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We examine why some groups use violence while others use nonviolence when they push for major political change. Nonviolence can be less costly, but nonstate actors must mobilize a large number of people for it to be successful. This is less critical for violent rebellion, as successful attacks can be committed by a small number of people. This means that groups that believe that they have the potential to mobilize larger numbers of people are less likely to use violence. This potential is related to the lines along which the group mobilizes. Campaigns mobilized along ethnic or Marxist lines have fewer potential members and are most likely to use violence. Prodemocracy campaigns have a higher number of potential members and are more likely to use nonviolence. For movements against a foreign occupation, campaigns in larger countries are more likely to use nonviolence. These predictions are supported in a multilevel logit model of campaigns from 1945 to 2006. The mechanism is tested by looking at the interactive effect of democratic changes on the likelihood of nonviolence and looking at a subsample of 72 campaigns that explicitly draw from certain ethnic or religious groups.

This paper examines the divergent reactions of the two most prominent Turkish-Islamic movements to a crisis in the Parliament that centered on an elected Deputy's right to wear the headscarf. After the crisis, the National Outlook movement protested, while the Gülen movement became more conciliatory. Drawing on the Multi-Institutional Politics model, we argue that conflicting views on the nature of domination explain the disparate forms of collective action taken by the two movements. We introduce the concept “strategic nonconfrontation” as a type of nonviolent strategy to help understand the Gülen's movement's actions. We expand the nonviolent civil resistance literature by arguing that strategic nonconfrontation as a form of nonviolent resistance only becomes visible when we move beyond an exclusive focus on state power to understand the ways in which multiple systems of authority and power are constituted in society and perceived by activists. We analyze the discourse in newspapers produced by the movements in order to examine how each movement understood and defined the target of action and how that influenced their subsequent strategies.

Since the 1970s the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI) have gradually expanded their role as external controllers of the public administration. Instead of merely controlling whether accounts are according to standards they have taken on a role as evaluators with a mandate to assess whether the public administration works economically, efficiently and effectively. With this new regime of external control, the question arises whether the SAIs’ control, in practice, contributes to a more efficient and effective public sector. Whether this external control will be effective depends, in the end, on the extent to which the organisations learn from the control they are subjected to and make actual changes. The chapter uses theories of cultural differences and theories on control within public administration to understand civil servant perceptions of SAI results. Data on civil servants’ reactions to the SAIs’ performance audit in four countries are analysed to see whether performance audits have any impact on the audited entities. The research is based on 696 responses to questionnaires sent out to civil servants in three different Nordic countries plus one new democracy in northern Europe, Estonia.

AIRCRAFT construction, like shipbuilding and most other branches of engineering, is to a large extent an experimental science. That is to say, our knowledge is so limited in certain respects that we proceed chiefly by trial and error methods. To experiment full scale with ships or aircraft is both costly and dangerous. It has long been the custom, therefore, to make and test models with a view to ascertaining the probable behaviour of the full‐size machine before it is built. Aircraft engineers in particular have been compelled to rely extensively upon model tests in the wind tunnel for their information as to the aerodynamic forces upon the various parts of aircraft. In the same way the seaplane owes a great deal to the valuable information derived from tank tests of models.

Contemporary wars are continuously striking population centres across the globe with devastating consequences of destruction and annihilation, and leading to mass casualties within civilians. The purpose of this paper is to question the role of architecture and urban tissue in packing up civilians’ resilience and survival practices during urban warfare.

The investigation is based on critical spatial analysis of survival narratives obtained from an empirical study conducted in the city of Nablus in Palestine.

This paper shows that, due to its unique and highly complex socio-spatial entanglement, the kasbah of Nablus represents a paradigm in the (re)creation of community resilience. This paradigm is based on the interaction of three main elements: a multi-layered urban tissue accumulated along 2,000 years of urban evolution; a thick matrix of cultural and social constructs; and the lifting and switching of a lot of social conventions related to space during times of war.

The agency of architecture in supporting civilian survival practices during urban warfare is visited, nevertheless only partially unpacked by a number of prominent studies. This paper provides a deeper level of investigation and understanding of the interplay between the architecture of the city and resilience capacity.

This chapter discusses the use of law and legal institutions by the emerging social movement seeking to end Australia’s policy of mandatory detention for refugees and asylum seekers. Through an examination of Australian inquiries and court cases alongside social campaigns, it considers the ability of legal institutional responses to identify the harms, in particular state and institutional responsibility, and the subsequent impact of these legal processes in inhibiting and promoting social and structural change. It shows how social movements are harnessing law and creating new legal and civic spaces in which to contest Australia’s refugee and asylum seeker regime.

TODAY's high‐grade foams provide airport fire‐fighting crews with the capability to rapidly knockdown and extinguish fires as a result of aircraft crashes or engine failure. Furthermore, the ability of foams to bring fires quickly under control ensures that the damage done to the local environment by harmful fumes is kept to a minimum. Here, Michael Clarke, of 3M Industrial Chemicals Group outlines the development of fire fighting foams and their applications, and discusses the merits of the US Military Specification, contrasting it with the recent International Civil Aviation Organisation's specification.

Non-politicized bureaucracy plays a fundamental role in the survival of states during times of transition and drastic change. Moreover, non-politicized bureaucracy protects state institutions from failing. In fact, state survival bureaucracy (SSB), as an alternative to Deep State, obtains all mechanisms for the sustainability of the state, both its entity and identity. In case of resistance to the elected officials and executives’ abrupt decisions, professionals and experts came up with Deep State to reflect the elements of rejection.

The paper uses both system and function approaches in analyzing the role of bureaucracy in states going through transition. It also draws comparisons from the harsh experiences in the Arab region after Arab revolutions where most of the states collapsed while Tunisia and Egypt survived. The authors will use the available literature in reviewing different arguments regarding the role of bureaucracy in addition to the own observations as scholars who were engaged in the political process in Egypt for sometimes and during the drastic changes since January 25, 2011 and the knowledge about political process in Tunisia and other Arab states.

In the study of the collapse of a number of Arab states and the survival of Tunisia and Egypt, it was found out that it is SSB which holds state together in cases of drastic changes or tangible threats. SSB includes bureaucrats and policy implementing agencies that are committed to both entity and identity of the state. The role of SSB emerges clearly in a state of utmost survival crisis of the state. SSB does inherently obtain self-correcting mechanisms that help states face, experience drastic change and cope with it.

Non-politicized bureaucracy plays a fundamental role in the survival of states during times of transition and drastic change. Moreover, non-politicized bureaucracy protects state institutions from failing. In fact, SSB as an alternative to Deep State, as defined in this paper, obtains all mechanisms for the sustainability of the state, both its entity and identity. The analysis will show how SSB is a constructive mechanism for the survival of the state when its entity and identity as well as well-established national interests are under tangible threats.

The thesis of this commentary is that the institution of war could be abolished through a combination of constructive programmes and obstructive programmes. Good works alone won't end war. To transform dominator, warring cultures into egalitarian and nonwarring ones, constructive programmes are needed to prepare the way, to establish the groundwork for a new lifestyle. But, alone, they will not result in a paradigm shift on earth to a Gene Roddenberry‐style Star Trek future in which there is gender and racial equality, poverty has been eliminated and conflicts are resolved by the rule of law instead of through military force. Paradoxically, unless paired with the force of obstructive programmes, constructive programmes can enable dominator cultures to remain firmly in place. Moreover, to bring about a major social transformation, we will need leaders to unite men and women as full partners in shaping a massive cultural shift to a more egalitarian, just and nonwarring future.Can the people of Earth bring an end to the barbaric practice of war? Or is making war ‐ assembling armed groups that go forth to indiscriminately kill members of other groups ‐ something that evolution built into our biology, an inescapable, inevitable curse that at best can only be managed and mitigated?