Chapter: Unveiling the ‘Shadow World’ – Civil Society Engagement and Public Control of the Defense Sector

The defence sector can seem like a ‘shadow world’, obscured from public view through state secrecy and technical complexity. Public control over defence is not only a democratic necessity, however, but is also in the interest of defence organisations to ensure efficiency, effectiveness and trust. In this chapter from Transparency International Mexico’s newly published report “A New Generation of Public Control”, Tehmina Abbas and Leah Wawro argue that civil society has a key role to play in demanding integrity and ensuring that defence and security establishments are accountable to their citizens, and that they can do this not only through external monitoring and activism, but also by engaging with defence and security forces to catalyse reform.