As the Syrian revolution enters its third year, the risks to regional stability are escalating. Violence has spilled over all of Syria's borders and into the country from across the region. This paper addresses the implications of the regionalisation of Syria’s conflict and the challenges it presents to the stability of the post-Ottoman state order in the Levant.
Two years after the Egyptian revolution, the Muslim Brotherhood’s legitimacy crisis sets the floor for non-Islamist political forces to fill the emerging vacuum.
In Egypt’s fragile transition, the highly-politicised issue of foreign funding is easily used by political actors to try to influence public debate and advance their respective agendas.
The domestic political and regional security implications of the Arab revolts will force the US and the EU better to equip themselves to deal with a very diverse geopolitics in the new Middle East.
The Arab spring is both a challenge and an opportunity for the EU and the US. While neither can expect to determine political outcomes in the region, both can realistically aim to facilitate change and avoid rendering democratisation more difficult.
For decades, the Muslim Brotherhood focused on identity as a means to maintain organisational unity to the detriment of policy questions. Will the group’s responses to the challenges of power suffice to maintain the Brotherhood's integrity and success in post-revolution Egypt?