Participants in the first annual Workshop on Totalitarian Regimes, 2003

Organized by Hoover research fellow Paul Gregory, the Hoover Institution's Workshop on Totalitarian Regimes brings together scholars from across the globe to research and discuss the history and development of authoritarian regimes. The workshop promotes the comparative study of modes of personal dictatorship, of institutions of coercion and repression, and of the economic and social consequences of totalitarian rule.

Participants in the workshop draw from the vast resources of the unique and fast-growing holdings of the Hoover Institution Archives on totalitarian regimes in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

This year marks the workshop's twelfth year. More information about the participants in this year's workshop is available below.

Michael Brill, an MA student in Arab studies at Georgetown University. His research project is on foreign policy and alliance building by totalitarian regimes. In the Hoover Archives he will work on records of the Ba'ath Party of Iraq.

Cole Bunzel, a PhD candidate in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. His research focuses on the history of Wahhabism, the religious ideology of Saudi Arabia. In the Hoover Archives he will work on historical records from Saudi Arabia.

William A. Clark, a professor of political science at Louisiana State University. His research is on the Ryutin affair in Soviet politics. In the Hoover Archives he will work on Soviet state and Communist Party records.

Jonathan Daly, a professor of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research is on the forced collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union. In the Hoover Archives he will work on Soviet state and Communist Party records.

Saulius Grybkauskas, a senior research fellow in the Department of Twentieth Century History of the Lithuanian Institute of History and also of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University. His research is on the agencies of the Kremlin in the Soviet periphery. In the Hoover Archives he will work on records of the Soviet state and Communist Party, especially the party control commission.

Kevan Harris, associate director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iranian Studies and a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. In the fall he will become an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles. His research is on coercion and mobilization in the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the Hoover Archives he will work on records of Iranian history, especially the Islamic Fundamentalism Collection.

Samuel Helfont, a PhD candidate in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. His research is on religion, politics, and totalitarianism in Iraq. He will work in the Hoover Archives on records of the Ba'ath Party of Iraq.

Kathleen Hiatt, a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Indiana University. Her research is on the repression of religious communities in Ukraine under Stalin. In the Hoover Archives she will work on records of the Soviet interior ministry, in particular those of the Gulag.

Deborah Kaple,  a research scholar in the Department of Sociology at Princeton University. Her research is on the consequences of de-Stalinization in Eastern Europe and China. In the Hoover Archives she will work on records of the Soviet state and Communist Party, including those of the KGB, as well as East European and Chinese records.

Martin Kragh, a research leader of the Uppsala Forum for Democracy, Peace, and Justice and a research fellow of the Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University. He is also a research fellow of the Institute for Economic and Business History Research at the Stockholm School of Economics. His research is on the confiscation of foreign property during the Russian Revolution. In the Hoover Archives he will work on records of the Soviet state and Communist Party.

Klaus Mühlhahn, a professor of Chinese history and culture at the Free University of Berlin. His research is on Chinese legal history in the modern period and the history of imperialism and Sino-Western exchanges in the twentieth century.

Jacob Olidort, a PhD candidate in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and an adjunct fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His research is on the evolution of the idea of the Islamic caliphate in response to local political developments. In the Hoover Archives he will work on a variety of Near Eastern and Middle Eastern records, including the Islamic Fundamentalism Collection and records from Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Zhanna Popova, a PhD candidate at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. Her research is on the history of internal exile and forced labor in Russia before and under communism.  In the Hoover Archives she will work on the records of the Soviet interior ministry, in particular those of the Gulag.

Thomas Sanders, a professor of history at the United States Naval Academy. His research is on aspects of Russian history. In the Hoover Archives he will work on the papers of E. E. Gopshtein, covering life in Crimea from 1938 to 1953.

Tomas Sniegon, a senior lecturer in European studies at the University of Lund in Sweden. His research is on the history of the communist regimes of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as remembered by participants and memorialized at places of confinement and execution.

Luyang Zhou, a PhD student in sociology at McGill University. His research is on the origins of totalitarianism in Russia and China. In the Hoover Archives he will work on biographical records of Soviet state and Communist Party leaders.