How to Build a Dictatorship?

How to build a dictatorship?

Common social and legal features of authoritarian regimes in the 20th century

Lecturer: dr. Anna Doszpoth

Monday 18:00-19:30

Department of Criminology

Course description

Although oppressive regimes existed and exist in countless forms, the differences between the Numerus clausus law in Hungary, the concept of Year Zero in Cambodia, the public speeches of Eva Perón to the Descamisados, the military parades for the entertainment of Francisco Franco, or the Monuments of Stalin fade away, if we take a closer look at the core aims they are intended to achieve.

The course offers an overview on the common social, legal and economic features of dictatorial regimes illustrated with examples from the 20th century and aims to give an insight into their historical and legal framework as well as into the relevant criminological theories of state criminality.

Course schedule

1st week: Introduction. Different types of government systems, different types of dictatorships

2nd week: Legalisation of unlawfulness, state crimes

3rd week: Crime is what the powerful define as a crime. Targeting the defenceless, the suspicious and the dangerous ones, eliminating political opponents

4th week: Justification of the power: the scapegoats and the sheep

5th week: Media misuse, propaganda and moral panics

6th week: Student’s presentations, part I.

7th week: Financing the empire, economic measurements

8th week: Militarisation

9th week: True believers, fanatics, opportunists. The leader’s closest circle

10th week: Student’s presentations, part II.

11th week: Public support or blindfolded masses? A story of bystanders and various forms of denial

12th week: Exam

Assessment

Students may choose to write the written exam (based on the materials uploaded to Neptun) or to submit an essay of max. 30.000 characters on a previously agreed topic until the last week of the semester.

The precondition of the exam is a ca. 5 min. presentation in class on a book/movie/other illustration of a dictatorship, a dictator or other related topic chosen by the student, preferably from his/her country of origin.

Course materials

PPT slides and further readings will be uploaded weekly to Neptun.

Recommended readings

Stanley Cohen: Human Rights and Crimes of the State: The Culture of Denial, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 1993, 26 (97-115).

Penny J. Green, Tony Ward: State Crime, Human Rights and the Limits of Criminology, Social Justice, 2000, Vol. 27. No. 1. (79), 101-115.

Henri Tajfel: Social identity and intergroup behaviour, Social Science Information, 13 (2), 65-93.

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