Why did human rights claims have such a limited impact on the authoritarian status quo in the Middle East prior to the Arab Spring—and why are they so often thwarted now? What factors have shaped human rights debates and outcomes in the region? Addressing these questions, Bosmat Yefet offers a comparative analysis, both empirically grounded and theoretically sophisticated, of the forces variously supporting and resisting the full embrace of human rights in Egypt and Jordan since the 1990s.