Totalistic organizations
Subtitle: from Mafia to global terror
By: A. Korchak ; translated by Vera Korchak.
Series: Social science monographs; Social Science Monographs (Series)
Publisher: Social Science Monographs; Distributed by Columbia University Press
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Boulder [Colo.]; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 219
Subjects: Totalitarianism; Totalistic organizations
First sentence: After the decomposition of the Soviet Communist empire and the beginning of the Chinese economic reform it appeared that the world was successfully getting rid of totalitarianism  and that investigation of the causes of totalitarianism became the domain of historians.  However, due to the instability of the political regimes of Russia and China and the uncertainty of their economic reforms, it is doubtful that the era of totalitarianism is over.
Description: Alexander Korchak compares the organizational and functional structure of four types of totalistic organizations that pose the greatest danger to democratic society: mafias, terrorist groups, religious cults, and mature corrupt bureaucracies.  The author shows how mafias penetrate the other three types of totalistic organizations and how such organizations converge in modern democratic societies. One example of such convergence is the use by criminal cults of a religious ideology (Aum Shinrikyo); another is the link between totalistic organizations and totalitarian regimes.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 217-219), glossary and appendix.
Table of contents: label: 1
title: The information theory of will
pagenum: 1; label: 2
title: A mafia model
pagenum: 13; label: 3
title: Self-organizing bureaucracy
pagenum: 23; label: 4
title: Ideological and religious totalistic organizations
pagenum: 49; label: 5
title: On some general patterns of the evolution of totalistic organizations
pagenum: 67; label: 6
title: Autocracy, democracy, and totalitarianism
pagenum: 109; title: Conclusion
pagenum: 145; title: Glossary
pagenum: 151; title: Appendix: My participation in the human rights activities and ten years later
pagenum: 161