Ordering Power

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.

Dan Slater is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. His published articles can be found in disciplinary journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, American Journal of Sociology, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, International Organization, and Studies in Comparative International Development, as well as Asia-oriented journals such as Indonesia and the Taiwan Journal of Democracy. He is also a co-editor of Southeast Asia in Political Science: Theory, Region, and Qualitative Analysis (2008). Professor Slater has conducted fieldwork since the late 1990s in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.

Advance praise: 'Three cheers for Dan Slater! One for showing that elite opposition to democracy has taken quite different forms in Southeast Asia. Another for revealing how different kinds of counterrevolutionary politics have been a response to different types of political challenges. And the third for demonstrating how comparative-historical analysis can brightly illuminate just these kinds of large and consequential processes. All serious students of state formation and democratization will want to read Ordering Power.' Jeff Goodwin, New York University Advance praise: 'Ordering Power is one of the most important books on either political regimes or state-building to be published in the last two decades. Though focused on Southeast Asia, the book will be required reading for all students of democratization and state-building. Slater brings the state back into contemporary regime analyses, showing why state infrastructural power is critical to authoritarian stability. Based on impressive historical analysis, the book explores the roots of state power in Southeast Asia. Whereas much previous work on state-building focused on external military conflict, the book shows how internal conflict - and specifically, early periods of mass mobilization and communal conflict - may induce elites to enter a protection pact that can serve as a foundation for long-term authoritarian stability. Of the many recent studies of the sources of authoritarian stability, I find Ordering Power to be most compelling.' Steven Levitsky, Harvard University Advance praise: 'Ordering Power tackles big questions in a powerful and nuanced way, connecting to a broad range of important debates. Dan Slater has produced an extremely powerful and important book that will be of considerable interest to a wide-ranging audience in the social sciences, history, and Southeast Asian studies.' T. J. Pempel, University of California, Berkeley Advance praise: 'With the publication of Ordering Power, Dan Slater