[LINK] "Tunisia's protest wave: where it comes from and what it means"

[rfmcdonald]

At Foreign Policy, Christopherm Alexander examines the street recent protests against the Tunisian government. By regional standards, Tunisia has done quite well, experiencing strong economic growth, for instance, and achieving high levels of social development including enfranchised women and successful mass education which have led to a rapid demographic transtition that will further the country's growth. Why, given these achievements, are Tunisians unhappy? It's the standard story of unsatisfied expectations.

The current's democracy autocracy and corruption is offputting, for instance.

[President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali] used electoral manipulation, intimidation, and favors to co-opt leaders of ruling-party organs and civil society organizations. Those who remained beyond the reach of these tools felt the force of an internal security apparatus that grew dramatically in the 1990s. Most Tunisians grudgingly accepted Ben Ali's heavy-handedness through the 1990s. Authoritarian rule was the price they paid for stability that could attract tourists and investors. Ben Ali was an effective, if uncharismatic, technocratic who beat back the Islamists, generated growth, and saved the country from the unrest that plagued Algeria.

Over the last five years, however, the fabric of Ben Ali's authoritarianism has frayed. Once it became clear that the Islamists no longer posed a serious threat, many Tunisians became less willing to accept the government's heavy-handedness. The regime also lost some of its earlier deftness. Its methods became less creative and more transparently brutal. The government seemed less willing to at least play at any dialogue with critics or opposition parties. Arbitrary arrests, control of the print media and Internet access, and physical attacks on journalists and human rights and opposition-party activists became more common. So, too, did stories of corruption -- not the usual kickbacks and favoritism that one might expect, but truly mafia-grade criminality that lined the pockets of Ben Ali's wife and her family.

Regional inequality in economic development, with the north and the eastern coastline prospering while the interior has stagnated, is also displeasing.

Tunisia has built a reputation as the Maghreb's healthiest economy since Ben Ali seized power, as market-oriented reforms opened the country to private investment and integrated it more deeply into the regional economy. Annual GDP growth has averaged 5 percent. But the government's policies have done little to address long-standing concerns about the distribution of growth across the country. Since the colonial period, Tunisia's economic activity has been concentrated in the north and along the eastern coastline. Virtually every economic development plan since independence in 1956 has committed the government to making investments that would create jobs and enhance living standards in the center, south, and west. Eroding regional disparities would build national solidarity and slow the pace of urban migration. [. . .]

Government investment transformed the countryside in terms of access to potable water, electrification, transportation infrastructure, health care, and education. But the government never succeeded in generating enough jobs in the interior for a rapidly growing population. In fact, two aspects of the government's development strategy actually made it harder to generate jobs. First, Tunisia's development strategy since the early 1970s has relied progressively on exports and private investment. For a small country with a limited resource base and close ties to Europe, this strategy generated an emphasis on tourism and low-skilled manufactured products (primarily clothes and agricultural products) for the European market. Scarce natural resources, climate constraints, and the need to minimize transport costs make it difficult to attract considerable numbers of tourists or export-oriented producers to the hinterland. Consequently, 80 percent of current national production remains concentrated in coastal areas. Only one-fifth of national production takes place in the southwest and center-west regions, home to 40 percent of the population.

Finally, Tunisia's significant achievements in mass education have not been matched by correspondingly high rates of unemployment and underemployment for university graduates, especially in the interior. Thus, a discontented class is formed.

The prevailing culture holds up university education as the key to security and social advancement. However, universities do not produce young people with training that meets the needs of an economy that depends on low-skilled jobs in tourism and clothing manufacturing. This mismatch between education and expectations on the one hand, and the realities of the marketplace on the other, generates serious frustrations for young people who invested in university educations but cannot find commensurate work. The challenge is particularly dire for young people in the interior. While estimates of national unemployment range from 13 to 16 percent, unemployment among university graduates in Sidi Bouzid ranges between 25 and 30 percent.

The likely end results? The Tunisian regime may be weakened significantly, although given the significant divisions and weaknesses of the opposition a transition to another autocrat within the framework of the Tunisian regime.

Anyway. Go, read the analysis in full.