The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has published a series of Egypt-related pieces in the past few days.

Looking at Egypt’s judiciary,Nathan J. Brown writes that the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) will likely return “gradually to offering a blend of activist and pliant stances.” Brown also says “the SCC is likely to receive a string of sensitive cases. It should be expected that the court will deal the regime defeats but also some victories. The former will be issued in a way that do not threaten core regime interests—ambitious courts often learn that those who stick out their necks too far are liable to get their heads chopped off.”

Maged Mandour argues that the fallout between Egypt and Saudi Arabia “was caused by Egypt’s inability to act as a guarantor of Gulf security.” He says Egypt is now gravitating towards “other, less demanding allies, most notably Russia.”

“The dynamics of sectarianism are fluid and sometimes contradictory,” Stephanie Lacroix writes describing the curious case of the salafi Nour Party in an in-depth assessment. Lacroix says that, unlike the Ikhwan, for the Nour party “politics is just a means to an end.”