Carnegie's Marina Ottaway and Michele Dunne presented the findings of their recent Carnegie Paper on December 18. J. Scott Carpenter from The Washington Institute participated in the panel as a discussant and Carnegie's Thomas Carothers moderated the event. The discussion focused on identifying the challenges facing elite-driven reform in the Arab world.

Islamist movements have become major political actors in the Middle East. Nathan Brown, Amr Hamzawy and Marina Ottaway discussed their new study, Islamist Movements and the Democratic Process in the Arab World: Exploring the Gray Zones, which examines the “gray zones”—areas of ambiguity—in their rhetoric and thought.