This book explores the secret police organizations of East Asian dictators: their origins, operations, and effects on ordinary citizens' lives.

Sheena Chestnut Greitens is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri. She is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for East Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution and an associate in research at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, Massachusetts. Her doctoral dissertation, on which this book is based, won APSA's Walter Dean Burnham Award for the best dissertation in politics and history, as well as Harvard's Richard J. Herrnstein Prize. Greitens' research focuses on East Asia, security studies, and the politics of authoritarian states. Her work has been published widely in the United States and Asia in academic, policy, and media outlets.

Part I. The Puzzle and the Argument: 1. Introduction; 2. A theory of coercive institutions and state violence; Part II. The Origins of Coercive Institutions: 3. Organizing coercion in Taiwan; 4. Organizing coercion in the Philippines; 5. Organizing coercion in South Korea; Part III. Coercive Institutions and State Violence: 6. Coercive institutions and repression in Taiwan; 7. Coercive institutions and repression in the Philippines; 8. Coercive institutions and repression in South Korea; Part IV. Extensions and Conclusions: 9. Extending the argument: coercion outside East Asia; 10. Conclusion; Appendix. A note on sources.