This article is conceived as a learning from error exercise under the assumption that unless we take stock of our past mistakes we are bound to repeat them. The notion of totalitarianism appears to serve this purpose well. It is shown, (i) that totalitarianism was dismissed prematurely for wrong reasons, (ii) that its successor concepts have been wrongly conceived as `models', and (iii) that model mania had developed to a point of harming our understanding. The exercise is retrospective in order to be prospective. Thus, totalitarianism is revisited to illustrate the analytic handling of typological constructs and to buttress the general point that political science has backed itself into a number of blind alleys.
Almond, Gabriel
(1990) A Discipline Divided: Schools and Sects in Political Science. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
2.
Amann, Ronald
(1986) `Searching for an Appropriate Concept of Soviet Politics', British Journal of Political Science16(4) October: 475-494.
3.
Arendt, Hanna
(1951) The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace.
4.
Brodbeck, May
(1959) `Models, Meaning and Theories', in L. Gross (ed.) Symposium on Sociological Theory. New York: Harper and Row.
5.
Brown, Archie
(1984) `Political Power and the Soviet State', in Neil Harding (ed.) The State in Socialist Society. Albany: State University of New York Press.
6.
Bruschi, Alessandro
(1971) La Teoria dei Modelli nelle Scienze Sociali. Bologna: Il Mulino.
7.
Bunce, V.
and J. M. Echols (1980) `Soviet Politics in the Brezhnev Era: `Pluralism and Corporatism', in Donald Kelley (ed.) Soviet Politics in the Brezhnev Era. New York: Viking.
8.
Collier, David
and J. E. Mahon (1992) `Conceptual “Stretching” Revisited: Alternative Views of Categories in Comparative Analysis'. Paper originally presented at the COCTA panel of the 1991 IPSA World Congress of Buenos Aires (January 1992 revision).
9.
Converse, Philip
(1964) `The Nature of Belief System in Mass Publics', in David Apter (ed.) Ideology and Discontent. New York: Free Press of Glencoe.
10.
Fleron, Frederic
, ed. (1969) `Toward a Reconceptualization of Political Change in the Soviet Union: The Political Leadership System', in Communist Studies and the Social Sciences. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
Friedrich, C. J.
and Z. K. Brzezinski (1956) (1965 2nd edn) Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (1st edn); New York: Praeger (2nd edn).
13.
Hempel, Carl
(1965) Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New York: Free Press.
14.
Hough. J. F.
(1969) The Soviet Prefects: The Local Party Organs in Industrial Decision-Making. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
15.
Hough, J. F.
(1977) `The Soviet System: Petrification or Pluralism?' in Hough (ed.) The Soviet Union and Social Science Theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
16.
Johnson, Chalmers
, ed. (1970) Change in Communist Systems. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
17.
Kautsky, John H.
(1973) `Comparative Communism Versus Comparative Politics', Studies in Comparative Communism6 (1-2 Spring-Summer).
18.
Linz, Juan
(1975) `Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes', in Greenstein and Polsby (eds) Handbook of Political Science, vol. III. New York: Addison-Wesley.
19.
Meyer, Alfred G.
(1965) The Soviet Political System. New York: Random House.
20.
Meyer, Alfred G. (1969) `The Comparative Study of Communist Political Systems', in F. J. Fleron, ed. (1969).
21.
Moe, Terry M.
(1979) `On the Scientific Status of Rational Models', American Journal of Political Science23(1) February.
22.
Motyl, Alexander J.
(1992) `The End of Sovietology: From Soviet Studies to Post-Soviet Studies', in Motyl (ed.) The Post-Soviet Nations: Perspectives on the Demise of the USSR. New York: Columbia University Press.
23.
Neumann, Franz
(1957) The Democratic and the Authoritarian State. New York: Free Press.
24.
Rigby, T. H.
(1964) `Traditional, Market and Organization Societies', World Politics16(6) July.
25.
Rigby, T. H.
(1990) The Changing Soviet System: Mono-Organizational Socialism from Its Origin to Gorbachev's Restructuring. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
26.
Rigby, T. H.
and J. D. B. Miller, eds (1965) The Disintegrating Monolith: Pluralist Trends in the Communist World. Canberra: Australian National University Press.
27.
Sartori, Giovanni
(1970) `Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics', American Political Science Review64(4) December.
28.
Sartori, Giovanni
(1976) Parties and Party Systems. New York: Cambridge University Press.
29.
Sartori, Giovanni
(1984) `Guidelines for Concept Analysis', in G. Sartori (ed.) Social Science Concepts. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
30.
Sartori, Giovanni
(1987) The Theory of Democracy Revisited. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House.
31.
Sartori Giovanni
(1991) `Comparing and Miscomparing', Journal of Theoretical Politics3(3): 243-257.
32.
Skilling, H. Gordon
(1966) `Interest Groups and Communist Politics', World Politics18(3) April.
33.
Skilling, H. Gordon
(1983) `Interest Groups and Communist Politics Revisited', World Politics36(1) October.
34.
Skilling, Gordon
and Franklin Griffiths, eds (1971) Interest Groups in Soviet Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
35.
Spiro, H. J.
and B. R. Barber (1970) `Counter-Ideological Uses of “Totalitarianism” ', Politics and Society1(1) November.
36.
Solomon, Susan G.
, ed. (1983) Pluralism in the Soviet Union. New York: St Martin's Press.
37.
Tucker, Robert C.
(1961) `The Question of Totalitarianism', Slavic Review20(3) October.
38.
Zwick, Peter
(1991) `Perestroika and Soviet Studies', PS24(3) September.
