Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics) Illustrated Edition

Was a required textbook for a graduate course in State-Making. Excellent in that it is both well argued, clear, but also extremely well written. I agree with the previous reviewer that this book is an excellent example of the value of area studies and using thick descriptive fieldwork to build theory. I recommend this book to all those studying Comparative Politics.

Ordering Power presents a well-articulated and precise theory to explain the different experiences of Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and other Southeast Asian leviathans. Tying together concepts from public finance and dominant tools in comparative politics, this book provides a convincing framework for explaining the region's diverse authoritarian routes.In under 300 pages Slater lays out a type of recipe for a successful coercive (Asian) leviathan. Importantly, the type of conflict, rather than the extent, is the crux for explaining state variation. Nominal regional conflict do little to drive states toward authoritarianism, unlike redistributive class politics that penetrate urban, industrial centers. As comparative scholars like James Scott have noted, rural movements are far easier for communal elites to manage than all-out urban class upheavals. Particularly potent are conflicts that leave lasting, violent imprints within communities, or those that have the appearance of being "endemic and unmanageable."Most interesting and novel is Slater's focus on taxes and elite collective action in sustaining authoritarian states. Contentious, endemic community and class conflict enable the state to centralize its authority, consolidate, and --importantly--impose direct taxes on threatened elites. However, it is not enough to merely dole out the rewards of state centralization amongst patrons--it must protect them from the contentious forces that had incited elite collective action in the first place. Thus, Slater suggests that contentious politics must drive a state to both "provide and protect."Slater offers a lively-written and well researched tour of authoritarian Asia. While not as vast and complete as some classics of state building, Ordering Power presents a tightly argued story that maps quite well onto different political regimes, though relying much on the context of outside comparative research. Political economists and scholars of comparative politics will have much to sink their teeth into. Asian Studies scholars may have less to gain, but may appreciate Slater's framework nonetheless. Oddly enough, as an economics person I found this much more gratifying than other dominant quantitative studies out there.

This book is not good. I found it in a restroom and had nothing else to do so I read it and I regret it.

The political science discipline has criticized qualitative research and area studies as not contributing to our theoretical understanding of politics. However, Dan Slater's  Ordering Power  should be Exhibit 1 in the case for qualitative and area studies research. Slater produces a brilliant theory addressing one of the biggest questions in the comparative politics field: authoritarian state formation. Slater proposes that strong authoritarian states are the products of "protection pacts" against leftist insurgencies. The strength of this pact depends upon whether the insurgency is perceived to be endemic and unmanageable, in which case elites are willing to sacrifice more of their autonomy in return for greater protection. Slater's case studies are pretty convincing in demonstrating his argument. I'm a Southeast Asianist myself and couldn't find any better explanation for elite politics in the countries than what he described.  Ordering Power  is highly recommended for any student of comparative politics and state formation.