Focused on the 2010-2011 Arab Uprisings, this book examines the role of the military in Tunisia and Libya, arguing that both armies contributed decisively to the outcome and form of the respective uprisings.

This work explains elite behaviour in authoritarian systems and proposes why elites withdraw their support for the incumbent when faced with popular uprisings. The book argues that the elite supporting autocrats come from three distinct cadres: the military, the single-party and the personalist.

Developing the traditional civil-military relations approach to include security actors, the book compares the style of civil-security relations in both Egypt and Turkey.