Ordering Power

Slater, Dan

Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia.

Cambridge:Cambridge University Press 2010.

 

 

 

 

 리뷰논문

This groundbreaking study will set the stage for many books to come. Slater asks why some authoritarian states are more stable than others and finds the answer
in ‘protection pacts’ between governments and social elites. What decides the terms of such protection pacts is the level of fear among elites of social revolution,
separatism or external aggression. The greater their fear, the more power they yield to the state, and the more they let themselves be taxed. Southeast Asia, with its mix of strong and fragile authoritarianisms as well as democratic elements, forms a fruitful testing ground for comparative political science. It is refreshing to see Slater round off his analysis by showing that theory derived from Southeast Asia may be applicable to other parts of the world, not least Europe. Elite threat perceptions are the ‘causal motor’ of ordered power. This explains why the Singaporean and Malaysian ‘authoritarian Leviathans’ are strong and durable whereas the states of the Philippines and Thailand are fragile. The key factor is the relative strength of leftist movements in the aftermath of WWII. Burma and Indonesia’s
long-term military rule has a different explanation: threat from separatist movements. Slater’s treatment of the former South Vietnam is not quite as convincing.
However, he ends his book with an interesting remark about a kind of authoritarianism he otherwise leaves out of his analysis – the states born in successful leftist revolutions: China, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam. Drawing from the Mexican experience, he sees such states as prone to internal fragmentation and factionalism. Some of them have existed for a long time, but duration is not the same as durability, he says.

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