Joshua Stacher

Reading _Adaptable Autocrats_ made for two very different experiences at the same time.

On the positive side, I find Stacher's core argument to be both plausible and indeed convincing. As Hugh Roberts writes (in the LRB: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n17/hugh-roberts/the-revolution-that-wasnt), "Stacher persuasively argues that the oligarchical rather than autocratic configuration in Syria has meant both that the regime has found it difficult to agree on a reformist course and that its various elements were bound to stick with Bashar against all comers, and so Western expectations that it would unravel under pressure were misplaced."

Stacher's model also stipulates that a more centralized regime, as in Egypt, can both more easily change to a new leader, but can less easily be substantially altered. Thus, as he says, "the centralized power that entered the crisis largely emerged from it."

Stacher's Egypt vs Syria contrast is well summarized in his own sentence: "In terms of how authority operates, Egypt is more autocratic while Syria is more oligarchic."

So the argument of the book I found convincing, but the style of the book is another matter. I found it to be so poorly edited that as I went on I became more and more depressed about the state of academic publishing.

The book is riddled with spelling and grammar errors, awkward metaphors, and generally infelicitous turns of phrase.

So many examples.

Page 87: "Rather than argue that this is purely a matter of consolidation"—yes Mr. Stacher? what will you argue instead?—he continues after the comma: "this dynamic originates in the institutional differences between the Egyptian and Syrian presidential systems." Either we are missing the true subject of this sentence—or we are to understand that the dynamic at work in these countries is capable of offering an argument?

Page 100: "The NDP needed restructured."

Page 105: Ahmad Nazif apparerently accompanied Gamal Mubarak on "public relations' trips."

Page 121: "There was no location as active in non-elite co-optation than the party's Policies Secretariat." As active than?

Page 129: "...interactions... does not..."

Page 136: The organization SYEA (Syrian Young Entrepreneurs Association) is referenced properly at the beginning of a paragraph and then as "SEYA" two sentences later.

Page 154: "bare this out"

Page 155: "in the long-term"

Page 161: "no real good options"

Page 162: Spurious comma: "It is the structure of these political systems, which conditions their ability to change." Later on the same page: "neither is likely do so."

Page 163: "Unlike he suggests though"

Page 164: If you're going to split an infinitive, best go all in and split "to split"—"to drastically split."

Page 165: "In the lead up"

Page 169: "It remains to be seen if the transfer the centralized authority..."

Page 171: "While the situation would unlikely resemble Mubarak's Egypt..."

Page 172: "all for not"

Page 173: "While in the short-term"

These are just the copy-editing errors that I spotted. I will not trouble you with instances of poor phrasing and diction, because that list is even longer.

Did anyone actually edit this book, or was it considered such a hot topic that it had to be rushed to press at all costs? Did anyone question the author's awkward, spurious, and empty repetition of certain key phrases? Is Stanford University Press really ok with having their name on this kind of sloppy mess? These are the questions that occurred to me as I read this book. Somehow the fact that the core argument here seems solid makes the distractingly poorly edited state of the text that much worse.… (más)