Totalitarianism, Terrorism and Supreme Values ― History and Theory

Applying a rational choice perspective, this book presents a dynamic theory of the evolution of totalitarian regimes and terrorism. By demonstrating that totalitarian regimes rest on ideologies involving supreme values that are assumed to be absolutely true, the author identifies the factors that lead to totalitarian regimes, and those that transform or abolish those regimes with time. The author addresses different ideologies, such as National Socialism, Communism, and religious movements; examines numerous historical cases of totalitarian regimes; and develops a formal, mathematical model of totalitarianism in the book’s closing chapter. 

Assistant Professor at Universitat Frankfurt 1964-66, Ordinarius (Full Professor) at Technische Universitat Berlin 1966 to 1971. Since 1971 Ordinarius for Economics, especially for Economic Policy and for Monetary and International Economics, and Institute Director at Universitat Basel, Switzerland. Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and History 1982-83. Guest professor at MIT 1969, Virginia Polytechnic Institute 1974 and 1978, Stanford University 1981, University of California LA 1986/87, Australian National University, Canberra, 1993, University of California Irvine 1998, Universita degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” 2000,  Research Fellow of the Center for Study of Public Choice, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. 

Corresponding Member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Dr. rer. pol. h. c. of Universitaet Konstanz 2000, Universitaet Freiburg 2011, Germany. Fellow of Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin (Center for Advanced Studies) 2000-2001. President of European Public Choice Society from 1974 to 1981; Member Academic Advisory Board of the German Minister of Economics since 1974; Member of the Macroeconomic Policy Group of the European Union from 1988 to 1990; Co-Founder of the European Constitutional Group 1992.