Dictators' Endgames examines the political role of the military in “dictators' endgames”: large-scale nonviolent mass protests in autocracies that demand the regime leader's removal from office. It addresses the question why some militaries defend an embattled autocrat by violently cracking down on the protestors, whereas others side with the opposition or decide to stage a coup d'état. The book introduces a systematic definition and operationalization of the “dictator's endgame” as a situation of non-violent mass mobilization, in which the dictator's political survival depends on the loyalty of the military leaders. The theoretical argument proposed in this book focuses on the strategic calculations of military leaders and offers a systematic explanation why the armed forces opt for repression of the demonstrators, shift their loyalty from the dictator to the opposition, or remove the autocrat in a coup during the mass protests. The theory's predictions are empirically tested in a multi-method research design that combines statistical analyses and case studies, drawing on the original Dictator's Endgame Dataset of all 40 endgames that took place between 1946 and 2014. The study identifies the conditions and processes through which militaries determine the outcome of dictators' endgames, and thus affect the survival and future political development of authoritarian regimes.

Bringing together leading scholars from across the world, this comprehensive Research Handbook analyses key problems, subjects, regions, and countries in civil-military relations. Showcasing cutting-edge research developments, it illustrates the deeply complex nature of the field and analyses important topics in need of renewed consideration.

The Mediterranean space, defined by a major sea, a large number of littoral countries and to some extent their hinterlands, is at the same time an interface between Europe, Africa and Asia. This brings complex challenges in terms of achieving peace and stability. Recently it has received intense international attention through the internal destructiveness and spill-over from conflicts, primarily those waged in Libya, Syria and, more remotely, Iraq. This Handbook provides an overview of the political processes that shape the Mediterranean region in the contemporary context. It explores the issues of crucial importance to Mediterranean dynamics through a series of analytical sections that guide the reader towards a comprehensive understanding of the main regional interactions and trends. The Handbook explores: the complex historical formation of the contemporary Mediterranean geopolitical perspectives issues around peace and conflict the political economy of the region the role of non-state actors and social movements societal and cultural trends. The wide range of contributions from many of the leading academic experts on the region offers not only insights into the debates and processes that structure each theme, but also key pointers for a more general understanding of how distinct political, economic, social and cultural dynamics interact across the region. It will therefore be a key resource for policy-makers and students and scholars of Mediterranean politics and international relations.

The 2011 Arab Spring is the story of what happens when autocrats prepare their militaries to thwart coups but unexpectedly face massive popular uprisings instead. When demonstrators took to the streets in 2011, some militaries remained loyal to the autocratic regimes, some defected, whilst others splintered. The widespread consequences of this military agency ranged from facilitating transition to democracy, to reconfiguring authoritarianism, or triggering civil war. This study aims to explain the military politics of 2011. Building on interviews with Arab officers, extensive fieldwork and archival research, as well as hundreds of memoirs published by Arab officers, Hicham Bou Nassif shows how divergent combinations of coup-proofing tactics accounted for different patterns of military behaviour in 2011, both in Egypt and Syria, and across Tunisia, and Libya.

Explains how dictatorships rise, survive, and fall, along with why some but not all dictators wield vast powers.

The recent American invasion of Iraq represents the endgame of America's decades-old effort to impose its vision of globalization-a system dominated by multinational firms and buttressed by the liberalism of John Locke and Adam Smith. Whereas the war surely ended Saddam Hussein's regime, the storm of countervailing forces it unleashed points to another end: that of America's latest global project. This is not the first time that the US has tried to reshape the world in its own liberal image, but the third. The first effort stretched from the late nineteenth century to 1920, ending when America rejected entry into the League of Nations. The FDR administration engineered the second attempt in the 1940s, but it withered in the Cold War. The third moment-the era of globalization-began in the late 1960s, when the US transformed the Bretton Woods financial institutions and used its own economic power to enforce a worldwide neoliberal orthodoxy tied to an ideal of liberal democracy. But the effort is failing for the same reasons the preceding attempts failed. As Neil Smith shows, the Lockean liberalism that animates American globalism has always been undercut by a crippling nationalism that exposes the contradictions built into the ideal. In each instance, a hard-edged nationalism-evident in the rejection of the League of Nations, in the policies of the Cold War, and in the current Iraq war-always surfaces and drives US actions despite America's self-perception as a champion of benign universal values. Moreover, it always generates opposition. Attuned to history, political economy, and geography, The Endgame of Globalization is a sweeping and powerful account of America's century-long quest for global dominance and the nationalism within that invariably unravels the dream.

This collection of essays the first volume in the Dialogue series brings together new and experienced scholars to present innovative critical approaches to Samuel Beckett s play Endgame. These essays broach a broad range of topics, many of which are inherently controversial and have generated significant levels of debate in the past. Critical readings of the play in relation to music, metaphysics, intertextuality, and time are counterpointed by essays that consider the nature of performance, the history of the theater and the music hall, Beckett s attitudes to directing his play, and his responses to other directors. This collection will be of special interest to Beckett scholars, to students of literature and drama, and to drama theorists and practitioners.