The book highlights three fundamental phases of the authoritarian phenomenon: the totalitarian phase, with variations such as fascism/nazism and existing socialism, during the interwar period.

The purely authoritarian phase, which takes the form of military dictatorship and coincides with the Cold War period.

And the most recent phase, which emerges as a consequence of "globalization" and shifts the authoritarian phenomenon to the countries of the "third world" periphery.

(. . .) [Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]