond Aron (1944/2002) “The Secular Religions” in The Dawn of Universal
History: Selected Essays from a Witness to the Twentieth Century, Basic Books,
transl. by Barbara Bray, p.194
30
Hicks 1946:537
 311

Communist observers as the cost, so to speak, of doing business with History.”31

This potent combination of material success and ideological appeal enabled the

USSR to both coerce its neighbors and to attract admirers within them, sometimes

at the same time. “Say what you will – the Communists were more intelligent,”

wrote Milan Kundera, recalling how he, along with half the nation, cheered the

Soviet takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948 (the half, he writes, that was “the more

dynamic, the more intelligent, the better half.”) Communism managed to capture

the imagination through its promise of a universal utopia. It presented “a grandiose

program, a plan for a brand-new world in which everyone would find his place.

The Communists’ opponents had no great dream; all they had was a few moral

principles, stale and lifeless, to patch up the tattered trousers of the established

order.”32 This attraction was bolstered by its pronounced anti-fascist stance,

exemplified by “the extraordinary prominence of communists in the resistance

movements.”33 During the war years, communism had acquired a strong

association with anti-fascism and partisan movements; with the exception of

Poland, anti-fascist resistance politics leaned to the left.34 For that reason, the end

of the war was “even more of a political victory for the Communist idea than for

31
Judt 2005:216
32
Milan Kundera (1979/1999) Book of Laughter and Forgetting, New York:
HarperCollins, p.11
33
Eric Hobsbawm (1994) The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991,
Vintage Books, p.166
34
As Hobsbawm puts it: “In each country the fascist and radical Right and
conservatives, the local rich and others whose main terror was social revolution,
tended to sympathize, or at least not to oppose, the Germans…” Hobsbawm
1994:165.
 312

the democratic idea.”35

More generally, as Raymond Aron pointed out shortly before war’s end, the

appeal of communist ideology stemmed in part from its quasi-religious outlook on

human destiny, cloaked in the scientific and bureaucratic patina required of

twentieth-century faiths. The idea that “the postcapitalist economy would give birth

to a new, egalitarian human order transcends knowledge and derives from an act of

faith,” wrote Aron in 1944.36 He continued:

As long as men see politics as the vehicle of their fate, they will
actively worship the regimes that, dangling before them an illusory
future, reflect their desires and console them for their
disappointments. As long as troubled masses think themselves
betrayed or exploited, men will dream of liberation, and the image of
their dream will be the face of their god.37

Communism embodied that dream in the image of the Soviet Union and its

wartime triumphs. A decade after introducing the metaphor, Aron elaborated on

the idea of communism as a “Christian heresy”:

As a modern form of millenarianism, it places the kingdom of God on

earth following an apocalyptic revolution in which the Old World
will be swallowed up. The contradictions of capitalist societies will
inevitably bring about this fruitful catastrophe. The victims of today
will be the victors of tomorrow. Salvation will come through the
proletariat, that witness to present inhumanity.38

The United States held an undeniable advantage over the Soviet Union in

economic and industrial development (more on that below). But when it came to

cultural appeal, “the Communists did not even need to take the initiative,” wrote

35
Furet 1999:356
36
Aron 1944/ 2002:181
37
Aron 1944/ 2002:193
38
Aron (1954) “From Marxism to Stalinism” in Aron 2002:203
 313

Judt. “Fear of American domination, of the loss of national autonomy and initiative,

brought into the 'progressive' camp men and women of all political stripes and

none…America seemed economically carnivorous and culturally obscurantist: a

deadly combination.”39

This element of the post-war Soviet appeal is often lost in the focus on Soviet

coercion in Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union exerted its influence not only through

the armies camped out on the banks of the Elbe, but also through the cultural and

ideological prestige magnified by its victory. Communism “seemed to be imparting

to all the secret of what made humanity divine after God had receded – namely,

humanity's capacity to act in history while avoiding its uncertainties…” wrote

Francois Furet. “To possess both liberty and knowledge of that liberty: now here

was an intoxicating brew for moderns deprived of God…If the Soviet political

economy evoked such infatuation, it was not only because it formed an almost

providential contrast to the spectacle offered by the collapse of capitalism. It was

because it revealed a moral idea, a regenerated humanity, delivered from the curse

of profit.”40

Yet without the wartime triumphs, Communism might have shared the fate of

other alluring and failed prophecies of modernity, and indeed seemed to be on the

way to doing so in the 1930s. After all, the ideological attractions of communism

were in place well before 1945, having been set down my Marx and Engels a

century earlier. The appeal of these ideas had brought forth a swathe of Communist

39
Judt 2005:220
40
Furet 1999:26,154
 314

parties and sympathizers across Europe even before 1917. But the expected wave

of revolutions after the Bolshevik victory never materialized, despite Lenin’s

expectations. As in the case of fascism, an ideological innovation alone was

insufficient for catalyzing an institutional wave. Ideology required strength in the

form of a hegemonic shock. “[T]he postwar years constituted exceptionally good

vintages for the Communist idea,” wrote Furet, “because they were accompanied

by the most powerful god in history – that of victory.”41 Despite initial setbacks,

“the USSR had out-produced and out-fought the Nazi colossus, ripping the heart

from the magnificent German military machine,” writes Judt. “For its friends and

foes alike, the Soviet victory in World War Two bore witness to the Bolsheviks'

achievement. Stalin's policies were vindicated, his pre-war crimes largely forgotten.

Success, as Stalin well understood, is a winning formula.”42 In short, it was the rise

of the Soviet Union and its ascent to superpower status after World War II that

paved the way for a credible communist alternative around the world. This path

was forged both by force and sincere, hopeful imitation. Stalin had “won the war,

transformed the Soviet Union into an empire and a superpower, and made the

Communist idea more influential than it had ever been,” wrote Furet. “His

government gained the respectability conferred by victory and strength.”43

As Raymond Aron pointed out, “The divisions of the Red Army would inspire

less apprehension if they were not seen to act in the service of an idea. It is the

41
Furet 1999:361
42
Judt 2005:165-6
43
Furet 1999:439)
 315

combination of an empire risen suddenly on the ruins of the European nations and

an apparently universal message that spreads a kind of terror throughout the non-

Communist world.”44 The post-WWII period was thus a moment when ideological

and material power came together to give communism both an aura of normative

attraction and the prestige of a triumphant victor. “The image of the Soviet Union,

when decked out in all the prestige of power and ideology,” wrote Furet, “had

never cast a more potent spell.”45

The Rise of American Power

The other major beneficiary of the war was the United States. Spurred by vast

increases in military expenditures, its gross national product rose from $88.6 billion

in 1939 to $135 billion in 1945 (in constant 1939 dollars). Between 1940 and

1944, U.S. industrial production expanded by over 15 percent per year, a faster

rate than at any other period in its history.46 The continental United States had been

untouched by the war, its oceans providing immunity from physical destruction;

“America's fixed capital was intact, her resources greater than ever.”47 Output of

goods grew by over 50 percent during the war, while the country’s manufacturing

base expanded by nearly 50 percent.48 At the end of the war, the U.S. owned $20

44
Aron 1954/2002:203
45
Furet 1999:350
46
As Kennedy notes, among the great powers the United States “was the only
country which became richer – in fact, much richer – rather than poorer because of
the war.” Kennedy 1987:357-8
47
Roberts 1999:448
48
W. Ashworth (1975) A Short History of the International Economy Since 1850,
London, p.268. Quoted in Kennedy 1987:357
 316

billion of the world’s $33 billion of gold reserves. It was the world’s largest creditor

country and biggest source of international liquidity, with the ability to provide

capital to countries that needed it desperately.49 It was the home of over half of the

world’s economic production, the globe’s biggest exporter, supplier of half of the

world’s shipping, leader in advanced technologies, and held a surplus in both

petroleum and food production.50 Its merchant fleet, a third of the size of Europe in

1939, was more than twice as large by 1947.51Domestic standards of living actually

rose during the war.52 “Economically,” Kennedy writes, “the world was its oyster.”53

Of the three major winners of the war, the United States “remained far and away

the most powerful economically.”54

Such economic might inevitably translated into military dominance: by 1945

the United States had 12.5 million servicemen, 7.5 million of them abroad; sixty-

nine divisions in Europe and twenty-six in Asia and the Pacific. With the landing on

Normandy, it had organized and executed “one of the most spectacular military

operations in history.”55 After the occupation of Italy, American forces had liberated

France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and conquered half of Germany. Outside of

the sphere of Soviet dominance, the United States possessed total command of the

global commons, on the water and in the air. It maintained 1200 major warships,

49
Roberts 1999:448
50
Ikenberry 2001:167
51
Frieden 2006:261
52
Roberts 1999:448
53
Kennedy 1987:358
54
Furet 1999:362
55
Furet 1999:362
 317

significantly more than the Royal Navy. “In both its carrier task forces and its

Marine Corps divisions,” writes Paul Kennedy, “the United States had amply

demonstrated its capacity to project its power across the globe to any region

accessible from the sea.”56 It also had an overwhelming command of the air, with

over 2000 heavy bombers and over a thousand long-range B-29s. Most

importantly, it had a monopoly on nuclear weapons, “which promised to unleash a

devastation upon any future enemy as horrific as that which had occurred at

Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”57 This image of superiority was “reinforced by the pleas

of so many nations for American loans, weapons, and promises of military

support.”58

In short, the power dynamic between European and American economies

shifted dramatically over the course of the war. In 1939 the combined economies

of Europe, Japan and the USSR were twice the size of the United States; by 1946

the U.S. was larger than all of them together. The steel production of Germany,

Britain and the USSR combined totaled less than half of the U.S., having been 15

percent larger only seven years earlier.59 “The United States emerged from the war

unusually powerful in relation to the European great powers and Japan,” writes

Ikenberry:

America's allies and the defeated axis states were battered and
diminished by the war, whereas the United States grew more
powerful through mobilization and war. The American government

56
Kennedy 1987:358
57
Kennedy 1987:358
58
Kennedy 1987:358-9
59
Frieden 2006:261-2
 318

was more centralized and capable, and the economy and military
were unprecedented in their power and still on an upward swing. In
addition, the war itself had ratified the destruction of the old order of
the 1930s, eliminated the alternative regional hegemonic ambitions
of Germany and Japan, and diminished the viability of the British
imperial order.60

The American victory had proven democracy’s ability to triumph over a feared and

heretofore successful autocracy. “When a convulsed humanity is beginning to find a new

level of existence,” wrote the New York Times, “it becomes apparent that democracy has

not only held its own, but is stronger than ever and carries a greater appeal to more

people than ever before.”61 In his defeat Hitler joined the long list of those who had

dismissed the ability of democratic states to effectively manage an economy and win

sustained, large-scale wars. He “persistently, and dramatically, underestimated the

capacity for action, not to mention the economic and technological potential, of the

US.A.,” writes Hobsbawm, “because he thought democracies incapable of action.”62 As

John Kenneth Galbraith noted: “During World War II it was widely believed that the

ruthlessly exercised power of the German dictatorship was a major source of strength and

one manifestation was its ability to command more than seven million workers from all

the races of Europe…Closer examination revealed no advantage.”63

By demonstrating the efficiency of democracy, the American victory reinforced

the lessons of World War I documented in Chapter 3, but in an even more

convincing fashion. At the end of the Great War, German territory had never been

60
Ikenberry 2001:167
61
The New York Times (1945) “Democracy on the March”, October 14, p.E8
62
Hobsbawm 1994:41
63
John Kenneth Galbraith (1967) The New Industrial State, New York: Houghton
Mifflin, p.142-3
 319

occupied by foreign troops. In 1945, military defeat was total, and widely

acknowledged by both German citizens and outside participants. Unconditional

surrender and lasting post-war occupation were accepted conditions for ending the

hostilities. And unlike in 1919, the United States played a more visible and vital

role in ending the war. “[I]ts resources and technology were vital for winning,”

notes Ikenberry. “Its political leadership was more critical than it had been during

World War I.”64 By providing crucial military assistance to both Great Britain and

the USSR, it secured itself a position of strength in bargaining over post-war goals

and reforms. Moreover, the expansion of American influence was encouraged by

the very target of that expansion, Europe itself. European leaders were willing to

pay the price of American hegemony in exchange for avoiding the perils of

American isolationism that followed the Treaty of Versailles.65 American assistance

to the Allies powers, its own military participation, its economic dominance and

the threat of Soviet occupation all meant that it could dictate the terms of the post-

war settlement to a much greater degree than in 1919. Frieden writes:

The fact that American power had grown and European flagged made
it clear that the United States would have its way with the rest of the
world. At Versailles and after, Woodrow Wilson and his colleagues
had faced European intransigence on issue after issue and had been
forced to conciliate on such important matters as German
reparations. Now America's Western Allies were at the mercy of the
United States.66

The rapid rise of American power and its defeat of Nazi Germany served as a

64
Ikenberry 2001:169
65
Ikenberry 2001:193
66
Frieden 2006:262
 320

vivid demonstration of the efficiency and effectiveness of modern democracy. It

“proved that America could defeat evil on a global scale….Victory in World War II

was therefore a victory not just for an alliance, but also for the American way of life

itself. It had outproduced and outgunned its enemies; now the time had come to

transform both enemies and friends in one's own image.”67 Its position meant that it

would be instrumental in deciding the future course of Europe and the developing

world. “Europe and Japan were crushed or exhausted,” writes Frieden, “the United

States was wealthy and powerful, and its involvement would determine the speed

of recovery.”68 As America’s erstwhile rivals struggled under the weight of post-war

recovery, their economies looked toward the United States as a source of capital,

resources, and even food, leading to “a worldwide surge of indirect American

power, its beginnings visible even before the war ended.”69

67
Odd Arne Westad (2005) The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and
the Making of Our Times, Cambridge University Press, p. 20-21
68
Frieden 2006:262
69
Roberts 1999:448
 321

Figure 5.2: American share of hegemonic power, 1930-1960. U.S. relative power
increased rapidly during the war, peaking in the late 1940s.

Both American policy-makers and outside observers recognized the

extraordinary dominance of the U.S. position. "The U.S. is in the position today

where Britain was at the end of the Napoleonic wars," wrote British Foreign

Minister Ernest Bevin in June 1947.70 "Today literally hundreds of millions of

Europeans and Asiatics know that both the quality and the rhythm of their lives

depend upon decisions made in Washington,” wrote British scholar Harold Laski

70
“The Chargé in the United Kingdom [Gallman] to the Secretary of State," 16 June
1947, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, Vol. 3, pp. 254-55. Quoted in
Ikenberry 2000:168. As Kennedy points out, “simply because much of the rest of
the world was either exhausted by the war or still in a stage of colonial
"underdevelopment," American power in 1945 was, for want of another term,
artificially high, like, say, Britain's in 1815.” Kennedy 1987:357, orig. emph.
 322

that same year. “On the wisdom of those decisions hangs the fate of the next

generation."71 U.S. policy-makers anticipated and actively planned for the post-war

world. As a wartime policy memo put it: “The successful termination of the war

against our present enemies will find a world profoundly changed in respect of

relative national military strengths.... After the defeat of Japan, the United States

and the Soviet Union will be the only military powers of the first magnitude.”72 In a

1948 State Department review of American foreign policy, George Kennan wrote:

"We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population.... Our

real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will

permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our

national security."73

Power Transition – Conclusion

In sum, the outcome of the war both transformed and clarified the distribution

of power in the international system. “Their starting-point is different, and their

courses are not the same,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville of Russia and the United

States in 1835, “yet each of them seems marked by the will of Heaven to sway the

71
Harold J. Laski, "America – 1947”, Nation, Vol. 165 (December 13, 1947), p.
641. Quoted in Ikenberry 2001:168
72
Quoted in Kennedy 1987:357, citing M. Matloff (1959) Strategic Planning for
Coalition Warfare, 1943-1944, Washington, D.C., p.523-4.
73
"Memorandum by the Director of the Policy Planning Staff [Kennan] to the
Secretary of State and Under Secretary of State [Lovett]," 24 February 1948, Foreign
Relations of the United States, 1948, Vol. 1, p. 524. Quoted in Ikenberry 2001:169
 323

destinies of half the globe.”74 A hundred and ten years later, his prediction was

swiftly coming true. The Soviet Union and the United States were the only two

states that had risen in stature because of the war, and now towered in strength and

prestige above the rest of the world. “It became common to speak of the two

countries as superpowers – continental land giants possessing enormous resources,

overshadowing all other states, including the nations of western Europe long

dominant in the modern centuries.”75

The nature of the power transition and the ensuing competition between the

victors dictated active global involvement by the two emerging superpowers. Fear

of economic decay and European instability required the United States to prop up

capitalist export markets. Fear of future military invasions required the Soviet Union

to establish a buffer zone of friendly communist regimes on its western border.

Moreover, the internal legitimacy of both superpowers depended on successfully

exporting their regimes to other countries, and their universalist and messianic

visions further encouraged global involvement. According to historian and Soviet

expert Adam Ulam, the best characterization of the competition between the

United States and the USSR is “a race between the social and economic

dynamisms of the two societies.”76 A key element of that race was each hegemon’s

ability to convince outsiders of the value of their regimes, which led to an

inherently expansionist, global, and interventionist foreign policy. The success of

74
Alexis de Tocqueville (1834) Democracy in America
75
Palmer et al 2002:835-6
76
Adam Ulam (1960) The Unfinished Revolution: An Essay on the Sources of
Influence of Marxism and Communism, Vintage Books, p.299
 324

communist regime expansion was uniquely tied to the welfare of the Soviet Union,

both because it required the unceasing coercion of eastern European satellites and

because only Soviet power and continued growth could credibly demonstrate the

appeal and potential of communism.77 As a result, a major goal of Soviet policy,

and a source of its aggressiveness, was “an assertive policy designed to illustrate

the viability and missionary significance of Communism.”78 Likewise, the

acceptance of American democracy depended on both the revival of bourgeois

Europe from the destruction of the war and the ability to demonstrate its

applicability as a path to modernization in the developing world. Both the United

States and the USSR thus “needed to change the world in order to prove the

universal applicability of their ideologies, and the elites of the newly independent

states proved fertile ground for their competition,” writes Arne Westad. This

compunction lent a messianic tinge to their foreign policies and further catalyzed

the spread of regime waves in war’s wake:

By helping to expand the domains of freedom or of social justice,

both powers saw themselves as assisting natural trends in world
history and as defending their own security at the same time. Both
saw a specific mission in and for the Third World that only their own
state could carry out and which without their involvement would
flounder in local hands.79

Both superpowers could make a convincing case to potential converts. Both

had demonstrated military effectiveness and economic resilience in the face of a

77
As Frieden puts it, “Economic trends in the Soviet Union and its allies were
especially important because the Communist world was expanding outside
Europe.” (Frieden 2006:275)
78
Ulam 1960:292
79
Westad 2005:4-5
 325

crisis, and both offered a vision for political and social development that

transcended national boundaries. The United States made a transition from the

arsenal of democracy to the incarnation of its highest potential. “Though the

international skies are still dark with the clouds of disagreement among the war’s

victors, there is one encouraging sign which is unmistakable, and that is the

continued strength and spread of democracy,” proclaimed a New York Times

editorial in October 1945. “[W]hen a convulsed humanity is beginning to find a

new level of existence, it becomes apparent that democracy has not only held its

own, but is stronger than ever and carries a greater appeal to more people than

ever before.”80 When Turkey ended a long period of single-party rule in 1945 and

began a stormy transition to multi-party democracy, future premier Adnan

Menderes explained the shift in terms that clearly revealed the demonstration

effects of hegemonic shocks:

The difficulties encountered during the war years uncovered and

showed the weak points created by the one-party system in the
structure of the country. The hope in the miracles of [the] one-party
system vanished, as the one-party system countries were defeated
everywhere. Thus, the one-party mentality was destroyed in the
turmoil of blood and fire of the second World War. No country can
remain unaffected by the great international events and the
contemporary dominating ideological currents. This influence was
felt in our country too.81

80
The New York Times (1945) “Democracy on the March” October 14, page E8.
81
Adnan Menderes, Cumhuriyet, 18 July 1946, quoted in Kemal H. Karpat,
Turkey's Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959), p. 140, n. 10.
Quoted in Samuel Huntington (1982) “American Ideals versus American
Institutions” Political Science Quarterly 97.1, p.33
 326

Figure 5.3: Average global level of democracy (1930-1970, using Polity IV). The
graph shows the century’s second democratic wave. The global level of democracy
rose rapidly in the second half of the 1940s and began to decline in the late 1950s.
 327

Figures 5.4 and 5.5: Another measure of the postwar democratic wave. Figure 5.4
shows the total number of democratic states (states with a Polity score of at least 7)
while Figure 5.5 shows the number of democratic states as a proportion of all states
in the international system. Both the absolute and the relative number of
democratic states increases rapidly in the mid-1940s.
 328

Figure 5.6: Communist share of global power. The chart shows the communist
wave beginning in the mid-1940s. The dashed line represents total global power
(measured in CINC) held by all communist states; the solid line below represents
global power held by communist states excluding the Soviet Union. The communist
share of power increases rapidly between the mid-1940s and the early 1950s.
 329

Figures 5.7 and 5.8: Another measure of the postwar communist wave. Figure 5.7
shows the total number of communist states, while Figure 5.8 shows the number of
communist states as a proportion of all states in the international system. Both the
absolute and the relative number of communist states increases rapidly in the mid-
1940s.
 330

The Soviet Union, meanwhile, offered a radically different and (to many) an

equally compelling path to development and modernity. “Soviet society had

suffered terribly from the war, but its military successes left it dominant east of the

Rhine, and by the end of the war Soviet industrial plant was going strong,” writes

Frieden. Communists “also emerged from the war with a vastly improved

reputation. While many Socialists, Christian Democrats, and others had behaved

nobly, there were enough exceptions to cast shadows on non-Communist

movements and parties.”82 Thus in the period immediately after the end of the war,

“Stalinist Communism, victorious over the Fascist dictators, reached its greatest

influence.”83 Moreover, the Soviet economic system “seemed to deliver rapid

growth, egalitarianism, and social improvements….the rise and consolidation of a

socialist world of Communist-led countries gave hope to millions that there was

indeed a way to avoid the impersonality of capitalism's market forces and their

tendency to work against the interests of the poor and powerless.”84 It is the rise of

this world that I examine in the next section.

The Communist Wave

The coerced Sovietization of Eastern Europe was the most visible aspect of the postwar

communist wave. It was a clear manifestation of newfound Soviet power and the direct

result of Red Army occupation and control of the region. As such, this coercive aspect of

the communist wave was both crucial in increasing the number of communist states

82
Frieden 2007:263
83
Furet 1999:160
84
Frieden 2006:275-6
 331

around the world and least interesting in terms of theoretical analysis. “It would be foolish

to ask what secret affinity – perhaps it was the peasant majority or the Slav community, for

example – predisposed the countries of Eastern Europe to follow in the path of the

Communists,” wrote Raymond Aron in 1954. “Any country liberated by the Russian army,

even France, Britain, or Spain, would have met the same fate.”85 Nevertheless, the forced

conversion of Eastern Europe was not a monolithic or instantaneous process. The native

popularity of communism varied widely from one country to the next, and in some places

it was embraced by a substantial part of the population (as Kundera’s aforementioned

memoirs testify). Even those who rejected communist ideology saw opportunities in the

rapid growth of institutions of the state and the party. The creation of new jobs meant that

“men from humble backgrounds suddenly had powers and privileges that they could not

previously have dreamed of.”86 Even the postwar purges in Eastern Europe provided a

macabre means of social advancement, as aspiring functionaries could outmaneuver

potential rivals with denunciations both fantastic and readily accepted – a grim replica of

USSR’s Great Purges barely a decade earlier. “Astonishing as it seems in retrospect, the

period when communist rule in eastern Europe was at its most brutal was also the period

during which many intelligent and well-meaning individuals thought that it was a good

thing,” writes Vinen. “This partly explains how it was possible to bring about rapid

transformations in the societies of eastern Europe…”87

And indeed the changes wrought in Eastern Europe between 1945 and 1948

85
Aron 1954/ 2002:226
86
Vinen 2000:341
87
Vinen 2000:339
 332

(when Tito’s break with Stalin marked the end of the first stage of the post-war

wave) were dramatic and all-encompassing. The reforms of this period, writes Gale

Stokes:

swept aside private property, wiped out the middle class,

collectivized agriculture, brought millions of country people to work
in the city, dramatically increased the number of working women,
brought entirely new people to power, reorganized and repopulated
all levels of government, created new systems of education and
scholarship, eliminated freedom of expression, turned East European
trade away from its natural partnership with Western Europe toward
the Soviet Union, propagated a new public ethic, built a strong
military, and, in general, seized control of all aspects of public life.88

About a hundred million people had passed into Soviet jurisdiction in the years

following the war. The Soviet bloc, as it came to be known, included Yugoslavia,

Albania, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet-

occupied half of Germany that became the German Democratic Republic. These

rough replicas assimilated the salient features of the Soviet state: a one-party

dictatorships constituted by a rigidly hierarchical authority structure; a centralized,

state-planned economy (in this case doubly distorted by state-determined quotas

and the requirements of Soviet import markets); obedience to an official ideology

propagated by the political leadership; show trials and purges of local communists

(in those states where the Red Army exercised direct influence); and “the most

obvious relic of the Stalinist heritage, strongly profiled supreme leaders.”89

The political subordination of a territory began with the arrival of the occupying

88
Stokes 1993: 8
89
Hobsbawm 1994:394-5. These features also re-appeared in China, Cuba, and a
number of short-lived imitators in Africa, Asia, and Latin America during the 1970s.
 333

army, so that the Red Army began exercising control over many of these states well

before the end of actual hostilities.90 Nevertheless, in few cases did the communist

come to power through sheer force and intimidation. Hobsbawm, for example,

notes that while the regime transformations in Europe “all were made possible by

the victory of the Red Army,” in only four cases – Poland, East Germany, Romania,

and Hungary – were the reforms “imposed exclusively by the force of that army.”91

In Yugoslavia and Albania, on the other hand, communist resistance fighters

enjoyed widespread indigenous support (which later enabled them to break away

from the Soviet sphere of dominance). 92 Nowhere did the communists constitute

the majority of the electorate, “but what they lacked in numbers, they made up for

in fervor.”93 The genuinely free 1946 elections in Czechoslovakia – the only

country in the region with a large and organized mass of industrial workers –

communists received 38 percent of the vote, while the Social Democrats received

another 12 percent.94 Bulgarian communists, meanwhile, enjoyed widespread

Russophile sentiment.95 Everywhere the old elites had been discredited, the upper

classes removed from state bureaucracies; in the former Axis states of Hungary,

Romania and Bulgaria the quisling and philofascist governments were overthrown;

and in many countries around the region “the Soviet occupiers were at first

90
Palmer et al 2002:837
91
Hobsbawm 1994:395
92
Hobsbawm 1994:395-6
93
Vinen 2000:342
94
Halperin 2004:253
95
Hobsbawm 1994:170
 334

welcomed as liberators and harbingers of change and reform.”96 The youth and the

intelligentsia drew inspiration from “building a new world on what was so visibly

the total ruin of the old.”97 The arrival of Communist regimes, “whether they came

mainly or partly with the support of the Soviet bayonets, were led by people

who…were neither in a position nor in a mood to offer the slightest resistance to

the Kremlin and were only too glad to avail themselves of the help, advice, and

command of the Russians.”98

Moreover, the Soviets did not immediately appear to pursue hard-line policies –

bound partly by his wartime alliances, Stalin had assured the West that the region

would follow neither Soviet-style socialism nor Western capitalism, but a “people’s

democracy” – a third way constituted by an alliance of workers, peasants, and the

bourgeois who would build mixed economies.99 An echo of the social democracy

model in the West, it sustained the hope of Soviet-American postwar cooperation,

and made the initial push for reforms more palatable to both the West and cautious

observers in Eastern Europe. This also meant that the early period of Soviet

influence enjoyed the unspoken assent of the United States. And in many ways, its

strategy “really was reassuringly moderate.”100 Just like inside Russia itself after the

1917 revolution, the communists tread lightly at first – agrarian reforms focused on

land redistribution to peasants rather than forcible collectivization. Private property

96
Judt 2005:130
97
Hobsbawm 1994:396
98
Ulam 1960:262
99
Frieden 2006:274
100
Judt 2005:131
 335

was for the most part left alone (except for the confiscation of “fascist” property,

especially in eastern Germany) and the USSR did not pursue a policy of economic

nationalization. Overall, “there was very little talk of 'Socialism' as a goal.”101

Even in countries where coercion played a greater role, and where a communist

government was imposed by the army, “the new regime initially enjoyed a

temporary legitimacy and, for a time, some genuine support. … However

unpopular party and government, the very energy and determination which both

brought to the task of post-war reconstruction commanded a broad, if reluctant,

assent.”102 In addition, the Soviet emphasis on industrialization resonated with

people in the backward agrarian states of the region who sought a quick path to

modernity.103 “[T]he Soviet economic recipe also seemed to suit them, and their

new rulers launched themselves into the task of economic construction with

genuine enthusiasm,” writes Hobsbawm. “Indeed, the success of the new regimes

in this task was hard to deny….Who could doubt that countries like Bulgaria or

Yugoslavia were advancing far more rapidly than had seemed likely, or even

possible before the war?”104 One of the paradoxes of postwar eastern Europe was

that between 1945 and 1948, a time of great repression, political intimidation,

show trials, and executions, was also the time when “enthusiasm for communism

was most intense and in which some eastern Europeans, often those who had

101
Judt 2005:131
102
Hobsbawm 1994:396
103
Exceptions to this rule included the future East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and to
a lesser extent Hungary.
104
Hobsbawm 1994:377, 396
 336

suffered for their beliefs under earlier regimes, made the deliberate choice to attach

the fate of their countries to that of the Soviet Union.”105 The dynamics that drove

the expansion of communism into eastern Europe included an undeniable degree

of coercion but (particularly in the earliest stages) also reflected the increased

influence of the Soviet hegemon and an indigenous desire to emulate Soviet

successes. “It is true that the Communist part dictatorship was brought to the small

East European countries by the victorious troops of Stalin,” wrote Hungarian

dissident Gaspar Miklos Tamas, “but we should admit that we were ready for it.”106

The consolidation of Soviet control over the region thus proceeded in steps.

Elections in 1945 elections brought forward a communist majority only in Bulgaria

and Yugoslavia107; elsewhere, Communist parties entered into coalition

governments. The standard tactic was to form an alliance with other left-wing or

anti-fascist parties – a Worker’s Front, a People’s Front, a Unity Government, or a

Fatherland Front. In cases where those parties refused to join a fictitious coalition,

the communists allied with dissident factions, which could be “created, if

necessary, by a process of infiltration.”108 This cautious approach echoed the

Popular Front tactics of the 1930s in France, Spain and elsewhere. The coalitions

“would exclude and punish the old regime and its supports but would be cautious

and ‘democratic’, reformist rather than revolutionary.”109 Within a few months of

105
Vinen 2000:338
106
Quoted in Stokes 1993:7
107
Roberts 1999:451
108
Hicks 1946:540
109
Judt 2005:130-1
 337

war’s end, such coalition governments ran every country in eastern Europe.

Crucially, Soviet military occupation enabled local Communist leaders to dominate

these ill-glued creations.110 This dominance enabled them to hold key positions in

the army, the courts, and the policy, as well as the crucial ministries of justice and

the interior. As opposition leaders realized too late, political control rather than

specific policies would shape the outcome. “The Communists secure the critical

positions in the united front and in the government that it organizes,” wrote

Granville Hicks in 1946. “The ministry of the interior, for example, which usually

controls the censorship, and the ministry of justice, which has charge of the police,

are held by Communists in half a dozen countries.”111 Communists also gave

themselves positions in the agricultural ministries (where control of land reforms

allowed them to buy the loyalty of the peasants) as well as positions in trade

unions, district commissions, and denazification committees.112

From the start, power-sharing was a tactical, temporary choice. As East German

Communist leader Walter Ulbricht told his followers in 1945: “It's quite clear – it's

got to look democratic, but we must have everything in our control.”113 Control of

the security forces – the army and the police – enabled Communists to use political

violence against their opponents; purges, intimidation and disfranchisement soon

110
Palmer et al 2002:872
111
Hicks 1946:540. This tactic, as Hicks noted, was doubly advantageous: “it gives
Communists greater influence than their numbers warrant, and at the same time
saves them from the assumption of full responsibility – and saves Russia, as well.”
112
Judt 2005:131. By contrast, Judt notes, they gave their socialist, agrarian and
liberal coalition allies offices of the president, prime minister, and foreign minister,
which “reassured Western observers.”
113
Quoted in Judt 2005:131.
 338

“made a mockery of Stalin's pledge at Yalta to hold "free and unfettered elections"

in eastern Europe.”114Command of Ministries of the Interior also meant control of

electoral rules; in the January 1947 Polish elections, for example, Peasant Party

candidates were disqualified in ten of fifty-two electoral districts.115 It quickly

became apparent that coalitions governments “could, in fact, do little more than

behave as Soviet puppets. Something like a communist bloc was already appearing

in 1946.”116 By the middle of that year, an observer could write that the Soviet

Union “can not only assert, as any great power might do, that it has a right to

intervene in the affairs of neighboring states on grounds of national security; it can

exercise direct control over certain of the individuals who rule those countries.

That is to say, high-placed officials in Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria and so on have

long disciplined themselves to accept Soviet decisions as their ultimate

authority…” 117

Regardless of indigenous support or tactical attempts at coalition-building, the

Soviet need for a buffer zone meant it could not trust previously hostile East

European states to set up their own regimes. “The only acceptable outcome for

Stalin was the establishment…of governments that could be relied upon never to

pose a threat to Soviet security.”118 By 1947, non-Communist parties were expelled

from the governments of Hungary, Romania and Poland (all three had been

114
Palmer et al 2002:872)
115
Vinen 2000:251
116
Roberts 1999:451
117
Hicks 1946:540
118
Judt 2005:130
 339

particularly unfriendly to Moscow during the war); a Communist regime was

established in Czechoslovakia in March 1948. Covert pressure quickly morphed

into outright intimidation and persecution. Between 1945 and 1947 political

opponents were “maligned, threatened, beaten up, arrested, tried as 'Fascists' or

'collaborators' and imprisoned or even shot.”119 In January 1945 the head of

Bulgaria’s Agrarian Union, deemed insufficiently compliant, was forced from

office. By the following summer, seven of the twenty-two members of the party’s

Presidium and thirty-five of its eighty-member governing council were jailed.120 In

Hungary, the secretary the Smallholders’ Party was arrested by Soviet authorities in

February 1947.121

Non-socialist leftist parties were the easiest targets, since they could be always

be smeared with pro-fascist or anti-national accusations. The last rivals to be

eliminated were the socialist and social-democratic parties, whose agendas

overlapped with the communists and who had also suffered under fascist rules.

These parties could not be credibly accused of fascist collusion and enjoyed the

allegiance of the region’s working class, and so had to be handled in more delicate

ways. They were urged to join communist-socialist “union” governments under the

direction of the communists. “In the circumstances of post-liberation eastern

Europe this seemed to many socialists a sensible proposition.”122 Many of these

leftist unions came to power in 1948: Romania in February, Hungary and

119
Judt 2005:132
120
Judt 2005:132
121
Vinen 2000:251-2
122
Judt 2005:132
 340

Czechoslovakia in June, Bulgaria in August, and Poland in December. Even coming

into the fold did not protect the socialist partners from criticism – during Romania’s

February congress marking the fusion of the two parties, the Communist leader

denounced the Socialists of sabotage, cooperation with reactionaries, and anti-

Soviet smears. By the end of year, the Socialist parties were hopelessly divided, “so

that long before they disappeared they had ceased to be an effective political force

in their country.”123 Between 1945 and 1948 Communist parties replaced coalition

governments throughout the region.

Elections during the following two years were increasingly characterized by

voter fraud and political intimidation. Policies shifted to reflect more hard-line

communist policies. Soviet-style constitutions were hoisted upon the countries in

the region, the first in Bulgaria, in December 1947 and the last in Poland in July

1952. They were turned into police states, ruled by local Communist parties under

the control of their Moscow equivalent. In economic policy, “the irrational,

occasionally surreal quality of Soviet economic practice was faithfully reproduced

throughout the bloc.”124 The countries adopted Five-Year plans, with wildly

ambitious goals. By 1948 the state had nationalized large firms and companies,

took total control over economic planning (which emphasized heavy industry),

restricted external trade, and took over (through force or taxation) any private

business employing more than fifty people.125 Starting in 1949, the policy of land

123
Judt 2005:133
124
Judt 2005:169
125
Frieden 2006:274
 341

redistribution that had briefly mollified the peasants was replaced by land

collectivization, complete with attacks on “kulaks” that echoed Stalin’s forced

collectivization of the Russian and Ukrainian countryside two decades earlier.126

The establishment of Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) in

January 1949, itself a response to the Marshall Plan, further speeded up the

Sovietization of eastern economies. By 1952, “only traces of private enterprise

remained outside agriculture.”127

In a few short years, Stalin succeeded in populating the region with what

Kenneth Jowett called “geographically contiguous replica states”.128 This

transformation was driven primarily by the enormous power of the Soviet Union,

manifested most directly by the lengthy occupation of the region by the Red Army.

Aiding these reforms in the beginning was a measure of indigenous pro-Soviet

sentiment that drew upon the successes of the Soviet regime in liberating the region

from Nazi occupation. But the heavy hand of the occupation was bound to alienate

native Communist supporters, just as German cruelty a few years earlier drove off

potential allies in Ukraine and elsewhere. Defaulting to the use of force was

ultimately counter-productive to Soviet purposes. Adam Ulam notes:

The disproportion in power between the European satellites and the

USSR, the fact that their Communist leaders had nowhere to look for
support against the West or their own peoples, would have
undoubtedly secured their general following of the Russian wishes,
provided they had been given some leeway and opportunity to
dictate themselves the tempo of economic and social transformation

126
Judt 2005:167-9
127
Halperin 2004:256
128
Quoted in Judt 2005:167
 342

of their countries.129

Often these desires for transformations ran parallel with Soviet goals. The

Yugoslavian Communists, for example, were initially even more committed to

industrialization, agrarian collectivization, and communist social policies than the

Soviet Union had intended. But the spread of communist regimes in the region

entailed “a boundless belief in the power of coercion,” writes Ulam. While

overwhelming Soviet power prevented the defection of all satellites except

Yugoslavia, “the general tenor of Soviet policies toward Tito was having a

discouraging effect, especially on pro-Soviet radical movements in Asia.”130 The

consolidation of Soviet regimes was accomplished by continuous coercion,

occasionally reinforced by popular protests and Red Army interventions. Once the

source of that coercion was removed in the late 1980s, communist regimes

disappeared from the region in a wave as swift as the one that installed it in the first

place.

In a pattern typical for hegemonic shocks, communist ideology enjoyed a

heightened but temporary period of influence and approval. The period offered a

window of opportunity for increased influence and emulation, some of which was

squandered by an over-reliance on coercion in eastern Europe. “The respect and

admiration, gained from the Red Army's victory over Hitler, that haloed the

Communist idea immediately after World War II did not long remain intact,” wrote

Furet. “That moment of confused respectability so foreign to Communism was

129
Ulam 1960:263
130
Ulam 1960:264
 343

merely ephemeral capital with uncertain returns; the history of Communism was

soon to enter a new phase.”131

Communism and the Developing World

While the communist wave in Eastern Europe advanced largely through

coercion, the appeal of communism and its subsequent spread in the developing

world was based to a much larger degree on the desire to emulate Soviet success

and to benefit from the superpower’s largesse and expanded influence. The Soviet

story – the modernization and industrialization of a backward, agrarian state, the

dramatic defeat of a feared military juggernaut, the swift rise to the status of an anti-

imperialist, anti-Western superpower – was particularly alluring to people in poor

rural countries who had just thrown off the shackles of colonial bondage. Soviet-

style communism offered “a harsh method of industrialization especially suited to

the needs of so-called underdeveloped countries.”132 The USSR’s dramatic rise

“exemplified a historical short circuit that promised the non-European world a

rapid catching up,” writes Furet. “It furnished a body of Western ideas capable of

unifying antibourgeois emotions in Europe and beyond...In our century, no

European doctrinal corpus would be so avidly adopted outside of Europe than

Marxism-Leninism.”133

In most places this adoption took place without the support (albeit often with

the tacit or explicit encouragement) of the Soviet Union. Communist ideas found

131
Furet 1999:396
132
Aron (1957) “Nations and Empires” in Aron 2002:54
133
Furet 1999:370
 344

fertile ground in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East – regions in which nationalism,

wrote Raymond Aron, was “weak against the attraction of a universalist ideology

like that of communism.” He contrasted the spread of communism in Eastern

Europe, which proceeded “thanks to advances by the Red Army” with China,

where the communist party won with very little direct Soviet support – less than the

Kuomintang had received form the United States. “In Southeast Asia and in the

Middle East, China and the Soviet Union, respectively, are capable of eliminating

Western influence, inflaming nationalist feeling, and putting Communist parties in

power without any direct intervention.”134

The communist wave outside Europe achieved its most visible successes in

Asia. A communist, Soviet-occupied zone was established in North Korea in 1945

(while the Americans occupied the south of the country, recreating the division of

Germany in an Asian setting). The People’s Republic of China was created in 1949,

following years of fighting between the Kuomintang and the communists, led by

Mao and supported by Soviet arms. The First Indochina War (1946-1954) created a

communist-led North Vietnam after fighting by Ho Chi Min with the support of the

Soviets and the Chinese. The Hukbalahap (Huk) communist-led rebellion in the

Philippines made a serious bid for power during the late 1940s before being

defeated in 1954. In Indonesia, the local communist party staged a rebellion in

1948 that was put down by the nationalists. In Malaysia, communist forces fought a

war with the colonial government from 1948 until 1960. And all over the region,

134
Aron 1957/2002:54
 345

the appeal of communist parties surged as national liberation movements waged

anti-colonial battles against a weakened West. Ideologically, the leaders of these

movements “tended to see themselves as socialists, engaged on the same sort of

project of emancipation, progress and modernization as the Soviet Union.”135

Democracy, on the other hand, came with the baggage of history and colonial

yoke, as Laqueur noted in 1955:

Capitalism is identified with imperialist rule and democracy is

something the imperialist powers allegedly practice at home.
Democracy has not been a militant creed and it has not provided the
answers to many questions of Asia. Democracy could not inspire the
masses and has not given firm spiritual support to the elite. It has not
been able to promise a much better life in the immediate future, or
make a spectacular effort in which everybody was to be told what to
do; on the other hand, Communism has had all the force of a secular
religion – in Asia even more than in Europe.136

In the Middle East, too, communist ideology began to attract a much greater

degree of support after the war, especially among nationalists and intellectuals.

Communist parties made large gains in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and

to a lesser extent in Turkey.137 At the founding conference of the Cominform in

September 1947, while welcoming Indonesia and Vietnam into the “anti-

imperialist camp,” Chairman of the Union Soviet Andrei Zhdanov labeled Egypt,

Syria and India as “sympathizing” with it.138 For the secular intellectuals within the

135
Hobsbawm 1994:435
136
Walter Z. Laqueur (1955) “The Appeal of Communism in the Middle East”
Middle East Journal 9.1, p.21
137
Laqueur 1955:17-18
138
Hobsbawm 1994:227. The address was notable, as Hobsbawm notes, for a
complete lack of reference to China.
 346

region, communism provided an appealing promise of the future. “The power of

attraction of Communism as a creed should never be underrated,” wrote Laqueur

in 1955, “and it is nowhere so strong as in underdeveloped countries, such as those

of the Middle East.”139 Explaining its draw for Arab intellectuals, the Lebanese

foreign minister Charles Malik listed the following in a 1957 interview: "Its social

vision, its total character, its total interpretation of life – its messianic idea, namely,

that it is the wave of the future. Also, the promises it holds – that it will solve all

these economic and social injustices.”140

For similar reasons, the communist creed resonated with the masses in

developing nations far more than democratic or capitalist ideals. “Without having

read a word of Marx or Lenin,” wrote Adam Ulam, “an illiterate peasant who is

being squeezed economically…experiences almost instinctively the feelings that

Marxism formulates in a theoretical language: a sense of alienation springing from

his loss of property and status, and an antagonism toward the people and authority

personifying the mysterious forces that have made his previous social existence

impossible…” To them, Ulam wrote, communism was not an intellectual exercise

or an abstruse theory, but “a systematic expression of their own feelings and

reactions, something which again makes sense out of an apparently senseless

world.” On the other hand, Western democracy, “the product of a long industrial

139
Laqueur 1955:25
140
Interview with Charles Malik, Foreign Minister of Lebanon, "How to Beat
Communism in the Middle East," U.S. News and World Report, March 29, 1957, p.
88. Quoted in Marver H. Bernstein (1957) “Review: The Appeal of Communism in
Arab Countries” World Politics 9.4, p.624
 347

development and a consequent democratic habituation appears to them, in

contrast, as something infinitely more complicated and unnatural.” Communism

offered, in Ulam’s felicitous phrase, “a convincing demonology” of a modernity

whose evils could be attributed to the impersonal forces of capitalism. But it also

offered something in exchange beyond a bête noire: “Just as it exploits the nostalgia

for a past ruined forever by the capitalists, it appeals to the impatience for the

future, which cannot be appeased by democratic and liberal phraseology.”141

The appeal of communism in the developing world thus depended on a mass of

disenfranchised, poor, bewildered proletariat. As countries developed

economically, Aron argued in 1954, communism’s ideological base would shrink

accordingly: “Professional agitators will raise more recruits among the poverty-

stricken crowds of Asia than among the workers of General Motors. The

Bolsheviks' technique, born in Tsarist Russia, is naturally better adapted to Far

Eastern societies shaken by the influence of industrial civilization….The less

capitalistic a society is, and the less developed its productive forces, the more

favorable are the conditions it offers to Bolshevism.”142

An ideological panacea for the masses and the intellectuals, communism also

provided the elites of the developing world a convincing justification for

absolutism. “Fortified by the Soviet precedent, the tyrant of the second half of the

twentieth drew his legitimacy from an emancipatory ambition,” wrote Furet. “He

led his country to socialism via a new version of modern democracy freed of its

141
Ulam 1960:284-5, orig. emph.
142
Aron 1954/2002:210, 228
 348

capitalist liabilities.”143 Through this unusual conjunction of mass emancipation

and elite domination, communism found resonance among a large swath of social

groups – the public, the intelligentsia, and the political elite – in the developing

world. It became, Ulam wrote, “the natural ideology of underdeveloped societies in

today's world.” By contrast, “liberalism as practiced and preached in the West can

appeal to a much narrower range of interests and sentiments and is at a

disadvantage in competition.” He concluded: “In large areas of the world,

Communism has proselytizing powers superior to liberalism.”144 Democracy,

Laqueur noted in 1956, “could not inspire the masses, and it did not give firm

spiritual support to the elite".145

And yet, the ideological attraction of communism in the developing world, as in

Eastern Europe, had been in place well before 1945. The surge of communist

influence and emulation in the developing world could take place only once

ideology had become coupled with power and success. Noting that World War II

“brought a great upsurge in Middle Eastern Communism,” Laqueur noted that “one

of the main reasons for this growth in influence appears to be, in retrospect, the

emergence of the Soviet Union as one of the two great world powers and the

downfall of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.”146 In the Middle East as elsewhere,

“Communist support has been further strengthened by the example of the Soviet

143
Furet 1999:371
144
Ulam 1960:285, 287, orig. emph.
145
Walter Z. Laqueur (1956) Communism and Nationalism in the Middle East, New
York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., p. 275. Quoted in Bernstein 1957:627.
146
Laqueur 1955:17
 349

Union, which has demonstrated that a backward and underdeveloped country

could transform itself within a single generation into a world power of great

industrial strength.”147

Alone, ideas could inspire movements and set the groundwork for changes to

come, but were less successful in transforming regimes and upending institutions in

countries around the world. As the case of fascism between 1922 and 1933 and

communism between 1917 and 1945 demonstrated, ideas were more than

abstractions – they could introduce new regimes and set very real-world precedents

(in the form of the Bolshevik Revolution and the March on Rome) – but, crucially,

in isolation they did not lead to institutional waves. The immense impact of

hegemonic shocks on domestic institutional reforms, in the case of World War II as

in others, stemmed from a potent combination – the strength of ideas combined

with the strength of example. An example that was recent and dramatic, one that

led to the collapse and ruin of some great powers while uplifting others, held that

much more sway. The power shifts that accompanied the aftermath of hegemonic

shocks served as indisputable proof that some examples were worth following

more than others, and fundamentally (if temporarily) transformed both the

opportunities and incentives for domestic reforms. For the developing world of the

postwar era, the hegemonic shock of the war transformed communism from an

appealing if abstract vision to a concrete, viable model for economic and political

147
Bernstein 1957:628
 350

development.148

This was particularly true in the case of economic reforms. The post-war

economic climate favored the adoption of state planning and government

intervention in industrial development. Central planning ceased to be a Russian

curiosity; elements of state intervention in the economy, driven partly by

government expansion during war, diffused into the politics of much of the

developing world, notably in France but also in Britain and the United States. In

offering a new option for development, it had replaced the fascist alternative which

found some adherents among populists and nationalists but was discredited by the

outcome of the war. The western European option of social democracy, with its

promise of “incremental” reform, was “too modest for those looking for a radical

solution to the grinding poverty of the poor regions...” The people of these nations

could now “examine the differences between centrally planned socialism and

market capitalism to see which better suited their conditions. Up to then the

principal division of the world had been rich industrial countries and poor agrarian

countries. Now there was a second dimension and two possible paths toward

advanced industrial status: capitalist and Communist.”149

Beyond ideological and spiritual deliverance, then, communism also offered a

path to economic transformation – and to many in the developing world, this path

was superior to the one offered by capitalism. “Moscow was not only a more

148
As Hobsbawm (1994:350) notes, “the example of the U.S.S.R. provided an
alternative model of "development." Never did that example look more impressive
than in the years after 1945.”
149
Frieden 2006:275
 351

attractive model than Detroit or Manchester because it stood for anti-imperialism,

but it also seemed a more suitable model, especially for countries lacking both in

private capital and a large body of private and profit-oriented industry.”150 The

economic appeal of communist institutions in the developing world thus drew from

some of the same sources of strength as its ideological appeal. Leaders in newly-

formed nations “believed only public action could lift their economies out of

backwardness and dependency,” Hobsbawm notes. “In the decolonized world,

following the inspiration of the Soviet Union, they were to see the way forward as

socialism.”151 For them communism served as a model for emerging out of an

agrarian past through state planning – a process that, moreover, had been stamped

with the imprimatur of science and rationality. The adoption of communist-style

planning did not even require a full-fledged belief in the political ideology of

Marxism. Both central planning and the import-substitution model required a

strong government hand in the economy. Import-substituting industrialization (ISI)

was adopted first in Latin America during the 1930s and later in newly liberated

colonies in Asia in the 1940s, the Middle East and North Africa in the 1940s and

1950s, and sub-Saharan Africa in the late 1950s and 1960s.152 This strategy implied

protection of infant industries from outside competition, discouragement of foreign

direct investment, and an active industrial policy that promoted domestic markets.

In Asia and Africa, with little native manufacturing, local industries needed even

150
Hobsbawm 1994:376. He notes that some ex-colonies adopted Soviet economic
planning without necessarily embracing its political program.
151
Hobsbawm 1994:177
152
Frieden 2006:320
 352

more protection and encouragement from the state than in Latin America. In these

regions, ISI “was commonly promoted as part of a local form of socialism.

Supporters of Indian socialism, Arab socialism, Burmese socialism, and African

socialism all presented them as a combination of central planning and social

democracy, bundled together with rapid industrialization and nation building.”153

Governments nationalized major industries and developed a large public sector

that approached the Soviet Union in its scope. India, for example, “emulated

aspects of Soviet planning, using a series of five-year plans to guide the country's

industrialization.”154 Jawaharlal Nehru, who governed the country between 1947

and 1964 and had spent time in the USSR during the 1920s, encouraged extensive

state investment in manufacturing. Between 1951 and 1966, during the country’s

three five-years plans, the state accounted for half of all industrial investment. In

Egypt, after Nasser’s socialist government took control in the 1952 revolution, the

state nationalized the country’s banks and insurance companies as well as most

industry (the state owned ninety percent of factories employing more than ten

workers, and accounted for nearly half of industrial output and a third of the labor

force.155

In Europe, as described above, the appeals of communism were limited by its

coercive nature. “Incapable of being associated with liberty, Communism's only

chance for survival lay in coexisting with the nationalist sentiment,” wrote Furet.

153
Frieden 2006:318
154
Frieden 2006:314
155
Frieden 2006:318
 353

But by the late 1940s, “it had exhausted the credit it had drawn from the

generalized hatred of Germany. It was all very well for Soviet propaganda to

denounce the allegedly vengeful West Germans, but the time had passed when

anti-Germanism could serve to make people in the liberated territories accept or

like the Red Army.”156 Just as Communist expansion rolled to a stop in Eastern

Europe against the borders of American infuence, the developing world “now

became the central pillar of the hope and faith of those who still put their faith in

social revolution,” wrote Hobsbawm. “It seemed to be a global volcano waiting to

erupt, a seismic field whose tremors announced the major earthquakes to come.”157

The spread of non-European communism achieved its greatest triumphs in the

years following the war. But as the attraction of Communism faded, and the Soviet

Union’s capacity to coerce more governments into its mold had been contained,

the wave crested. The communist bloc “showed no sign of significant expansion

between the Chinese revolution and the 1970s,” by which point China had split

from the Soviet Union.158 There were several more expansions of the communist

world, notably in Cuba in 1959 and Africa in the 1970s, “but substantially the

socialist sector of the globe had taken shape by 1950.”159

The Democratic Wave

The postwar expansion and consolidation of democratic regimes in Western

156
Furet 1999:410
157
Hobsbawm 1994:436
158
Hobsbawm 1994:227-8
159
Hobsbawm 1994:373
 354

Europe served as an example of how a rising hegemon can take advantage of the

post-shock window of opportunity to exercise its influence through economic

incentives and international institutions. “The single biggest extension of

democratic liberties in the history of the world,” argued Samuel Huntington, “came

at the end of World War II.”160

As in Eastern Europe, the wave proceeded through a combination of coercion,

influence, and emulation – but in the case of Western Europe direct coercion

played a much less prominent role. This did not necessarily imply a more benign

motivation on the part of the United States. First, its economy was in far better

shape than the Soviet Union’s, giving it more room to use financial incentives to

convert countries into its camp. Second, it faced a different set of motivations in

doing so. Both superpowers sought followers to legitimize the universalist nature of

their respective regimes. But beyond that basic goal, they had a very different set of

concerns and priorities. Unlike the Soviet Union, the U.S. did not seek a protective

security buffer, within which the incentives of the populace would take a back seat

to the necessity for a cordon sanitaire governed by pliable, unquestioning and loyal

regimes. The United States emerged from the war with a large and competitive

economy; exports were twice as important to American manufacturing compared

to the 1930s, and in Europe it saw a large potential market for its wares.161 Its

physical security was assured; but its economic well-being depended on securing

export markets. A European dollar shortage prevented the continent from buying

160
Huntington 1982:26
161
Frieden 2006:262
 355

American goods, endangering the recovery and opening the way to Communist-led

discontent.162 America’s turn outward after 1945 can thus be explained as much by

its rise in power (and the corresponding decline of its former rivals) as by the

determination to avoid the turmoil of the interwar years or fear of Soviet power.

The price for its unmatched dominance was a danger of diminished export

destinations. American officials agreed, noted the historian Melvyn Leffler, that

“long-term American prosperity required open markets, unhindered access to raw

materials, and the rehabilitation of much-if not all-of Eurasia along liberal capitalist

lines."163

Coercion, of course, was not entirely absent from the spread of democracy. The

U.S. occupied Germany, and Japan. Particularly in the latter two cases, the U.S.

played a crucial role in designing and overseeing the installation of democratic

institutions. As the title of a 1957 book declared, these countries were “forced to be

free.”164 With the partial exception of South Korea, Huntington writes, “where

American armies marched, democracy followed in their train.”165 Army occupation

was the most direct way in which the United States wielded its influence. The U.S.

162
Victoria de Grazia (2005) Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance through
Twentieth-Century Europe, Harvard University Press, p. 346. As she explains, “This
shortfall was blamed on the trade gap between the two areas, which in turn was
blamed on Europe's perennially flagging economic output.” The first goal of U.S.
aid was therefore to raise productivity through investments in industrial
infrastructure (power plants, electric grids, ports and the like).
163
Melvyn P. Leffler (1984) "The American Conception of National Security and the
Beginning of the Cold War, 1945-48," American Historical Review 89.2, p. 349-56.
Quoted in Ikenberry 2001:180
164
John D. Montgomery (1957) Forced To Be Free: The Artificial Revolution in
Germany and Japan, University of Chicago Press
165
Huntington 1982:26
 356

established bases and stationed military personnel throughout Western Europe. Its

military authorities made crucial decisions about institutional reforms and policies,

including forcibly opening the former Axis countries to global trade.166

Other means of influence were less direct. The CIA, for example, funded the

Christian Democrats in the 1948 Italian election to help ensure their victory over

the left-wing Popular Democratic Front and the Italian Socialist Party.167 While

emphasizing the generally non-coercive nature of American influence in post-war

Europe, Ikenberry notes that the U.S. “did attempt to use its material resources to

pressure and induce Britain and the other industrial democracies to abandon

bilateral and regional preferential agreements and accept the principles of a

postwar economy organized around a nondiscriminatory system of trade and

payments.” Aid was tied to specific conditions that conformed to policies pursued

by the U.S. For example, an (ultimately failed) 1946 agreement “obliged the British

to make sterling convertible in exchange for American assistance….The United

States knew it held a commanding position and sought to use its power to give the

postwar order a distinctive shape.”168

Still, outside of Germany and Japan, influence rather than coercion was the

166
Even so, Vinen argues, its power to coerce was self-limited. “Even in Germany
in 1945, the American army was subject to the constraint of a civilian government
and the rule of law.” (Vinen 2000:259)
167
“We had bags of money that we delivered to selected politicians, to defray their
political expenses, their campaign expenses, for posters, for pamphlets," a CIA
operative told CNN in a 1998 documentary. The New York Times (2006) “F. Mark
Wyatt, 86, C.I.A. Officer, Is Dead”, July 6. A secret CIA report detailing these
activities was presented to the Pike Committee in 1975 and appeared in their
report, published two years later.
168
Ikenberry 2001:200
 357

order of the day in Europe. “The United States spent little of its hegemonic power

trying to coerce and induce other governments to buy into American rules and

institutions,” notes Ikenberry. “It spent much more time and resources trying to

create the conditions under which postwar European governments and publics

would remain moderate and pro-Western.”169 The Truman Doctrine and the

Marshall Plan were the two primary instruments for creating these favorable

conditions. Both were announced in the spring of 1947, and both sought to assert

American leadership while rolling back the spread of communist regimes. (Other

American agencies also supported democratic institutions in Europe on a smaller

scale; these included the CIA, private corporations, and U.S. trade unions.)170

Officially, only Turkey and Greece would receive American assistance, but

Truman’s address committed the United States to helping all “free peoples” of the

world fight communist influence, “primarily through economic and financial

aid”.171 Following the announcement of the Truman doctrine, the U.S. used foreign

aid to provide anti-Soviet military assistance to the developing world, intended to

help national elites resist Communist pressure (military aid comprised 95 percent of

all Third World aid in 1954.)172

169
Ikenberry 2001:202
170
Vinen 2000:260
171
See Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States - Harry S. Truman, 1
January to 3I December I947 (Washington, 1963), PP.176-80, for the full text of
Truman’s speech. For a discussion of how the Truman Doctrine signaled an
unprecedented U.S. involvement in global politics, see Michael Cox and Caroline
Kennedy-Pipe (2005) “The Tragedy of American Diplomacy? Rethinking the
Marshall Plan” Cold War Studies 7.1:97-134.
172
Westad 2005:26
 358

The Marshall Plan, proposed by Secretary of State George C. Marshall after a

visit to Europe, became the most prominent way in which the United States

exercised its influence and promoted liberal democratic regimes in the years

following the war. It was an unprecedented use of post-shock economic

dominance to secure the consolidation of regimes that followed the American

institutional model. By the end of the program in 1952, the United States had spent

$13 billion, more than all previous American foreign aid put together. Germany,

Britain and France received the largest absolute amount, but for smaller countries

like Italy and Austria it amounted to a larger relative share of the economy

(between July 1948 and June 1949, 14 percent of Austria’s income came from

Marshall Aid).173 In some of these smaller states, the aid amounted to more than a

tenth of national income.174

The largest impact of the Marshall Plan resided not with the amount of the

disbursements but with the conditions attached to them. Along with collaborators

in western Europe, U.S. aid officials sought to prevent national politicians “from

being tempted to fall back on state intervention, planning, and closed

economies.”175 In doing so, Marshall aid nudged center-left parties toward social

democracy rather than communism. As State Department official Charles Bohlen

argued in 1946: "It is definitely in the interest of the United States to see that the

present left movement throughout the world, which we should recognize and even

173
Judt 2005:91. In 2009 dollars, the aid amounted to about $113 billion.
174
Frieden 2006:268
175
de Grazia 2005:345-6
 359

support, develops in the direction of democratic as against totalitarian systems.”176

Through financial assistance, Ikenberry argues, American officials hoped to create

“a socioeconomic environment in Europe that would be congenial to the

emergence and dominance of moderate and centrist governments.”177 The postwar

disorder created a palpable fear of Soviet encroachment beyond the occupied

zones. “U.S. policymakers knew the Kremlin was not the cause of postwar

turbulence, but they feared that Moscow would exploit it,” writes Christopher

Layne. “In particular, Washington feared that Communist parties would come to

power by taking advantage of Western Europe's postwar malaise, and that

nationalists in colonies throughout the world would harness Communist ideology

to throw off Western rule.”178

The push for democratic regimes in Western Europe was never explicitly

presented as a program for imitating American institutions. An ostentatious display

of American influence was neither productive nor necessary for achieving its goals,

since “post-war Europeans were so aware of their humiliating dependence upon

American aid and protection that any insensitive pressure from that quarter would

certainly have been politically counter-productive.”179 As a State Department

document from 1946 put it, pro-American policy in Italy “would be a judicious

mixture of flattery, moral encouragement and considerable material aid...It could

not be a one-shot cure, but should consist of a kind word, a loaf of bread, a public

176
Quoted in Ikenberry 2001:202
177
Ikenberry 2001:202
178
Layne 2006:56
179
Judt 2005:97
 360

tribute to Italian civilization, then another kind word, and so on, with an

occasional plug from the sponsors advertising the virtues of democracy American

style.”180 As befitting the purposes of the plan, countries with strong communist

parties received the most generous financial assistance. The attempts by Ireland to

secure Marshall aid funds, on the other hand, were “undermined by the fact that

Ireland was the most right-wing democracy in Europe.”181

In short, the Marshall Plan “was an economic program but the crisis it averted

was political.”182 As Kennedy notes, “it took no genius to see that the raison d'etre

for the plan was to convince Europeans everywhere that private enterprise was

better able to bring them prosperity than communism.”183 Indeed, the impact of

Marshall aid on the consolidation of democracy in western Europe was both

immediate and long-lasting. In Austria, for example, local communists (supported

by Soviet forces, who still occupied the eastern half of the country) “never made

any dent in the popularity of Americans and their aid,” notes Judt. “[T]he latter put

food in people's mouths and this was what mattered most.” In Greece, the $649

million in aid extended in the spring of 1948 “made the difference between

survival and destitution.” It “supported refugees and staved off hunger and disease,”

and provided half of the country’s gross national product in 1950.184 Across Europe,

180
A State Department document from 1946; quoted in John Lamberton Harper
(1986) American Influence and the Reconstruction of Italy, 1945-1948, Cambridge
University Press, p.109; quoted in Vinen 2000:258
181
Vinen 2000:259
182
Judt 2005:97
183
Kennedy 1987:377
184
Judt 2005:96
 361

it reduced the attraction of Soviet-style reforms and communist institutions by

providing a means for general economic recovery. Economic growth surged in the

second half of the 1940s, inaugurating a golden age for western Europe that lasted

for the following two decades. Dutch industrial and agricultural production

surpassed 1938 levels by 1948, while France, Austria and Italy reached the same

milestone in 1949, and Greece and West Germany in 1950.185

The democratic wave in western Europe was built on a desire for postwar

stability and (in some cases) a history of democratic government, but it was made

possible by the rare combination of American influence and commitment (both

political and economic) in the years immediately following the war. In pursuing the

consolidation of democratic reforms in the region, the United States achieved

several goals simultaneously: it created markers for American exports, secured

European commitment to democratic institutions, and stopped the spread of

communism beyond the Elbe. But the economic and geopolitical success of the

United States extended beyond Western Europe, leading to a wave of

democratization (however short-lived) in Latin America, Asia, and other countries

around the world whose leaders sought to capture a piece of American largesse,

ingratiate themselves into the emerging institutional infrastructure, and emulate the

successes of the most powerful country in the world.

185
Judt 2005:96. See also Kennedy 1987:377 for a similar appraisal.
 362

Spread of Democracy outside Western Europe

Outside of Western Europe, the spread of democratic institutions extended to

Latin America and (to a lesser extent) to Asia. In neither region was

democratization an unqualified success. Much like in Europe after World War I,

democratization was in some cases short-lived, lacking the structural domestic pre-

conditions or U.S. support for democratic leaders. As the Cold War went into full

swing, democratic institutions took a back seat to stability and loyalty to U.S.

interests.

In the few years immediately following the war, however, a number of states

adopted democratic institutions and underwent democratic reforms. As in western

Europe, coercion was an element of the wave, most prominently in Japan but to a

lesser degree is South Korea. The American occupation of Japan, which lasted from

1945 to 1952, resulted in a number of fundamental democratic reforms. In October

1945, General MacArthur ordered the abrogation of the Peace Preservation of Law

of 1925, which had been used to arrest and silence critics of the government.

Restrictions on political expression and assembly were eliminated; the Special

Higher Police (sometimes known as the “thought police”) was dissolved, and

political prisoners were released from jail. The Japanese cabinet resigned in protest,

but a week later the new premier Shidehara Kijuro, “met MacArthur for the first

time and received a succinct order that made the previous directive seem mild.”

The government was ordered to promote liberal education in schools and labor

unions in industry, to extend suffrage to women, to dismantle monopolistic

 363

industrial controls “and in general eliminate all despotic vestiges in society.

Suddenly, abstract statements about promoting democracy had become

exceedingly specific.”186 The first general election under universal suffrage

(including female suffrage) took place in April 1946.187

After 1947, gnawing fear of communist influence in Japan led U.S. occupation

forces to curb some of the more radical pro-democracy measures undertaken

immediately after the end of the war. While democratic institutions survived, in this

pattern Japan mirrored the trajectory of many developing states in the postwar

years. As long as cooperation with the Soviet Union was possible, democratization

became the first priority. But as the confrontation hardened, “protecting” countries

from communist influence (whether foreign or domestic) became more important

than maintaining a fragile, messy, potentially disloyal democratic regime. As

Harvey put it, when forced to choose between democracy and stability “the US

always opted for the latter.”188 Less than two years after his election in July 1948,

South Korean president Syngman Rhee began assuming dictatorial powers in a fight

against communism, backed by the United States. The Korean War allowed him to

consolidate his grip on power, and a democracy was not introduced in South Korea

186
John Dower (1999) Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, W.W.
Norton & Company, p.81
187
The voting age was lowered from 25 to 20, and the total electorate had more
than doubled. Roberts 1999:517
188
David Harvey (2003) The New Imperialism, Oxford University Press, 2003, p.
39-40. Quoted in Kathleen Weekley (2006) “The National or the Social? Problems
of Nation-Building in Post-World War II Philippines” Third World Quarterly 27.1,
p.90
 364

until 1987.189 As Fareed Zakaria notes, “after brief flirtations with democracy after

World War II, most East Asian regimes turned authoritarian.”190

The same scenario was played out in Latin America with a marginally better

rate of success. In fact, the postwar wave of democracy in Latin America represents

a classic example of the model presented in Chapter 1. Scholars of Latin American

democratization generally distinguish between two phases in post-war Latin

American development. The first stage, which took place between 1944 and 1946,

was marked by democratization – the collapse of dictatorships, mass mobilization,

and elections with high levels of participation. In the second phase, which spanned

the years between 1946 and 1948, democracy suffered setbacks as the upper

classes and military leaders, alarmed by the political gains made by the lower and

middle classes as a result of political liberalization, began pushing back. By 1947,

the onset of the Cold War made stability and anti-Communism a higher priority

than democratization.

The initial period of 1944-46 saw the introduction of a number of democratic

reforms, via both popular rebellions and elite reforms. Suffrage was expanded in

Colombia, Brazil, and Peru. Though it was not always universal, since literacy

qualifications excluded people in poor rural areas, postwar suffrage was in general

more democratic than in the 1920s. Ecuador and Costa Rica also turned to

democracy in the late 1940s, as did (briefly) Bolivia. In Argentina, Colombia, Peru

189
Although Huntington optimistically argues that throughout the mid-1950s, “a
moderately democratic system was maintained.” Huntington 1982:30
190
Fareed Zakaria (1997) “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy” Foreign Affairs 76.6, p.
27
 365

and Venezuela, elections in 1945-6 brought in, according to Huntington,

“popularly chosen governments.”191 Venezuela held the country’s first free election

in 1947, won by the centrist Accion Democratica candidate Romulo Gallegos,

inaugurating the country’s first experience with democracy (until a military coup

d’etat a year later.) A popular uprising in Guatemala in July 1944 brought the

removal of the thirteen-year dictatorship of Jorge Ubico. Brazil carried out its “first

relatively democratic elections in the country’s history”192 in December 1945, after

Getulio Vargas announced electoral reforms earlier that year. In the same year,

Argentina witnessed growing opposition to the military regime of Edelmiro Farrell

and Juan Peron, a large (several hundred thousand strong) demonstration in the

capital, followed by democratic elections in February 1946. In Bolivia, a mass

revolt removed the nationalist military government in the summer of 1946 and

scheduled democratic elections for January 1947.

In short, as one observer noted in 1946, the last year of the war and its

immediate aftermath “brought more democratic changes in more Latin American

191
Huntington 1991:18. The inclusion of Argentina is debatable, although the
country did expand suffrage. For instance, between 1943 and 1946 Peron’s
government shut down 110 publications. David Williams Foster, Melissa Fitch
Lockhart, Darrell B. Lockhart (1998) Culture and Customs of Argentina,
Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 62. Peter Smith does not include it among his list
of countries that belonged to the second wave in Latin America - Costa Rica,
Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, and Ecuador. Peter Smith (2005) Democracy in
Latin America: Political Change in Comparative Perspective, Oxford University
press, p.32
192
Leslie Bethell and Ian Roxborough (1992) Latin America Between the Second
World War and the Cold War, 1944-1948, Cambridge University Press, p.5
 366

countries than perhaps in any single year since the Wars of Independence.”193 By

mid-1946, only five governments in the region “could not claim to be in some

sense popular and democratic in their origins” – Paraguay, El Salvador, Honduras,

Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic.194 Of these, both Honduras and El

Salvador experienced upheavals in the spring of 1944; an uprising in May

succeeded in overthrowing El Salvador’s authoritarian ruler, General Martinez, but

a dictatorship was restored seven months later.

Scholars of Latin America frequently point to the changing international context

as the driving force for the region’s postwar democratization. After 1944, “the

redistribution of international power was the general framework in which many

Latin American countries undertook democratizing institutional reforms”, argues

Soledad Laoeza.195 “The second democratic wave across South America was

essentially the result of the Allied victory in the Second World War,” argues George

Philip.196 The American victory in the war and its dramatic rise to superpower status

encouraged democratization in a number of wars. Countries like Mexico pushed to

accommodate themselves to America’s foreign policy of promoting democratic

193
William Ebenstein (1946) “Political and Social Thought in Latin America” in
Arthur P. Whitaker, ed., Inter-American Affairs 1945, New York, p.137. Quoted in
Bethell and Roxborough 1992:5
194
Bethell and Roxborough 1992:5.
195
Soledad Loaeza (2009) “Too close for conflict: Mexican authoritarianism as a
response to US power, 1944-1949” Paper Presented at the 2009 APSA Annual
Meeting. Toronto, Canada, September 3-6, 2009, p.2
196
George Philip (1996) “Democratic Institutions in South America: Comparative
and Historical Perspectives” Third World Quarterly 17.4:713. On this point, see
also Paul W. Drake (1989) “Debt and Democracy in Latin America, 1920s-1980s”
in Barbara Stallings and Robert Kaufman, eds., Debt and Democracy in Latin
America, Westview Press.
 367

institutions, an example of “emulation as bandwagoning” described in the first

chapter. (During the war Washington began to withdraw its support of authoritarian

governments in the region – support that returned with the onset of the Cold War.)

Countries also hoped to profit from America’s increased economic influence,

leading to “the widespread hope for a postwar bonanza.”197 Finally, the democratic

victory, the postwar settlement, and U.S. emphasis on democratization encouraged

a general spirit of political liberalization. As Hal Brand notes, starting with the

Atlantic Charter in 1951 the notion of a New Deal for the world “had a

pronounced ideological impact in Latin America….Latin America’s movement

toward democracy was inextricably linked to the broader democratic optimism of

that period. Internal pressures and external encouragement came together between

1944 and 1946 in a remarkable wave of democratization.… The degree of

ambitiousness varied from country to country, but the general trend was

unmistakable.”198

As in Asia, however, these democratic gains were not consolidated. “The new

order was fragile, though, and as it turned out, temporary.”199 Not a single country

in South America experienced uninterrupted democracy after 1945.200 In the

197
Paul W. Drake (1994) “International Factors in Democratization” paper
presented at the Center for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, Juan March
Institute, Madrid (November 4, 1994), p.5
198
Hal Brands (2010) Latin America’s Cold War, Harvard University Press, p.13-14.
As he notes, “In Guatemala and El Salvador demonstrators read from the UN
charter. Honduran protestors invoked the Four Freedoms and the Atlantic Charter
and wore headscarves bearing the UN emblem.”
199
Brands 2010:14
200
Philip 1996:713
 368

decade following 1946, anti-democratic domestic forces violently pushed back any

gains made in the wake of the war. The region’s economic and military elites felt

severely threatened by reforms that tended to empower the lower and middle

classes, and by the end of the decade “the conservative classes mobilized to check

the progressive tendency.”201 Democratic movements were smashed in Bolivia,

Paraguay, El Salvador, Peru, Venezuela, Panama, Cuba, Haiti, Colombia, and

Argentina. In Brazil and Chile the civilian government drifted in a conservative

direction without coups.

The political evolution of Mexico between 1944 and 1949 provides a typical

example. Between 1944 and 1946 the government of Avila Camacho introduced a

number of major reforms. The military was pushed out of politics and electoral

reforms were introduced that seemed to signal the emergence of a multi-party

system and “the beginning of a new age for Mexico, characterized by civilian

governments, political stability, sustained growth, and international prestige.”202

These reforms were taken to “prepare the country to meet the challenges of a new

distribution of world power….They sought to accommodate the country to the post

war transformation of the United States” to superpower status.203 But as the Cold

War ramped up, U.S. priorities shifted toward encouraging domestic stability.

Mexico’s anti-democratic forces no longer needed to fear possible American

intervention, and began to re-assert themselves. The PRI re-institutionalized itself as

201
Brands 2010:14
202
Loaeza 2009:13
203
Loaeza 2009:3-4
 369

the nation’s official party. The single-party state had returned, and the moment of

democratization had passed.

Chile offers another clear example. As historian Corinne Antezana-Pernet

argues, Chilean women’s movements experienced sudden growth immediately

after the war as part of the general trend of democratization in the region. Given the

conservative nature of the country’s domestic politics, it was World War II that

acted as a “necessary catalyst” for creating “a broad, ambitious women’s

movement committed to the defense of democracy and its extension to women.”204

But the later years of the decade marked a period of reversal for the women’s

movement, which experienced the disintegration of women’s associations and the

exclusion of their progressive elements. With Chile’s lurch to the right in 1947, “the

progressive wing of the women’s movement came to be viewed as a political

liability by the centrist and right-wing women’s groups. They now began to exclude

the leftist feminists. These internal conflicts eventually led to the dissolution of the

women’s movement.”205

The rise and decline of the Chilean women’s movement was thus intimately

linked to shifts in the international system. As elsewhere, the end of the war led to a

swell of democratic reforms and the empowerment of pro-democracy movements,

while the onset of the Cold War and the reassertion of power by right-wing elites

ruptured the fragile alliances that were forged in the early period.

204
Corinne Antezana-Pernet (1994) “Peace in the World and Democracy at Home:
The Chilean Women’s Movement in the 1940s” in David Rock, ed., Latin America
in the 1940s: War and Postwar Transitions, University of California Press, p.166-7
205
Antezana-Pernet 1994:167
 370

In sum, the postwar reforms in Latin America, driven by the American victory

and the spirit of democratic optimism, created a democratic overstretch. Changing

internal dynamics, the reassertion of power by the region’s elites, and the onset of

the Cold War pushed the wave back and reversed many of these democratic gains.

Conclusion

The postwar redistribution of power, while not the only catalyst for domestic

transformations, influenced many of the regime reforms that took place in the war’s

aftermath. The hegemonic shock that discredited the fascist alternative and

replaced an ailing multipolar system with a bipolar one also had a momentous

impact on the evolution of regimes in many countries around the world. The

dramatic Soviet victory allowed it to impose communist regimes in Eastern Europe

and spurred a number of followers, most notably in China but also in a number of

developing countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. In Latin America, too,

communist and socialist powers temporarily increased in popularity after the war,

participating in leftist democratic governments before being driven out by the

region’s rightward turn later in the decade. “Stalin had emerged from his victory

over Hitler far stronger than ever before,” writes Judt, “basking in the reflected glory

of ‘his’ Red Army, at home and abroad.”206 As Raymond Aron noted in 1944,

communism “profits from and will go on profiting from the enormous prestige

reflected on the Soviet regime and people by the victories of the Russian armies.”207

206
Judt 2005:174
207
Aron 1944/2002:194
 371

The United States also greatly increased in influence and prestige in the years

immediately following the war. It used its unprecedented wealth to secure

democratic institutions in Western Europe, and inspired a wave of democratization

in Latin America. Both countries used its military might to impose their own

regimes on others through coercion (though the Soviet Union came to rely on force

to a greater extent than the United States). Both countries used their economic

influence to exert political pressure and encourage other states to copy their

institutions (and here the roles were reversed, with the U.S. relying on its economic

prowess more than the recovering Soviet Union). Both countries benefited from the

prestige endowed to them by their victory and the emulation it inspired in leaders

and movements around the world. Both created and used international institutions

to shape and direct their power.

Where the outcomes differed was in the consolidation of their respective

regimes. Here the record was mixed. The communist regimes in eastern Europe

were maintained through communist control, usually implicit but periodically

manifesting itself in brutal invasions to put down attempts at reform – “tanks before

teatime” in the case of the 1968 Prague Spring. When the source of that coercion

was removed with the changes in Gorbachev’s foreign policy, the regimes

collapsed like a house of cards. In the case of the United States, democratic

institutions were successfully consolidated in Western Europe. In contrast to the

aftermath of World War I, an intense and long-term commitment by the U.S.

ensured economic revival and political stability. Yet states in Latin America failed
 372

to sustain their brief move toward democracy in the mid-1940s. Once again, the

dynamics of consolidation differed between democratic and non-democratic

waves. In the latter, consolidation was secured through continuous military force;

in the former, a democratic overstretch produced a wave that was bound to roll

back as the incentives and opportunities associated with the hegemonic shock

began to fade away.

 373

Chapter 6

Conclusion: Beyond the Great Plateau

“We see long dim vistas stretching in many directions of the forest,
but of none can we descry the end.”
-- James Bryce (1921)1

“There was no certainty; only the appeal to that mocking oracle they called
History, who gave her sentence only when the jaws of the appealer
had long since fallen to dust.”
-- Arthur Koestler (1941)2

“So two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety

and two because it permits criticism. Two cheers are quite enough:
there is no occasion to give three.”
-- E.M. Forster (1951)3

As this dissertation has argued, the twentieth century has been shaped by a series of

confrontations between great powers, and the competing visions of the state

embodied by these great powers. Hegemonic shocks challenge and transform

accepted notions of legitimate regimes and institutions. They change perceptions of

1
James Bryce (1921) Modern Democracies Vol.1, p.11
2
Arthur Koestler (1941/2006) Darkness at Noon, transl. by Daphne Hardy, New
York: Scribner
3
E.M. Forster (1951/1976) “What I believe” in Two Cheers for Democracy,
Penguin Books, p.84
 374

what a modern state ought to look like. In this they are, to borrow Marx’s

description of revolution, the midwives of history. The period between 1919 and

1991 marked a series of struggles between the three modern conceptions of the

state. Each culminated with a shock to the political landscape, each shock leaving

in its wake a wave of domestic transformations. These transformations were

piecemeal and often unsuccessful, but the very undertaking showcased the brief

power of the rising hegemon in the immediate aftermath of the shock. World War I

set the stage by marking the last breath of the monarchical empires of eastern and

central Europe. Around the world, the war’s outcome signaled the end of monarchy

as a model for development, and – for a brief moment – thrust democracy into the

spotlight as a panacea for nationalism and other vices of modernity.

But the disappointing and tentative aftermath of the war led to a search for new

alternatives. Its outcome displayed a “total lack of consensus among the three great

victors about the new international order they were imposing,” writes Furet. “At

Versailles, the Allies imposed a Carthaginian peace without a consensus as to its

ends, or even its means.”4 The Great War not only opened an opportunity for a

Communist ascent in one of the ailing empires, but also planted the seed for a

fascist revolt against the shortcomings of liberal democracy. Democracy was the

war’s short-lived offspring, but communism and fascism were its enduring progeny.

These challengers – the two “great totalitarian temptations” of the century, in the

4
Furet 1999:58-9
 375

words of Fritz Stern5 – offered alternative paths to modernity that at various points

seemed poised to overtake an ailing, stagnant, and corrupt democracy.

Yet less than five decades after helping democracy expunge the fascist

alternative, communism itself left the world stage with a quiet implosion. Both

challengers exited from the world stage defeated, discredited, and ready to adopt

the institutions of their former rival. Neither fulfilled its self-appointed destiny to

forge a new world on the ruins of the old. “Today it is hard to realize that they are

such recent ideologies,” writes Furet, “for they seem outmoded, absurd, deplorable,

or criminal, depending on the case. Nonetheless, they permeated the twentieth

century.”6

The Work Ahead

The study of hegemonic shocks and institutional waves offers a number of

enhancements and extensions of the theory. The most obvious is expanding the

universe of cases to include the last hegemonic shock of the twentieth century – the

Soviet collapse. The analysis of this shock can help shed some light not only on the

wave of democratization in the mid-1990s, but also on the rise of hybrid regimes

since that period. As the post-Soviet democratic wave crested and subsided, a

number of states settled into a pattern best described as a competitive or electoral

autocracy. The dynamics of failed transitions inherent in democratic waves can

offer a new perspective on the proliferation of these hybrid regimes. These

5
Stern 1997:21
6
Furet 1999:23
 376

competitive autocracies are characterized by the formal institutions of democracy,

particularly multi-party elections, but as Levitsky and Way put it, these are

elections in which "incumbents routinely abuse state resources, deny the

opposition adequate media coverage, harass opposition candidates and their

supporters, and in so7me cases manipulate electoral results.”8 In such regimes,

rulers faced real electoral challenges, “despite the opposition contesting a lopsided

political arena.”

Such institutional fusion is not an entirely new development. As Larry Diamond

pointed out, some autocratic regimes in the 1960s and 1970s also incorporated

elements of democracy, including multiparty elections. But the new competitive

autocracies, Diamond argued, differed from these predecessors by using methods

7
Brownlee 2009:518
8
Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way (2002) “The Rise of Competitive
Authoritarianism” Journal of Democracy 13.2, p.53. See also Steven Levitsky and
Lucan A. Way (2010) Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold
War, Cambridge University Press. Earlier writings on hybrid regimes include Fareed
Zakaria (1997) “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy.” Foreign Affairs 76.6: 22-43;
Thomas Carothers (2002) “The End of the Transition Paradigm” Journal of
Democracy 13.1:5-21; Larry Diamond (2002) “Thinking About Hybrid Regimes”
Journal of Democracy 13.2:21-35; Andreas Schedler (2002) “The Menu of
Manipulation” Journal of Democracy 13.2:36-50; Marina Ottaway (2003)
Democracy Challenged: The Rise of Semi-Authoritarianism. Washington, DC:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Later writings include Andreas
Schedler, ed. (2006) Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree
Competition, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner; Marc Morjé Howard and Philip G.
Roessler (2006) “Liberalizing Electoral Outcomes in Competitive Authoritarian
Regimes” American Journal of Political Science 50.2:365- 81; Jason Brownlee
(2009) “Portents of Pluralism: How Hybrid Regimes Affect Democratic Transitions”
American Journal of Political Science 53.3:515-532
 377

more subtle than banning and imprisonment to outmaneuver opposition groups.9

As Schedler noted:

Since the early days of the ‘third wave’ of global democratization, it

has been clear that transitions from authoritarian rule can lead
anywhere. Over the past quarter-century, many have led to the
establishment of some form of democracy. But many others have not.
They have given birth to new forms of authoritarianism that do not fit
into our classic categories of one-party, military, or personal
dictatorship.10

The sheer number of these regimes is also unique in the history of political

development. By 2001 more than two-thirds of all autocracies held multi-party

elections.11 By the end of the century it was becoming clear that these hybrid

regimes were a new and stable form of modern autocracy rather than a transitional

stage.12

The Soviet collapse created a powerful motivation for autocrats to adopt the

formal institutions associated with democracy. As Levitsky and Way note, “Western

liberalism’s triumph and the Soviet collapse undermined the legitimacy of

alternative regime models and created strong incentives for peripheral states to

adopt formal democratic institutions.”13 But in many places domestic conditions

could not sustain actual democratization. A history of authoritarianism, lack of a

middle class, poverty, and absence of civil society all contributed to these

incomplete democratizations. From this perspective, competitive autocracies are

9
Diamond 2002:23-4
10
Schedler 2002:361
11
Schedler 2002:47
12
Levitsky and Way 2002:52; Brownlee 2009:517
13
Levitsky and Way 2002:61
 378

the results of failed democratic transitions sparked by the Soviet collapse. A study

of the post-Soviet wave could help illuminate the dynamics that led to emergence

and continued existence of competitive autocracies.

The universe of cases need not be confined to the twentieth century. I have

chosen to focus on this period because hegemonic shocks propagate through

systems of states. A system is a connected network of political actors that have, in

Hedley Bull’s definition, “sufficient contact between them, and have sufficient

impact on one another’s decisions, to cause them to behave – at least in some

measure – as parts of a whole.”14 By these criteria, Bull argues a world system did

not really emerge until World War One. “Throughout human history before the

nineteenth century there was no single political system that spanned the world as a

whole.” But since the late nineteenth century, “order on a global scale has ceased

to be simply the sum of the various political systems that produce order on a local

scale; it is also the product of what may be called a world political system.”15

English geographer Halford Mackinder proclaimed the birth of a “closed political

system” of “world-wide scope” a decade before World War I.16 “From World War I

onward,” writes Tilly, “it becomes increasingly difficult to separate the European

14
Hedley Bull (1977/2003) The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World
Politics, 3rd ed, Columbia University Press, p.9
15
Bull 1977/2003:19-20
16
Harold Mackinder (1904) “The Geographical Pivot of History” The Geographical
Journal 23.4, p.422. “Every explosion of social forces,” he wrote, “will be sharply
re-echoed from the far side of the globe…” Mackinder 1904:422
 379

system from the world system of states that was forming rapidly.”17

But even if the world was not a unified system until World War I, the study of

hegemonic shocks does not require a global unit of analysis. By the earlier

definition, Europe had become its own state system at the end of the 17th century if

not before. The hegemonic shock of the Napoleonic Wars and its reverberations

throughout Europe thus offers another case study of an early institutional wave. As

Furet notes, the clash between revolutionary France and monarchical Europe

“initiated the era of democratic war”.18 For decades before the French revolution,

statesmen warned that it would become necessary to bring the majority of the

population under the control of the state, to replace patronage with centralized

authority mediated by the rule of law and financed by a far-reaching tax system.

The revolution confronted European rulers with these facts. At its peak, Napoleonic

France “looked like a country where modern representative institutions, the rule of

law, and universal military service had engendered an unprecedented level of

patriotism and effectiveness on the battlefield,” writes Hosking. And while this

dominance was partly illusory, “contemporaries were impressed.”19 The spread of

republican institutions during the wars was partially reversed by the Holy Alliance,

17
Charles Tilly (1990) Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1992,
Blackwell, p. 179. Likewise, Schweller describes the creation of the international
system as a process that “subsumed the entire earth, such that nothing remained
outside of it. This process began roughly one hundred years ago, after the Age of
Discovery that witnessed European expansion across the oceans to new lands.”
Randall L. Schweller (2010) “Ennui Becomes Us” The National Interest 105, p.28
18
Furet 1999:48
19
Geoffrey Hosking (2001) Russia and the Russians: A History, Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, p.240-241
 380

but the lessons of popular mobilization for democratic reforms remained in place.

After a century of relative peace during which European energy was directed

toward industrialization and colonization, 1914 brought both mass mobilization

and democracy to new levels.

The analysis of shocks and their effects on domestic reforms can also be

extended to non-Western regional systems, such as the Chinese Period of Warring

States (481-221BC) or pre-Meiji Japan.

***

At the end of the twentieth century democracy appeared to have decisively

defeated its challengers. The number of democracies around the world stood at an

all-time high. Yet since 1995, and despite occasional outbursts, the level of

democracy in the world appears to have reached a Great Plateau. And after a

period of unchallenged unipolarity during the 1990s, the hegemon that has

embodied democracy around the world once again finds itself facing the prospect

of a new ideological struggle over the prevailing archetype of a modern state. The

Great Recession that began in 2008 revived the possibility of a search for

alternatives. A slew of observers began to suggest that democratic capitalism was in

the process of being replaced by state capitalism – an institutional bundle

embodied by China and characterized by a capitalist system of production

undergirded by state ownership and guidance.20 If the lessons of past hegemonic

20
Azar Gat (2007) “The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers” Foreign Affairs
86.4:59-69; Joshua Kurlantzick (2008) “State Inc” The Boston Globe, March 16;
Joshua Kurlantzick (2008) “Democracy on the Wane” The Boston Globe,
 381

shocks can tell us anything about the future, it’s the fact that a gradual Chinese

ascent poses a much lesser challenge to liberal democracy than a sudden rise of

relative Chinese power. The greatest danger facing the future of democracy is

therefore a sudden decline in American power, influence, and prestige. For better

or for worse, the future of democracy is tied to the future of American power.

Far from being buried in the old struggles of the past century, the lessons of

hegemonic shocks continue to resonate today. Understanding the causes and

dynamics of democratic waves is crucial for understanding the effectiveness of

regime promotion by external means. As the case of World War I demonstrates, the

lack of U.S. commitment in promoting democratic institutions throughout postwar

Europe contributed to the collapse of new democracies and paved the way for the

rise of fascism in the 1930s. Those mistakes were corrected in the settlement

following World War II. Yet during the Cold War American foreign policy had an

ambivalent relationship with democracy, often preferring reliable autocrats over

unpredictable democrats. Whatever direction future U.S. policy takes toward

promoting democratic development, understanding how changes in the

September 14; Larry Diamond (2008) The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to
Build Free Societies Throughout the World, Basic Books; Larry Diamond (2008)
“The Democratic Rollback: The Resurgence of the Predatory State” Foreign Affairs
87.2:36-48; Ian Bremmer (2009) “State Capitalism Comes of Age: The End of the
Free Market?” Foreign Affairs 88.3:40-55; Marcus Walker (2009) “After the Wall: A
Debate Over Democracy's Reach” Wall Street Journal - Eastern Edition, October
29, p. A17; Azar Gat (2009) Victorious and Vulnerable: Why Democracy Won in
the 20th Century and How it is Still Imperiled, Rowman & Littlefield; Stefan Halper
(2010) The Beijing Consensus: How China’s Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the
Twenty-First Century, Basic Books. See Wolfgang Merkel (2010) “Are Dictatorships
Returning? Revisiting the ‘democratic rollback’ hypothesis” Contemporary Politics
16.1:17-31 for a dissent.
 382

international system shape this development will remain an important aspect of the

success of these policies. Given the importance of external democracy promotion

in contemporary foreign policy, the causes and dynamics of democratic waves can

provide important insights into the effectiveness of these policies, whether they are

pursued through sanctions, foreign aid, or forced regime change. Policies that

attempt to influence democratization should keep in mind that democracy has

often moved in cycles of transnational advances and retreats. It may be insufficient

or even counterproductive to focus on the needs and preferences of domestic

actors inside any single country if domestic reforms are embedded in a larger

framework of global or regional power shifts.

The lessons of hegemonic shocks also warn against the triumphalist reading of

modern history as one of steady democratic progress. Though the metaphor of

waves suggests a powerful inexorable force, democracy’s success has been

predicated upon the ability of powerful democracies to weather military and

economic crises and to emerge triumphant in their wake. When democracies fail to

do so, as during the Great Depression, the tide of popular and elite opinion shifts

just as readily and just as naturally against democratic institutions. The

consecration of democratic triumph is forged by the outcomes of grim struggles.

The fragility of democratic success is the ultimate lesson of hegemonic shocks.

 383

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