Cairo, Egypt on Feb. 3. (Al Jazeera)

The revolution in Egypt has upended one of the most historically bedrock regimes in the Middle East.

Inspired by the revolution in Tunisia, Egyptians were emboldened to wrestle control of their country in a most drastic fashion.

Stemming from different specific issues, these two revolutions shared many underlying factors and root causes like corruption, repression, weak economies and highly unequal distributions of wealth. How the revolutions will translate to real political change is far from certain in these countries.

The question on everyone’s mind, however, is; how will these revolutions spread to the rest of the region, where many regimes are autocratic and share a good amount of these structural deficiencies? The futures of two countries in particular, Yemen and Jordan, are particularly questionable. To answer this question, it is instructive to determine what sort of problems these nations share with Egypt and Tunisia, and which ones they do not.

The root causes of the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia were remarkably similar. There is little doubt that recent spikes in commodity prices and the inability of regimes to provide them for their citizens was a major factor in triggering the massive demonstrations, however the reform of underlying factors were much more fundamental to the protestor’s demands. In Tunisia and Egypt there was massive unemployment, especially among young men.

In Egypt, 50 percent of the population lives at or below the poverty line. Egregious numbers such as these exist at the same time that a small minority of citizens in each country have been reaping the benefits of its economy. In both cases, these citizens were men close to the presidential families and part of restrictive old-boy networks.

In addition to rampant economic corruption and wealth inequality, there also existed significant political corruption under the two regimes. The New York Times reports a woman named Noha al-Ustaz on the streets of Cairo asserting “I’m fighting for my freedom, for my right to express myself. For an end to oppression. For an end to injustice.” In many cases, people were forced into oppression and humiliation.

The scope of injustice was rampant. Repression, fixed elections, torture, and increasing fear of the police, as opposed to viewing them as a protective force, was a fact of life for the two nations. Professor Laurie Brand of the University of Southern California, past president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, said that in Egypt, “There have been some high-profile cases recently of people who have been beaten to death by the police, and the police claimed that these are terrorists, or that they died of a heart attack, when in fact it’s clear that the person was tortured or beaten to death.”

Adding to this repression declining social services, the increased feeling that the government was not meeting the needs of its citizens, and spurred by a declining world economy which shook these nations to the core, and you end up with the situation that we have today.

The so-called “contagion effect,” which describes how protests in one area can influence the people in another, has triggered revolts around the Arab world. Bolstered by Al-Jazeera’s extensive coverage of the ground situation in Tunisia and Egypt and the use of social networking websites around the Arab world, protestors in Jordan, Yemen, Syria and the Sudan have also become emboldened to address their political issues.

The contagion effect is a noticeable phenomenon, and the protestors’ use of social networking is fascinating, but it is important to recognize that the effect did not arrive out of thin air; previous structural deficiencies were a necessary precursor to all of the current and potential Middle East protests.

When asked which post-Egyptian protest carries the most risks for its respective government, Professor Brand said, “The biggest unknown at this point is Yemen.” Yemen shares the factors of political repression and intimidation, as well as economic downturn, with Tunisia and Egypt. It shares an additional particularly telling statistic; the length of the regimes’ leaders have all lasted over 20 years. Egypt's Mubarak has been in power for almost 30 years, Tunisia's Ben Ali for 23, and Yemen's Saleh for 32. This “staleness” of leadership may have brought stagnation, cronyism, and a general disregard for the people; all complaints lodged against these nations and their presidents in particular. In addition, Yemen has serious socio-economic problems which extend beyond those in Egypt or Tunisia.

Forty-five percent of Yemen lives beneath the poverty line and 25 percent of the nation’s revenue relies on declining oil production; there have been no viable attempts to improve or diversify the economy, and the nation has the highest illiteracy in the Muslim world. There is a significant water shortage as well, as well as a highly fractured society (as opposed to the relatively homogeneous Tunisia and Egypt).

All of this has led to high instability in the current regime. With Saleh’s announcement Wednesday that neither he nor his son would run for reelection in 2013, the regime hopes to stop the protestors, who promised a “Day of Rage” on Friday, but there are no indications that this was enough to quell the unrest. Given the differences in this country than the others, any sort of revolution here would take a decidedly different form than the previous protests. Because it is so fractured, there is a possibility that the protests would fall upon ethnic or religious lines, leading to a much more divided society than what is likely in Egypt, says Brand.

There also is the problem in Yemen of Islamic terrorists in the North of the country, in an area where the government has little reach. Given these facts, it is possible that the United States may have a somewhat altered agenda in Yemen than they do in other nations. All in all, the contagion effect has reached Yemen, but because of some different structural reasons any revolution there would look different than the ones which we have seen.

In Jordan we may see extensive protests, though probably not to the same extent as Egypt or Tunisia. Complaints hold much in common with the protests in Egypt and Tunisia, especially rising commodity prices and political missteps. Rising prices have come from a gradual reduction in goods subsidies from the government; resources which have become yet more strained because of the economic downturn.

Jordanian protests are largely centered around the government and not the King, who holds equivalent power to Ben Ali and Mubarak. Therefore, there will probably be less structural change here than in other places where a power vacuum has arisen with the toppling of a leader. The most drastic calls right now come from Islamists' desire to see more of a constitutional monarchy, and this call is not even in the mainstream, as Professor Brand argues.

King Abdullah has already replaced the Prime Minister and appointed another, but this new one does not represent anything substantially new and will likely lead to more protest. There may be more protests of the new choice, but nothing resembling the universal desire to oust the leader of the country. Therefore, although contagion has encouraged Jordanians to rebel against the state over their prime minister, their fragmented society, which includes many Palestinians and a wide array of ethnic groups, is not likely to demand structural, universal change.

Other countries in the region, notably Syria, have faced the prospect of revolt but have largely quieted a major crisis, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Despite many economic inadequacies, the work of the Syrian government to control the crisis has been adequate and firm. The government stopped significant action with a mixture of carrots and sticks.

The threat of police action is a serious threat in Syria, and the government has enacted some of the reforms called for by protest groups, like doubling the heating oil allowance for state employees. Part of the reason why the revolution has not, and will not, spread to Syria is because the President, Bashar al-Assad, is anti-Western and relatively young, in contrast with Mubarak on both fronts.

Other countries, like Libya and Sudan, also face prospective revolts, but none with the destructive capabilities of the first two revolutions.

Reach reporter Andrew Whitman here.