Chapter 2 provides a detailed account of the book’s theoretical arguments. It first expands on why blame is important for dictators, explaining how even the most powerful autocrats must be worried about a revolutionary uprising if enough citizens come to the conclusion that they are personally responsible for the country’s problems. Next, it outlines a theoretical framework of power sharing and blame in authoritarian regimes, defining the actors, their interests, and strategic interactions around blame and delegation of decision-making responsibilities. As autocrats become more concerned about threats from the public, they should be more incentivized to share power to shift blame, but they must also take into account the risks of delegating to elites who may try to challenge them from within the regime. The chapter then explains why monarchs are advantaged in using delegation to avoid blame, arguing that monarchs can share power more safely with other elites and that such delegation is more likely to align with the public’s expectations about how responsibility should be attributed for governance. The chapter concludes by outlining the key implications that will be tested in the subsequent empirical chapters.

The chapter explores Hamas’s strategic analysis and study of Israel and the IDF. As part of its intelligence warfare, Hamas strove to increase its knowledge of the enemy. This chapter describes Hamas’s accumulation of intelligence about Israeli weaponry, IDF units, Israeli battlefield tactics, operational training, and so on. The organization particularly sought information about the capabilities of Israeli armored vehicles in order to inform its use of anti-tank weaponry. The chapter also illustrates how Hamas disseminated this knowledge in its ranks. This chapter goes on to analyze Hamas’s operational preparations for war after Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Further, it examines Hamas’s ongoing assessment of the possibility and characteristics of a large-scale Israeli attack, and in particular the analysis of the Israeli political and social situation used by Hamas in order to form such an assessment. In this manner, the chapter discusses the influence of Hamas’s “enemy image” of Israel – an image based on the organization’s Palestinian Islamic ideology as well as its interpretation of events and social processes in Israel – on the organization’s assessment of its enemy. The chapter also sheds light on the organization’s difficulties in strategic analysis of Israel.

Chapter 4 begins the detailed case study of Jordan. It first provides important background information on the country and reviews academic literature explaining the monarchy’s durability over the past century. It then draws on my elite interviews and other country-specific sources to explain how Jordan’s policymaking process functions. The chapter shows that the Jordanian king does grant meaningful decision-making influence to political elites in the cabinet and parliament, even though this delegation can result in policies that do not reflect the monarch’s preferences and can increase potential elite threats against the monarchy. The chapter also provides evidence that this delegation is intentionally used by the monarchs as a blame avoidance strategy. Interviews with senior decision-makers, including former chiefs of the royal court and prime ministers, reveal that the monarchy is aware that its reputation is likely to suffer if the king governs more directly and attracts more blame for the public’s grievances. This awareness is also reflected in how the Jordanian educational system teaches students about the decision-making process, and in the monarch’s willingness to share power more credibly for economic and social issues rather than foreign policy and security issues.

Amongst the thousands of papyrus and paper documents from medieval Egypt written in Greek, Coptic and Arabic there are a large number of letters of requests and petition letters. This chapter examines how the senders of these letters used the argument of being alone and helpless to persuade the letter’s recipient to undertake some action to help the petitioners. By presenting the petitioner as someone without friends, family or anyone else to help them, a relationship is created with the petitioned who can help based on the social and moral expectations that prevailed in early Islamic Egyptian society.

Chapter 9 looks comparatively within monarchies to assess whether the theory contributes to understanding why some monarchies survived and others were overthrown in the past two centuries. It begins by analyzing two datasets of ruling monarchies from the 1800s to the 1900s, showing that monarchies that shared more power with parliaments were less likely to fall to revolutions. It then uses case studies of the Iranian and Nepali monarchies to illustrate how centralizing monarchs made themselves vulnerable to blame and attracted mass opposition, ultimately leading to their downfalls. The chapter suggests that the theory has implications for understanding historical transitions from monarchy, and it underscores that kings who forego their delegation advantage and monopolize power are also vulnerable to being blamed and facing mass opposition when they govern poorly.

After addressing Hamas’s intelligence collection in previous chapters, this chapter focusses on Hamas’s efforts to counter Israeli intelligence efforts against it. To overcome Israel’s attempts to infiltrate its ranks, Hamas went to great lengths to screen those wishing to join it, while diligently acting to detect collaborators with Israel, both within its ranks and in the broader society in which they operate, while applying internal compartmentalization to the organization. To counter Israel’s SIGINT activity, Hamas tried to avoid the use of wireless communications, and also made use of encryption, both in telephone communication and in correspondence; over time, Hamas developed an internal communication system that is separate from the public system. To defeat Israel’s GEOINT efforts, Hamas tried to conceal its activities to the greatest extent possible. This included a range of strategies, including camouflage, the assimilation of military installations in civilian surroundings, and the use of subterranean spaces. Regarding open-source media publications, Hamas developed the awareness of the need to impose censorship to hide certain characteristic signs of its activity.

The chapter deals with Hamas’s human intelligence (HUMINT) activity. Hamas, of course, makes use of the most traditional method of intelligence gathering – information from human sources. This chapter details how Hamas first recruited local sources for short periods and specific missions. Gradually, sources were recruited who could operate outside of Israel; these sources were sent on longer-term and more advanced missions. Hamas also used the internet, i.e., social media and email, to contact and handle potential sources. This chapter also describes how Hamas turned collaborators with Israel into double agents and ran operations using these agents.

This chapter describes how Hamas operatives set up tactical observation posts during the First Intifada, the years after the Oslo Accord, and the Second Intifada, and explores the systematization of this activity after Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Eventually, Hamas established the murabitun, a border patrol force that staffs observation posts and serves as the first responder to any Israeli incursion, and instituted an observation section of the ʿIzz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. The members of the latter section used more advanced equipment than had previously been deployed and documented their findings for in-depth analysis. This chapter also describes Hamas’s efforts to develop and operate unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for observation missions.

Chapter 10 concludes the book. After summarizing the main arguments and findings, the chapter reflects on the book’s implications for understanding the relationship between popular politics, elites, and institutions in authoritarian regimes. In doing so, the chapter also considers how the theory might apply to other types of authoritarian rule, focusing on its application to military regimes in particular. The chapter concludes by discussing how the theory can contribute to understanding democratic transitions, and by reflecting on the similarities and differences between authoritarian and democratic political systems.

Chapter 3 provides evidence from cross-national statistical analysis as well as two case studies that are consistent with the major implications of the theory. First, it draws on internet search data, survey data, and short case studies of Russia and Morocco to demonstrate that power-sharing arrangements affect how the public attributes blame under autocracy. The case studies also suggest that autocrats delegate strategically in response to shifting threats to their rule. Second, the chapter uses cross-national data from Varieties of Democracy to test my expectations about how strategic interactions around delegation and blame influence broader governance outcomes in autocracy. The analysis indicates that autocrats who share power more are less vulnerable to popular discontent, which is consistent with their ability to shift blame more effectively. The analysis also shows that autocrats who share power more are less likely to use repression and more likely to provide a measure of accountability by sacking ministers when the public becomes dissatisfied. These findings indicate that the book’s arguments provide insights into a range of modern authoritarian regimes around the world.

The chapter sheds light on Hamas’s signal intelligence (SIGINT) and cyber warfare. It describes how, in the first decade of the 2000s, Hamas gained SIGINT capabilities that made it possible for Hamas to intercept the camera broadcasts of IDF UAVs, as well as the IDF’s visible tactical communication traffic. In the 2010s, Hamas began to invest in cyber warfare. This chapter also surveys Hamas’s successful use of various hacking methods to penetrate the smartphones of IDF soldiers and officers, extracting information and installing spyware and using social engineering techniques; descriptions of several real-life cases are included for illustration.

How the Fatimids, locally considered foreign easterners and heretical Shiʿa, negotiated sufficient acceptance in the Maghrib to withstand fierce opposition from Maliki Sunnis and Ibadi Kharijis, raises key issues concerning the formation of Islamic empires. Despite a plethora of enemies among the population, their rule endured and even prospered. What we know has grown substantially with new sources about the interaction of Ismaili authorities with the local ʿulamāʾ and the inner dynamics of their daʿwa and its allocation of restricted knowledge to members. Conversion of sections of the local elite and the demotion or expulsion of hostile elements helped. An internal document preserved by the daʿwa explains how its adherents were expected to prove their loyalty and the reward for doing so. The Ismailis existed both as one component in the new society and yet also remained apart as a community of Believers within the broader society of Muslims.