Ordering Power
Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia

Ordering Power draws on theoretical insights to develop a unified framework for explaining the tremendous variation in state capacity and authoritarian durability in Southeast Asia.

Dan Slater (Author)

9780521190411, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 September 2010

342 pages, 4 b/w illus. 1 map 4 tables
24.1 x 16.1 x 2.3 cm, 0.6 kg

'With the publication of Ordering Power, Dan Slater has demonstrated with impressive skill and sophistication the importance of social forces and conflicts for underpinning authoritarian rule, in Southeast Asia and beyond, as well as the broader intellectual promise of an approach to comparative politics rooted in the tradition of comparative historical sociology. Slater has singlehandedly raised the standards - and the stakes - of cross-national comparative analysis of Southeast Asian politics. It is to be hoped that serious scholars of the region will rise to the challenge of engaging with his work.' John T. Sidel, London School of Economics and Political Science

Like the postcolonial world more generally, Southeast Asia exhibits tremendous variation in state capacity and authoritarian durability. Ordering Power draws on theoretical insights dating back to Thomas Hobbes to develop a unified framework for explaining both of these political outcomes. States are especially strong and dictatorships especially durable when they have their origins in 'protection pacts': broad elite coalitions unified by shared support for heightened state power and tightened authoritarian controls as bulwarks against especially threatening and challenging types of contentious politics. These coalitions provide the elite collective action underpinning strong states, robust ruling parties, cohesive militaries, and durable authoritarian regimes - all at the same time. Comparative-historical analysis of seven Southeast Asian countries (Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Vietnam, and Thailand) reveals that subtly divergent patterns of contentious politics after World War II provide the best explanation for the dramatic divergence in Southeast Asia's contemporary states and regimes.

Part I. The Puzzles and Arguments: 1. To extract and to organize
2. States and the regimes that run them
Part II. Contentious Politics and the Institutions of Order: 3. Colonialism, cleavages, and the contours of contention
4. Mobilization and countermobilization amid colonial retreat
5. Varieties of violence in authoritarian onset
Part III. The Foundations and Fates of Authoritarian Leviathans: 6. Protection and provision in authoritarian leviathans
7. Contentious politics and the struggle for democratization
Part IV. Extending the Arguments: 8. Congruent cases in Southeast Asia
9. The consequences of contention.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB], Politics & government [JP], Sociology [JHB]