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Most states consist of more than one nation or ethnic group. In larger polities like the major states of South Asia, the former Soviet Union, Canada, Nigeria, and Malaysia, the problems of managing interethnic rivalries and of ensuring allegiance to the state are critical to the survival of the state. In spite of the passage of centuries and the changes in ideas, experience, and technology, the fundamental problems of regime survival or state survival—the problems of legitimacy and obligation—have not changed. A state, or any polity, is based primarily on the cooperation, consensual or coerced, that it manages to elicit from its members. To the extent that the polity elicits consensual cooperation from the populace, it is legitimate. However, continued legitimacy is determined by the capacity of the regime to create the bases of its continuance. A regime exercises three kinds of power and, accordingly, can employ three different kinds of strategies to maintain itself: destructive, productive, and integrative. In their actual implementation, regimes may or may not intentionally use a particular strategy to achieve a particular end. Destructive strategies such as the use of force, repressive laws, arbitrary justice, and punishments have historically been used by regimes at three times in their histories. The founding of many a polity is a consequence of conquest, usurpation, regicide, or revolution. Destructive strategies also characterize the period of consolidation when a regime needs to enforce its dictates and to suppress dissent or competition. Finally, destructive strategies often characterize the response of a regime to the weakening of its control and the erosion of its legitimacy. Productive strategies facilitate the growth of prosperity and interdependence and involve incentives and rewards. Such strategies typify the period after the consolidation of a state, although that is not necessarily the only time they may be used. Integrative strategies build a...