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Author O'Kane, Rosemary H. T.

Title Terror, force, and states : the path from modernity / Rosemary H.T. O'Kane
Published Cheltenham, UK ; Brookfield, US : Edward Elgar, [1996]
©1996

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Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 W'BOOL  320.530904 Oka/Tfa  AVAILABLE
Description x, 214 pages ; 24 cm
Contents 1. Power, force, violence, terror and government -- 2. Modernity and the Holocaust -- 3. Totalitarian dictatorship and totalitarian regime -- 4. From origins towards causes of terror regimes -- Case 1 Russia under Stalin - introduction -- 5. Before Stalinism to the early years of terror as government -- 6. Substantive irrationality and terror under Stalin -- Case 2 Germany under Hitler - introduction -- 7. Background to Nazism and Nazi dictatorship -- 8. Germany 1938-45: substantive irrationality and terror as government -- 9. Terror as government and its causes, Cambodia, April 1975-January 1979 -- Conclusion Terror and modernity
Summary The lessons drawn suggest that the Holocaust and modern genocide are not intrinsically related to modernity. Terror regimes, she argues, operate not through the state but from behind a state facade within a secret society. Economic crisis is given prominence in their explanation with the decisive explanatory factor argued to be the move from plans to substantive irrationality. Indeed it is the economic rationality of modern society, most particularly in respect to labour markets, which acts as the barrier to terror's rule
Terror, Force and States offers a new theoretical explanation of the nature and causes of terror states. The theory is developed through a critical examination of the works of Bauman, Weber, Arendt, Friedrich and Brzezinski, as well as through detailed case studies of terror regimes including Nazi Germany, Stalin's Russia and Pol Pot's Cambodia. The view of force as a form of power is rejected by Rosemary O'Kane who carefully distinguishes between repressive and terror governments and, crucially, between totalitarian dictatorships and totalitarian regimes
Analysis Totalitarianism
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-205) and index
Subject State-sponsored terrorism.
Totalitarianism.
LC no. 95034568
ISBN 1852786949