Joseph Sassoon

State Security, Information, and Repression: A Comparison of Communist Bulgaria and Ba'thist Iraq

The centrality of a strong state security apparatus to the maintenance of authoritarian rule via the threat or use of repression has been highlighted in classic studies of single-party regimes as well as in more recent analyses of authoritarian resilience in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. This article focuses on two other fundamental questions related to the operation of state security forces in single-party autocracies during the Cold War. First, how did the state security agencies of East Germany and Saddam Husseins Iraq collect information? Second, how was this information used? The article underscores the importance of the recruitment of informants for the state security apparatus, and it also reveals how information affects decisions about the deployment of repression. These single-party autocracies continuously extracted information by recruiting ordinary citizens to participate (voluntarily or involuntarily) as informants in the state security networks and used the information gathered to mete out repression.

The Ba‘thification of Iraq: Saddam Hussein's Totalitarianism. By Aaron M. Faust. (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2015. Pp. xxi, 296.

diseases would have been uncommon (36). In chapters 6 and 7, the contradictions and consequences of antiprostitution laws, enacted to checkmate the problem, are covered. The antiprostitution discourse delineates issues surrounding power and gendered ideologies premised on cultural ideals rather than the realities on the ground. Also revealed are the differences between elite men and women in Lagos, and how roguish and desperate policemen would rather arrest and punish innocent people than endanger their source of illegal earnings (including payoffs with free sex) by arresting the enablers of prostitution. Even a policeman, Mr. Flavian Opara, on one occasion swallowed a bribe of £5 “to escape arrest by his colleagues” (139). Overall, this book is a great addition to an area of African studies that has not been adequately covered by research. Future studies of a similar nature on Port Harcourt, Calabar, and colonial cities in Nigeria will make a delightful read. Aderinto must be praised for his vigor, vision, clarity of expressions, and intelligent use of humor to treat this complex subject.

55.00.)

Abstract By focusing on political memoirs as an important source, the article deals with the ruling party and governance in the Arab republics, whether they had a one-party system such as Iraq and Syria, or a multi-party system such as Egypt and Tunisia. However, one country among the republics, Libya, annulled political parties and parliament and created its own unique system of governance. Through memoirs of party members, parliamentary opponents, and ministers, the article analyses the substantial role of the ruling parties in perpetuating the regimes. While the triangular relationship between the leadership, the party, and the bureaucracy differed from one republic to another, the overall structure of governance did not vary widely, except in the case of Libya.

Party and governance in the Arab republics

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