Paul Salem is the president and CEO of the Middle East Institute. He focuses on issues of political change, transition, and conflict as well as the regional and international relations of the Middle East. Salem is the author and editor of a number of books and reports, including Escaping the Conflict Trap: Toward Ending Civil Wars in the Middle East(ed. with Ross Harrison, MEI, 2019); Winning the Battle, Losing the War: Addressing the Conditions that Fuel Armed Non State Actors (ed. with Charles Lister, MEI, 2019); From Chaos to Cooperation: Toward Regional Order in the Middle East (ed. with Ross Harrison, MEI, 2017); Broken Orders: The Causes and Consequences of the Arab Uprisings (in Arabic, 2013); “Thinking Arab Futures: Drivers, scenarios, and strategic choices for the Arab World” (The Cairo Review, Spring 2019); “The Recurring Rise and Fall of Political Islam” (CSIS, 2015); Bitter Legacy: Ideology and Politics in the Arab World (1994), and Conflict Resolution in the Arab World (ed., 1997). Prior to joining MEI, Salem was the founding director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, Lebanon from 2006–13. From 1999 to 2006, he was the director of the Fares Foundation, and in 1989 he founded the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, Lebanon’s leading public policy think tank, serving as the center’s director until 1999.