Slater’s “Ordering

Power”

Final Chapter:

The Consequences
of Contention
Theoretical Debate
• “a powerful bourgeoisie was a necessary condition for democracy because
of its role in breaking the social hegemony of reactionary landed elites.”
• “mass mobilization is a major, often essential, stimulant to authoritarian
collapse.”
• “class-rationalist perspective exhibits major analytic problems as a lens for
understanding democratic mobilization, both logically and empirically.”
• “If shared elite foreboding of renewed mass mobilization is "the most
important bond of cohesion" for authoritarian Leviathans, regime
durability should vary with the perceived severity of such threats.”
• Party and state institutions shape the stability/durability of regimes.
Clarifying the Argument
• The variables qualify rather than quantify.

• Method of qualification through classification.

• Data through narratives of cases.

• Indicators rather than measures as units of variation.

Dissecting the Argument
• Independent Variable = contention
• Indicators = what kind of contentious political activity, not strength.
•
• Dependent Variable = durability of leviathan
• Indicators = three counterrevolutionary pathways

• Intervening Variable = Attitudinal and Institutional Mechanisms

(determinants)
Exploring the Argument
• Concluding the argument (recently clarified)

• Thinking of other post-colonies

• South Africa – apartheid and Black Labor Militancy
• Botswana - BPP v BDP

• Thinking of Leviathans
• A leviathan can exist without being authoritarian
• There are three different kinds of leviathans, 2 of them are subalterns, the third
are in a way contrary to the two.