Ideocracy and Totalitarianism: A Formal Analysis Incorporating Ideology

In the present paper it is shown how totalitarianregimes can arise or be averted depending on theconditions described by the parameters and the initialvalues of the system. The main reason for theevolution of totalitarian regimes is the presence ofbelievers who are convinced that others have to beconverted to the supreme values of their ideology fortheir well-being and, possibly, that there existinconvertible enemies of their creed whose presence isobnoxious to them and to the absolute truths of theirideology. Believers are thus prepared to spendresources on winning new converts and to win thesecular power of the state. Whether they succeed inthis endeavour depends on the costs of converting newbelievers and on the amount of resources they areprepared to spend for this purpose, given theiravailable incomes and their propensity to consume.Their chances to succeed are greater if a crisisoccurs, an event which is usually outside of theircontrol. Once secular power has been secured, theresources of the state can be used to win moreconverts, to drive into exile or to killinconvertibles and to try to reach the imperialisticaims implied by the ideology. If the latter is not thecase, the regime may turn into a mature ideocracyafter having reached its domestic aims. This would forinstance be the case, if all inconvertibles had beenremoved and all the other population been converted. Inthis case no further terror and (or) repressionscharacteristic of totalitarian regimes are required.