The overarching question imparting urgency to this exploration is: Can U.S.-Russian contention in cyberspace cause the two nuclear superpowers to stumble into war? In considering this question we were constantly reminded of recent comments by a prominent U.S. arms control expert: At least as dangerous as the risk of an actual cyberattack, he observed, is cyber operations’ “blurring of the line between peace and war.” Or, as Nye wrote, “in the cyber realm, the difference between a weapon and a non-weapon may come down to a single line of code, or simply the intent of a computer program’s user.”
The study shows the roots of elite cooperation and the impact on transition outcomes during the transition attempts in the MENA. It argues that past coalition building experience among opposition actors produce an organizational capital, trust and a shared vision that help elites to credibly signal each other to commit to cooperation in times of transitions. The study provides evidence for the arguments from fieldwork on the cases of Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia and experiments from two original surveys in Tunisia and Algeria.
