POL 275 - Totalitarianism

FDR: SS2
Credits: 4
Planned Offering: Spring 2011

Totalitarian regimes aim to exert a totalizing control over their citizens, but they also demand active and enthusiastic participation from citizens, and expressions of belief in the regime’s driving ideology. In this course, we study regimes such as: Nazi Germany, Stalin’s USSR, Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe, Mao’s China, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, North Korea, Khomeini’s Iran, and the Taliban’s Afghanistan. Studying totalitarian regimes helps us ask questions about the relationship between human nature and politics. While human history is littered with authoritarian and despotic regimes, political movements who oppress their followers in the name of elevating humanity are relatively recent phenomena. What is it about our modern understanding of life and purpose that makes such regimes and movements attractive to us?Zarakol