Ordering the global Indian Ocean: the enduring condition of thin hegemony / Harry Verhoeven -- A history of distributed sovereignty: trade, migration and rule in the global Indian Ocean / Thomas Blom Hansen -- Liberal order's illiberal prodigy: Singapore as a non-liberal electoral democratic state / Chua Beng Huat -- Hybrid clientelism as democracy in the global Indian Ocean / Shandana Khan Mohmand -- The Arabian oil state: infrastructural power and social segmentation / Steffen Hertog -- Women as objects of development: neoliberalism in Bangladesh / Lamia Karim -- Divide and rule: partition and illiberal state-building in the Horn of Africa Mike Woldemariam -- Intervention and order in failed states / Will Reno -- China in the Indian Ocean: the search for a new hegemon? / Rana Mitter -- Conclusion: The Indian Ocean and global patterns of order and disorder / Anatol Lieven