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p.107 "Changing patron-clietn relations instead of fixed bureaucratic hierarchies were dominent" in early historic SEA. personal achievements in distributuion of wealth were the basis of power. "when a leader had spent his wealth, his power was over and a new leader would rise and start the process all over again" "early southeast Asian political leadership, although commonly referred to as kingship, has also resemblances with anthropological descriptions of petty chieftainship, or even the `Big-Man.' 108. notes problem in that both local and supra-regional leaders had access to the Indian conceptual system for legitamization. Geaneologies were fictionalized. p.109 kingship was initially based on personal achievments. p.110 power based on control of manpower - ultimately based on personal skills, warfare, building, protection in exchange for agricultural surpluses. p.111 "Formally early Southeast Asian states had centralised redistributions systems, but these hardly functioned properly, because the larger part of the superplus remined on the the place of production and was consumed by regional and local leaders. One of the m,ost important souces of income for a Southeast Asian supra-regional leader, apart from trade, was booty obtained from warfare". p.112 people obtained power from religious donations - which would account for their careful registration. income could come from warfare, donations from functionaries and trade. Leaders successful in establishing trade monopolies were able to sustain leadership. p.113 an example of lack of continuity : "Angkor, a polity that held power in Cambodia from the ninth till the fourteenth century AD had more than six different capitlas, four usurptions, and eleven other non-lineal successions (out of 27)." due to the lack of strict succession rules, sons could compete among each other for succession "Bureaucratic apparatuses for the larger part were Indianized fiction
a ruler was dependent on patron-client relations". "When his legitimacy was high... the ruler had enough authority to attach the other political leaders to him and force them to make religious donations in his name. However, when the legitimacy of the ruler was low, he had to invest in his legitimacy and make donations - to religious as well as to political leaders - himself." In this case - he is vulnerable to usurptions.
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