Abstract
This article reviews key works that investigate the managerial efficiency of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. The article also explores the main set of ideas regarding the reasons for the functional efficiency of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. The article explores ideas regarding the efficiency of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes in times of crisis, military operations, mobilizations, etc., their ability to quickly make risky decisions, the ability to massively and immediately redistribute resources, direct the budget to strategic sectors, forcibly mobilize labor, material and scientific resources, ensure the predictability of the political process, which achieves high administrative manageability. On the other hand, the main ideas regarding the problems of the stability of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes and their vulnerability in terms of efficiency are presented. Thus, this article provides an overview of the main ideas that allow for a deeper analysis of the phenomenon of managerial efficiency of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. At the same time, this article helps to understand the fundamental weakness of totalitarian regimes, which stems from their strength. This weakness, in particular, lies in the inability to ensure the full functioning of market mechanisms, which remain distorted. Quite often, totalitarian and authoritarian regimes make irrational economic decisions associated with the illusion of omnipotence. The problem is sometimes simply obtaining realistic statistical data by such regimes and understanding the objective state of affairs in the country by the authorities, given the reign of fear among the bureaucracy and the formation of a culture of false reporting. Corruption and favoritism can form a wave of ineffective decisions, determined by purely subjective things. In addition, in democratic political regimes, such mistakes are usually easier to correct under public pressure or election cycles. At the same time long existence of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, their ability to survive and to overcome crises through centralization, more effective mobilization of resources and achieving regime integrity through suppression of social alternatives, does not allow to underestimate the potential for the stability of such regimes and their high competitiveness even in comparison with powerful developed democratic states. The ability of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes to adapt and maintain their authoritarian and totalitarian nature under the guise of formal changes and purely ritual pseudo-democratic electoral processes requires special further study.
References
1. Arendt, H. (1962). The origins of totalitarianism. The World Publishing Company. https://cheirif.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/hannah-arendt-the-origins-of-totalitarianism-meridian-1962.pdf
2. Aristotel. (2000). Polityka [Politics]. Osnovy. http://litopys.org.ua/aristotle/arist.htm (in Ukrainian)
3. Baran, V. (2022). Ideological control of the Stalinist regime over the intelligentsia in the Ukrainian SSR: 1945–1953. Skhidnoievropeiskyi Istorychnyi Visnyk [East European Historical Bulletin], (25), 181–188. https://doi.org/10.24919/2519-058X.25.269527
4. Brownlee, J. (2007). Authoritarianism in an age of democratization. Cambridge University Press. https://la.utexas.edu/users/jmciver/Honors/NonFiction 2013/Brownlee_Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization--Introduction_2007.pdf
5. Eplbaum, E. (2006). Istoriia HULAHu [Gulag: A history]. Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Publishing House. https://lib.in.ua/99839-istoriia-gulagu/ (in Ukrainian)
6. Epplbom, E. (2023). Sutinky demokratii: Pidstupna spokusa avtorytaryzmu [Twilight of democracy: The seductive lure of authoritarianism]. HREC PRESS. (in Ukrainian)
7. Foucault, M. (2007). Security, territory, population: Lectures at the Collège de France 1977–1978 (M. Senellart, Ed; G. Burchell, Trans.). Palgrave Macmillan. https://mirror.explodie.org/Foucault-Security-Territory-Population.pdf
8. Frantz, E. (2018). Authoritarianism: What everyone needs to know. Oxford University Press. https://sackett.net/frantz_authoritarianism-what-everyone-needs-to-know.pdf
9. Fromm, E. (2019). Vtecha vid svobody [Escape from freedom]. KSD. (in Ukrainian)
10. Geddes, B., Wright, J., & Frantz, E. (2018). How dictatorships work: Power, personalization, and collapse. Cambridge University Press.
11. Guriev, S., & Treisman, D. (2016). How modern dictators survive: An informational theory of the new authoritarianism [Unpublished manuscript]. Department of Economics, Sciences Po. https://economics.unibocconi.eu/sites/default/files/files/media/attachments/GurievTreismanFeb201520160421113213.pdf
12. Habermas, J. (2012). The theory of communicative action (T. McCarthy, Trans.). Beacon Press.
13. Hobbs, T. (2025). Leviafan [Leviathan]. Folio. https://www.scribd.com/document/925313886/Гоббс-Левіафан-короткии (in Ukrainian)
14. Kasparov, G. (2015). Winter is coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the enemies of the free world must be stopped. Atlantic Monthly Press. https://books.google.com.ua/books?id=PyY4DgAAQBAJ
15. Kharari, Yu. N. (2016). Liudyna rozumna. Istoriia liudstva vid mynuloho do maibutnoho [Sapiens: A brief history of humankind]. KSD. (in Ukrainian)
16. Kulchytskyi, S. (1996). Komunizm v Ukraini: Pershe desiatyrichchia (1919–1928) [Communism in Ukraine: The first decade (1919–1928)]. Osnovy. https://www.academia.edu/41287979/Кульчицький_Станіслав_Комунізм_в_Україні_перше_десятиріччя_1919_1928_К_Основи_1996_396_с (in Ukrainian)
17. Kuran, T. (1995). Private truths, public lies: The social consequences of preference falsification. Harvard University Press.
18. Lankov, A. (2013). The real North Korea: Life and politics in the failed Stalinist utopia. Oxford University Press. https://iusgentium.ufsc.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Obrigat%C3%B3rio.pdf
19. Lebon, H. (2024). Psykholohiia mas [The crowd: A study of the popular mind]. Andronum. https://books.google.com.ua/books?id=76cgEAAAQBAJ (in Ukrainian)
20. Levitsky, S., & Way, L. A. (2010). Competitive authoritarianism: Hybrid regimes after the Cold War. Cambridge University Press. https://books.google.com.ua/books?id=NZDI05p1PDgC
21. Linz, J. J., & Stepan, A. (1996). Problems of democratic transition and consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post–Communist Europe. Johns Hopkins University Press.
22. Linz, J. J. (2000). Totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. Lynne Rienner Publishers. https://www.rexresearch1.com/TotalitarianismLibrary/TotalitarianAuthoritarianRegimesLinz.pdf
23. Orteha-i-Haset, Kh. (1994). Vybrani tvory [Selected works]. Osnovy. https://ae-lib.org.ua/texts/ortega-y-gaset__masa__ua.htm (in Ukrainian)
24. Plato. (1994). Laws (B. Jowett, Trans.). The Internet Classics Archive. https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/laws.html (Original work published ca. 354 BCE)
25. Platon. (2000). Derzhava [The Republic]. Osnovy. http://litopys.org.ua/plato/plat.htm (in Ukrainian)
26. Schmitt, C. (2005). Political theology: Four chapters on the concept of sovereignty (G. Schwab, Trans.). University of Chicago Press. https://syllabus.pirate.care/library/Carl Schmitt/Political theology_ Four chapters on the concept of sovereignty (461)/Political theology_ Four chapters on the c - Carl Schmitt.pdf
27. Svolik, M. W. (2012). The politics of authoritarian rule. Cambridge University Press. https://books.google.com.ua/books?id=6fUgAwAAQBAJ
28. Wallace, J. L. (2023). Seeking truth, hiding facts: Ideology, information, and authoritarianism in China. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197627655.001.0001
29. Weber, M. (1998). Hospodarstvo i suspilstvo yak zahalni poniattia [Economy and society as general concepts] (O. Pohorilyi, Trans.). In Sotsiolohiia. Zahalnoistorychni analizy. Polityka [Sociology. General historical analyses. Politics] (pp. 67–82). Osnovy. http://litopys.org.ua/weber/wbs03.htm (in Ukrainian)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2026 Oleksandr Palii