Steven A. Cook describes the stakes of the debates raging within Egypt to define what the nation stands for and how it will be run after the Mubarak regime.

Ed Husain, CFR's senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies, discusses the emergence of Islamist political parties in Tunisia.

CFR Senior Fellow Steven Cook assess the insecurity and unrest in Egypt as the country prepares for parliamentary elections in November. Cook, who was in Cairo when the revolt broke out, has recently authored The Struggle for Egypt—a new book providing one of the first historical analyses explaining the reasons behind the uprising.

The sentencing of former Ukraine prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko reflects her rivalry with President Viktor Yanukovych and could affect Ukraine's eurozone bid, says New York Times Moscow bureau chief Ellen Barry.

Steven Radelet's accessible new book argues that much of the credit for Africa's recent economic boom goes to its increasingly open political systems.

Egypt's 2011 revolution marks the latest chapter in Egyptians' longtime struggle for greater democratic freedoms. In this video, Steven A. Cook, CFR's Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies and author of "The Struggle for Egypt", identifies the lessons that Egypt's emerging leadership must learn from the Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak regimes.

Stephen Sestanovich credits Dmitry Medvedev's presidency with changing Russian politics for the better.

Joshua Kurlantzick explores Deng Xiaoping's legacy in his review of Ezra Vogel's Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China and Henry Kissinger's On China.

Joshua Kurlantzick details the ways in which Chinese influence is putting pressure on democracy in Asia.

No state with serious oil wealth has ever transformed into a democracy.

Despite its vows to speed Egypt toward elections, the country's military leadership is actually ambivalent about democracy.

The assassination of Afghan government negotiator Burhanuddin Rabbani signals the challenges in any reconciliation talks with the Taliban and could exacerbate ethnic divisions, pushing the country into a civil war.

As rebels try to strengthen their hold on Tripoli, the odds of a peaceful, democratic transfer of power in Libya are long and the need for ongoing international intervention is very likely, says CFR's Robert Danin.

The recent flare up of hostilities along the Israel-Egypt border signals a hardening of Egypt's stance toward Israel and further difficulties for the sluggish Mideast peace process, says expert David Makovsky.

U.S. calls for Syria's Assad to step down can only be realized if combined with stronger measures to forge a diplomatic coalition and drive a wedge between Assad and his supporters, says CFR's Robert Danin.

The trial of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has sparked a debate in Egypt about retributive justice versus the rule of law, which will be among the many issues to play out in the fall's parliamentary elections, says CFR's Steven A. Cook.

Joshua Kurlantzick says the election victory by the party of Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, puts Thailand's already wobbly democracy at greater risk.

Joel D. Hirst says the Kingdom of Morocco has emerged from the Arab Spring as a model of Arab governance.

Amb. Zalmay Khalilzad, former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations, discusses democracy promotion in the Middle East following the Arab Spring with Mark Lagon, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Human Rights at the Council on Foreign Relations.

In a post at the New Statesman, Matthew Partridge asserts that income inequality and institutional elite favoritism played a central role in inciting the protests of the Arab Spring.