Varieties of Communism

Comparative politics has moved on from communism too quickly. Even as authoritarianism takes center stage in the subfield, the most important authoritarian regime type of the 20 th century has faded into a footnote. Proceeding in a similar spirit but with less sweeping ambition than the “Varieties of Capitalism” and “Varieties of Democracy” projects, this special issue and wider research agenda considers how communist regimes have differed both from other authoritarian regimes and from each other. Even while sharing certain ideological and institutional features that made them analytically distinctive, communist regimes historically emerged and evolved in very different contexts and in very different ways. Assembled essays on communist regimes in East Asia and Eastern Europe reveal the promise of bringing communism as a category back into our comparative conversations.