The main goal of the book is to establish a theory that helps explain the most effective way for state building and peace building in a state post-conflict. Sisk achieves this by focusing on three main subtexts: authority, capacity, and legitimacy. Sisk theorizes that a state that is strong in all three categories has a higher chance of being successful and also has a higher chance of becoming a democracy. He also theorizes that states that are weak in these categories are classified as fragile states and have a higher chance of relapsing back into another conflict. To Sisk, state building must be done through democratic processes to be truly effective. An example would be his emphasis on the importance of elections. This democratic process, to Sisk, helps a state establish strong legitimacy. He also discusses how organizations like the United Nations need to spend more time in developing states post-conflict to help with capacity. He mentions how if a state can’t achieve capacity in their governments, thy are likely to backslide into another conflict. It is during this time that Sisk also talks about not rushing the electoral process as it needs to be established legitimately and will most likely take a long time due to division among conflict lines.

Sisk also brings up fragile states and how each state is categorized on a case-by-case basis. While a state may be weak on the three categories Sisk presents, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it does not have a chance to rebuild. To Sisk, each state has their own path, and when outside entities like the UN and NGO’s come to help, it is important not to assume that one size fits all when it comes to state building. Sisk’s three categories are guidelines when it comes to state and peace building, but they are broad topics that can be adjusted depending on the state.

Main Theory: The presence of a strong bourgeoisie is key for determining and understanding the outcome of particular societies.

Summary of Theories: The upper classes adapted to the gradual intrusion of capitalism by placing greater pressure on the peasants. For example, the aristocracy in France left the peasants in a situation where they had de facto ownership of the land they worked, but still maintaining control over them through their power and influence. As peasants and middle-class farmers gained greater wealth through the use of private lands, they became more influential within the political spectrum of the nation.

Moore examines how the landed and upper classes in England were able to become the dominant element in society, and they were able to copy bourgeois economic habits. This combined with the violent upheaval of the English and American Civil Wars and the French Revolution allowed for the development of a bourgeois democracy. In this Moore explains how we see the marks of modern liberal society: the right to vote, representative legislature, property rights, freedom of speech, and the right for peaceful assembly. He believes the taming of the agrarian sector is the decisive feature that allows for this process to occur within a society.

Conclusion: Understanding the social structure is key to understanding the development of a nation; industrial modernization is shaped by how different social classes interact and react to capitalistic influences within their society

Sisk’s broad question is what practices or strategies best sustain peace following a civil war or conflict. To answer this, Sisk theorizes that following a conflict, internationally recognized states (that are in reality extremely fragile, such as Afghanistan or Somalia) need to build/re-build authority, capacity, and legitimacy. Sisk theories that weak authority, capacity, and legitimacy are the leading contributors of fragile states that experience civil wars, political violence, and poverty. Sisk theorizes that the key to statebuilding is a strong domestic system that is built on consent of the people and strong, inclusive democratic processes. Otherwise, states are liable to violent upheaval or control by criminal, corrupt elites. Sisk theorizes that security from outside forces and aid from donor organizations are not enough to support true statebuilding, as this merely creates the skeleton of a state that will not properly function. For statebuilding to occur, there must be a delicate balance between “local ownership” of people living in the state and outside influence that pushes international norms (Sisk, 2013, 10).  In sum, true statebuilding is only theoretically possible once all of these conditions are met, otherwise the state is likely to experience recurring conflict, continuing the violent cycle.

Throughout the book, Sisk offers other theories to support or add nuance to his argument. One theory is that for successful statebuilding to occur the fragility of a state is best viewed as a spectrum. Sisk theorizes that each state has a different starting point, which will impact how statebuilding should occur. For example, states like Somalia are completely failing, while Yemen is considered fragile (Sisk, 2013, 41-45). This is particularly interesting notion because of the great diversity in states. As argued by Svolik, creating rigid categories and definitions for authoritarianism doesn’t offer a full picture of the heterogeneity of regimes. That argument is similar here, as the term fragile is not sufficient to capture the great variation in states. Also, Sisk’s main framework is expounded upon by theorizing that the role of women is critical to statebuilding because healthy democratic processes involve all people in a state. Sisk then confirms this theory through literature showing that the physical security of women is correlated with peacefulness of a state.

In their book, “Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy”, Acemoglu and Robinsin (2006) analyze the tendencies of certain countries to democratize, be consolidated in democracy, and others to lean towards non-democratic regimes or revert to an authoritarian rule using several game‐theoretic models, including the theory of democratization, the theory of coups (or democratic consolidation) and the empirical theory of revolutions.

Their basic theory of democratization propounds that elites have de jure political power and, if they are unconstrained, they will generally choose the policies that they most prefer; for example, they may choose low taxes and allow no redistribution to the poor. However, nondemocracy then is sometimes challenged by citizens who may pose a revolutionary threat – when they temporarily have de facto political power. Crucially, such political power is transitory; the citizens have it today and are unlikely to have it tomorrow. Under the Theory of Coups (or Democratic Consolidation), Acemoglu and Robertson argue that many countries, after becoming democratic, can also eventually revert back to a nondemocratic regime as a result of a military coup. This can occur when the military is on the side of the elite and there is sufficient turbulence to allow a military takeover. This has been an especially common pattern in Latin America; for example in Argentina. Under the Empirical theory of Revolutions, the authors analyze the threat of revolution as a constraint on non-democratic politics and compare this notion with Therborn’s (1977) observation that many democratization are formed when nations go through wars. Hence, in the light of these theories and the analyses of their case studies, the authors develop a framework, relevant particularly to modern economics and political economy, that lays out the conditions under which political democracy may emerge from dictatorship and the factors that may result in its reversion.

In his book, “Strong Societies and Weak States”, Migdal proposes a new model and theory to explain state-society relations in the Third World countries while rejecting the claims of many prior theories, such as modernization theory, dependency theory, Marxist theory, world system theory as well as empiricists’ claims. Migdal’s rejection of these theories is based on their teleological and unilinear preoccupation with the effect of the center or the core countries on the social organization and politics in the periphery or Third World societies. Migdal disagrees with empiricists, such as area specialists and historians, on the grounds that they, too, focus their analysis on the politics in the capital city and neglect the significance of the state-society struggles that occur in the remote areas of the country as well as the pressure of forces from outside the society.

In part, Migdal, agrees with the World System Theory. However, he argues that the nature of state-society relations cannot be reduced to be the result of state-centered policies as a result of the capitalism and political forces emanating from the core and influencing the Third World societies. Migdal’s own model and theory propose to understand state-society relations by analyzing both the state and how it influences the society as well as the local society itself, and how its organization shapes the capabilities and character of the politics at the center.

In the development of his model, Migdal stresses on analyzing the distribution of social control among the various state and non-state organizations in the society that form the rules to govern people’s behavior. His theoretical framework aims to understand why Third World states have faced difficulty in forming state organizations that can ensure rules of behavior for the society to follow, hence consolidating state power.

Migdal- Theory

Migdal seeks to answer why some third world countries have developed more successfully than others and does so by using the structuralist approach. When looking at the structure of the state, Migdal hypothesizes that there is a causal relationship between the strength of a state and how social control in exercised in the state.

One main topic Migdal mentions when discussing the strength of a state is what the state’s capabilities are. This describes a state’s ability to penetrate society, regulate social relationships, extract resources, and appropriate resources effectively. States with higher social control have better capabilities and make them stronger states. On the other hand, states with fragmentized social control have weaker capabilities and are weaker states.

Migdal also believes that colonialism plays a factor into how strong a state is. He states that colonialism introduced fragmentized social control when these states became independent. This is because the British favored the strongmen rather than indigenous leaders. However, he also states that colonialism is not a necessary factor for fragmentized social control. Other factors, including mass migration, can play a role as well.

For weaker states that have fragmented social control, they go through the politics of survival and have to balance power with strongmen to maintain peace and stability. Migdal does mention that if weaker states can gain more social control, they can move towards becoming a stronger state. This means increasing social participation, compliance, and legitimization. The redistribution of power can only occur when a state is weakened.

Migdal asks the question: why are some third world states growing tremendously, and other third world states are failing? Overarchingly, this can be translated into: why are some states more successful than others? Rather than siding with the current literature and theoretical explanations, Migdal rejects both modernization theory and dependency theory, focusing rather on a theory that centers around the ability to and the ways in which states practice social control as the central causal mechanism for a successful or a failing state.

Social control is the organizational ability a state has over state and non-state actors, and Migdal examines this in relation to the level of that controls ability to deliver political survival. Having control MUST include being able to control society in both urban areas and rural areas, and also takes into account the role of state resources in capturing, holding, and maintaining state power. This is where his ‘Triangle of Accommodation’ holds perhaps the most significance in the theoretical development because it speaks to the important roles and responsibilities of state, local, and regional actors.

He does this by dividing states into categories of strong and weak states where:

Strong States:

• Strong states have high capacities
• Strong states can exert strong social control itself.
• Strong states have the ability to garner support to maintain power and to allow state resources to function properly.
• Strong states can effectively deal with disruptive forces.
• Strong states exert social control throughout both urban and rural areas.

Weak States:

• Weak states have low capacities
• Weak states cannot exert sufficient social control.
• Weak states do not have the ability to place state-men throughout the rural and urban areas.
• Weak states struggle to maintain balanced control between social power and the regulation of its citizens behavior.

To further his theoretical contribution to this body of literature, Migdal goes a step further and asks if a weak state can become a strong state, allowing the full importance of the politics of survival to come into the picture. A weak state that recognizes loss of control and the inability to control social aspects of their state, use and function of state resources, and behaviors of the citizens allows the opportunity to engage in that politics of survival, and do whatever they can to maintain that full, or a fuller, power, such as preventing independent organizations and engaging in illegal acts to take care of potential or imminent threats to the state and power. The increasing of social are able to be seen by looking at and increasing levels of compliance, participation, and legitimation.

Theories in Svolik:

Dictators face two major problems to consolidate their power in authoritarian regimes. First problem is called Problem of power sharing and it explains relationship between dictator and elites which are necessary part of his regime for its survival. Svolik argue that dictator is always afraid from elites that they can trigger a rebellion against his rule whereas elites are afraid in a dictatorship that dictator would consolidate his power at the expense of his allies thus reducing them to his sub-ordinates. This problem arises from absence of an independent authority that regulates relationship between the two and efficacy of violence to resolve issues in a dictatorship. Third important factor is the presence of incomplete information that forces elites to pre-empt dictator’s action and strive to safeguard their interests in the regime. According to svolik, this issue is solved by access to information and implementation of rules of the game. Rules of the game are principles that dictate relationship between the dictator and his elites while these principles are implemented by institutions that allow both type of stakeholders to interact with each other regularly and exchange information with each other clearly. As a whole, competent and organized institutions allow authoritarian regimes to last longer by outlining roles and rights of dictators and elites, and by safeguarding their relationships.

Second problem that a authoritarian regime faces comes from the fact that minority population is able to rule over majority population and control economic and political resources. This problem is called as problem of authoritarian control. It threatens survival of dictatorships because masses can  stand up against regime and overthrow it anytime they want. This problem causes involvement of military in the set up which uses violence to quell all kinds of opposition against the regime. By protecting authoritarian regime, military demands role in the political and economic life of the state thus making the regime to give up some its powers to the military. The level at which a regime faces threats from its public relates to regime’s willingness to allow the role of military in the affairs of the state. The level to which military uses its powers to control opposition in the regime, allows it to seek more and more control in the state. It leads to emergence of military dictatorships in the world.

According to Svolik, dictators have to protect themselves from both these They take help from military and institutions that enable them to share power with elites and allow them to exert complete control on masses thus strengthening their authoritarian regimes.

Svolik’s The Politics of Authoritarian Rule has a few ideas that serve as the main theories behind all of which appears in the book, the root of the book so to speak. At the onset of the book, Svolik seeks to examine the main problem of what makes authoritarian politics work as they do, how are they different from democracies, and this is a topic Svolik finds severely underexplored. Svolik points out that authoritarian politics works in a much different way, so using standards we have for examining much more well-studied non-authoritarian countries cannot be lazily applied to the examination of authoritarian politics. Also, Svolik finds a lack of empirical complexity and depth in this area of study that cannot explain the differences between authoritarian regimes themselves, a gap he wishes to fill. This book stems from the discussion of the two main conflicts that Svolik sees in authoritarian politics, that of authoritarian control, and that of authoritarian power-sharing. These concepts appear along with others throughout the book as Svolik analyzes how authoritarian politics really work on a more in-depth level. This main problem Svolik sets up is because he identifies the main problem with dictatorships is that they inherently lack any kind of independent authority that can enforce any agreements. This, along with the ever-present threat of violence always on the table, it makes authoritarian politics work much differently than democratic politics. This dismal environment of authoritarian politics makes the game fundamentally different for Svolik, and as such, requiring a deeper level of analysis than current literature had given it. These are thus the central theories underlying everything Svolik discusses in later parts.

To address the overarching question of what drives authoritarians, Svolik theorizes that there are two issues that every regime must resolve to remain in power:

The first is the problem of authoritarian control, in which dictators often employ the classic “carrot and stick”: co-optation and repression (Svolik, 2012, p.10). The issue is actually more complicated, as Svolik theorizes that the more a dictator relies on the oppressive power of the military, the more likely it will be emboldened to intervene and grab power. Thus, the military can get policy concessions and political appointments. For co-optation, Svolik theorizes that “(1) hierarchical assignment of services and benefits, (2) political control over appointments, and (3) selective recruitment and repression are the main features of a successful party in an authoritarian regime (2012, p.11). These benefits become a “sunk investment”, so party members are less likely to defect, cementing authoritarian control (Svolik, 2012, p.12). For a dictator to resolve this problem, the creation of a political party and less military repression lead to the best results.

The second is the problem of authoritarian power-sharing, in which Svolik theorizes attempting to share power between a dictator and the ruling elite often leads to failure, because the dictator will desire to take power from their allies. In this case, an authoritarian goes from being contested (where there is a balance as the allies can make a credible threat of rebellion) to established. Thus, established personalist regimes take root, indicating power sharing has failed. On the other hand, Svolik theorizes that the establishment of a political party or legislature will lead to the survival of the regime. This is because there is transparency between the elite and dictator, the creation of formal rules, and greater monitoring. These lead to greater stability of the regime, as allies are less likely to stage a coup and the dictator will be less inclined to usurp power. Thus, for a dictator to resolve this problem, the best course of action establishing an institution that grants greater stability.

Svolik states that in a dictatorship, there is no independent arbiter that forces dictators and elites to abide by agreements and violence is present in many dictatorships. These two factors are largely responsible for the actions dictators take. Thus, the environment of the dictatorship itself contributes to how and if dictatorships address the two major problems of authoritarianism.