We start with the depiction of cycles of regimes in classical Western thought, from Plato and Aristotle to Polybius and Machiavelli. We then present the beginnings of a modern causal explanation in the historical writings of Karl Marx: the Class struggles in France, the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and the Civil Wars in France. We will also consider the application of the Bonapartism thesis to Soviet Russia. We will then select countries, according to student interest, with recent manifestations of the cycle, most likely starting with Argentina, and also including marginal examples like the United States, with its cycles minus full breakdown and open dictatorship. We will take the evidence of the transition and consolidation literature into account. Finally, but most importantly, we will reconstruct recent explanations, and their possible relationship to Marx’s initial attempt. Each student will be responsible to write a paper and to deliver a preliminary report focusing either on a recent case, or on a theoretical attempt at explanation.