Research Library

Fellow Joe Barnes looks back, and ahead, at the impact of President Obama's foreign policies.

Although the energy challenge is significant and requires a long-term view to be successfully addressed, long-term goals can be sustainably achieved through fundamental research and development.

Mexico Center director Tony Payan outlines overarching principles and specific policy proposals that, with the necessary political will, can productively address complex immigration issues.

Mexico’s energy reforms created a still-developing reality whereby interactions among the players require new rules, new dispute settlement procedures, and far-reaching legal expertise. Importantly, the reforms also redefined the country's prevailing culture and legal norms. This prologue serves as a guide for readers of the series of papers that follow on the impact of energy reforms on Mexico's rule of law.

The Trump administration should push for formal congressional authorization of both the ongoing operations against ISIS and any significant increase in U.S. military action in Syria, writes fellow Joe Barnes.

There is broad consensus in the medical and scientific community that substance abuse should be treated as a medical and public health problem, not a crime. The authors recommend a sensible pivot from failed policies of drug prohibition toward a realistic approach to drug use.

The incoming president will have to rebuild ties of trust with ruling elites in the Persian Gulf states shaken by U.S. policy toward the Arab uprisings in 2011, the civil war in Syria, and the nuclear negotiations with Iran, writes fellow Kristian Coates Ulrichsen.

A multi-pronged policy that engages both secular and nonviolent Islamist parties may produce a foreign policy agenda that more successfully advances short- and long-term U.S. objectives in the Middle East, writes research scholar A.Kadir Yildirim.

Despite many differences, the United States and Saudi Arabia maintain important mutual interests. Fellow Jim Krane explains why rebuilding ties with Saudi Arabia could incentivize the kingdom to place more importance on U.S. goals.

President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia promised that if his administration negotiated peace with the guerrilla group FARC, he would bring the agreement to the people for ratification. But his request for a plebiscite (a type of referendum) quickly turned into a clash between Santos and former President Alvaro Uribe, whose Centro Democrático party is leading a campaign against the agreement. Read more at the Houston Chronicle Blog: http://bit.ly/2cTT8zB