11/12/2018
While wars and terrorist acts grab most of the headlines, homicides claim about three times as many victims globally. Kleinfeld, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and founding CEO of the Truman National Security Project, examines the causes and solutions of murder, focusing particularly on Colombia, Sicily, and the Bihar province of India, as well as Georgia, El Salvador, and Tajikistan. She notes the prevalence of “privilege violence... in which political and economic leaders... consciously enable violent groups to proliferate in order to protect their perks and maintain control” or even engage directly in violence and corruption. In 2015, for example, two-thirds of state legislative candidates in Bihar faced criminal charges, 38% of which were for such serious charges as murder, kidnapping, and extortion. She also analyzes “dirty deals” between governments and guerilla groups and gangs; one economist found that such deals, which often involve allowing powerful perpetrators of crimes to go unpunished, yield, on average, eight years of significant reductions in violence. Kleinfeld devotes the last third of her book to efforts to combat these situations, offering proposals such as training anti-crime leaders, establishing provisions that significantly reduce the assets of entrenched criminal groups, and providing governmental warnings to tourists considering booking hotels owned by those with “blood on their hands.” Kleinfeld does an excellent job of balancing the anecdotal and the analytic in this well-researched, clearly written study. (Nov.)

"A powerful account . . . A timely perspective as right-wing populism takes hold in unexpected places worldwide. With racist and xenophobic behavior gaining legitimacy, violence becomes an ever-greater concern. The prescriptions Kleinfeld proposes for contending with a breakdown in norms—such as greater engagement of the middle class and the importance of political movements—offer valuable insight." —The Washington Post

"A Savage Order urges us to abandon untethered idealism, middle-class apathy, and partisan devotion that blinds us to unorthodox solutions, and to join the ranks of pragmatic reformers working to protect innocent lives around the globe. Encouragingly, we have a good idea of what works." —The Wall Street Journal

"An argument for the ways in which countries can emerge from political polarization, corruption, violence, and chaos . . . Richly researched . . . and easily accessible . . . A solid, convincing argument based on experience, research, travel, and intelligence." —Kirkus Reviews, *starred review*

“This is a brilliant analysis of societies that appear to be intractably violent, but in fact are not—including our own. A Savage Order is original, penetrating, and filled with gripping history and reporting.” —Steven Pinker
 
“A Savage Order gives us a comprehensive survey of countries that have overcome extreme violence and shows how there is a common thread to their recoveries, one that could be of tremendous help to countries currently in the grip of deadly violence. Rachel Kleinfeld’s analysis is both analytically rigorous and accessible, and will be required reading for those players and policymakers who are actually trying to deal with such terrible problems today.” —Francis Fukuyama
 
“A Savage Order is a fascinating, moving, and deeply important study that will be widely read by scholars, activists, policy makers and ordinary citizens who seek a more peaceful and just world.” —Larry Diamond
 
“In this exhaustively researched and deftly reasoned volume, Rachel Kleinfeld shows us why durable solutions to bloodshed lie not with repression or dirty deals, but with an engaged middle class and political leadership framing demands for reform in rigorously nonpartisan ways.”
—Sarah Chayes
 
“Nearly 370 years after Thomas Hobbes wrote Leviathan, we still lack both an understanding of the underpinnings of social order, and practical strategies to achieve it. This book brings together a new theoretical argument with rich case study evidence which provides a roadmap, if not a magic wand, for how social order can be successfully achieved. Breaks new ground wherever it moves.” —James A. Robinson

“Chock-full of surprising statistics, vignettes and the fascinating observations that Rachel Kleinfeld has gathered in two decades studying violence, A Savage Order is an obligatory reference to those interested in understanding and solving one of the defining problems of our time.” —Moisés Naim

★ 2018-09-03

An argument for the ways in which countries can emerge from political polarization, corruption, violence, and chaos.

Kleinfeld, who advised the State Department under Hillary Clinton and now is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and founding CEO of the Truman National Security Project, offers a book that is simultaneously grim and hopeful. Richly researched—there are more than 100 pages of endnotes, 50 of bibliography—the text is both highly organized and easily accessible. She begins with the murder of a Honduran teen and ends with a consideration of ways that failing states can begin the process of moving toward better circumstances. Throughout, the author uses as exemplars a few places that have successfully emerged (places she has visited and researched)—e.g., Colombia and Georgia, the former Soviet republic. Both, writes Kleinfeld, were once in full collapse; both have rescued themselves. She also discusses other places, including the United States (especially the post-Civil War Deep South), to flesh out the body of her argument. Along the way, she introduces us to key terms and concepts, such as "privilege violence" (e.g., whites vs. blacks in the American South) and "dirty deals," arrangements that governments sometimes make with criminal or violent elements to begin to restore order and confidence. The key to recovery, Kleinfeld argues cogently, is the stability, involvement, and solidarity of the middle class. If they remain aloof or disengaged, positive change is not really possible; if they are polarized, hope is more fragile and progress far more difficult. The author also writes about the importance of talented and dedicated politicians—rare birds that are key to the political and social recovery and survival of fractured states—to what she calls "recivilization." If we denigrate and demonize all politicians, we have little hope.

A solid, convincing argument based on experience, research, travel, and intelligence.