Order Out of Chaos

David Siddhartha Patel is Senior Fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. Follow him on X @davidspatel.

• 1. Order, Authority, and Identity2. The Sanctions-Era Roots of Postinvasion Developments3. Collapse4. The Emergence of Local Orders5. The Geography of Order6. Ayatollahs' Networks and National Authority7. The Limits of Sunni Religious Authority8. Beyond Basra and Beyond Sermons

In this examination of social and political organization in Basra in the wake of the 2003 U.S. invasion and the subsequent collapse of the Iraqi government, Patel provides a subtle, persuasive answer in documenting the rise of Shiite political leaders and movements in the city.(Foreign Affairs) Whereas the dismantling of the Ba'athist state clearly led to social disorder, Basra in 2003 hardly resembled a Hobbesian state of nature; that is, an institution-free zone. To what extent could they fill in for the absent state? And if they could, which ones would be most effective in producing social order? These are the principal questions that the book seeks to answer. Patel finds that these preexisting institutions could only provide a modicum of social order.(Perspectives on Politics) This is an extremely well-written interdisciplinary book with much to offer to those interested not just in Iraq, the Muslim world, sectarianism, or the Middle East, but also in the potential and limits of religious authority and its relationship to collective political action and identity.(Sociology of Religion) Patel's work succeeds in being a novel contribution to the extensive work on how occupation forces were unable to prevent the breakdown of order, along with how the tenure of the Coalition Provisional Authority presided over Iraq's descent into chaos. Scholars of Iraq across the disciplines will be particularly interested in reading. Despite the ground to cover between social order at the neighborhood level and political authority at the national level, Patel has succeeded in writing a highly readable and relatively concise book on the subject.(Journal of Church and State)