Jeffrey A. Winters specializes in oligarchy and elites in a range of historical and contemporary cases, including Athens, Rome, medieval Europe, the United States and several major countries in Southeast Asia. His research, publications and teaching focus on the areas of comparative and international political economy. Themes in his work in addition to oligarchy include state-capital relations, capital mobility and the structural power of investors, human rights, authoritarianism and democratic transitions in postcolonial states, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and the World Bank. He has conducted extensive research in the region of Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. He is the author of Power in Motion: Capital Mobility and the Indonesian State. With Jonathan Pincus, he co-edited Reinventing the World Bank. He has also published two other books in Indonesian. Professor Winters has received numerous grants and scholarships, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Grant; a J. William Fulbright Senior Specialist Grant; grants from the National Science Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Sawyer-Mellon Foundation, the Henry R. Luce Foundation, Yale's Center for International Studies and the J. M. Kaplan Fund; and a Rackham Research Grant from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Part I: Preface; Part II. The Material Foundations of Oligarchy: 1. Toward a theory of oligarchy; 2. Power resources; 3. Wealth defense; 4. Oligarchy and the elite detour; 5. Types of oligarchies; Conclusions; Part III. Warring Oligarchies: 6. Chiefs, warlords, and warring oligarchs; 7. Warring oligarchs in medieval Europe; 8. Appalachian feuds; Conclusions; Part IV. Ruling Oligarchies: 9. Mafia commissions; 10. Greco-Roman oligarchies; 11. Athens; 12. Rome; 13. Italian city-states of Venice and Siena; Part V. Sultanistic Oligarchies: 13. Indonesia; 14. Untamed ruling oligarchy in Indonesia; 15. The Philippines; Conclusions; Part VI. Civil Oligarchies: 16. The United States; 17. Singapore; Conclusions; Part VII. Conclusions: 18. Other cases and comparisons; 19. Oligarchy and other debates.