Beyond totalitarianism? Totalitarianism theory in Soviet Union historiography since the end of the Cold War

Abstract

This thesis examines the post-Cold War western historiography of the Soviet Union in order to evaluate the relevance of totalitarianism theory within this field of research since 1989. After a short overview of the history of the totalitarianism debate in western Europe and the United States, totalitarianism theory is defined through a discussion of the 'paradigmatic' theories of Hannah Arendt and Carl J. Friedrich & Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, as well as Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan's theory of post-totalitarianism. This discussion of the theory results in a checklist, which serves as a guideline for the assessment of 35 monographs on Soviet history published between 1990 and 2009.