Tunisia Excluded from the national consensus that has brought together Islamist party Ennahda and the secular Nidaa Tounes, marginalized social categories (such as unemployed youth or inhabitants of the country’s least economically advanced regions) have protested at the lack of a credible development plan after decades of underinvestment and neglect by the central authorities. Inevitably, they have been recalcitrant to acknowledge the increasingly dangerous economic situation and the price to pay for the increasingly painful adjustment. Unable to manage their expectations, post-uprising governments have chosen to try and meet these groups’ demands now, rather than present a convincing long-term plan for sustainable development, thus avoiding any confrontation. As Tunisia has become too important to fail, the international community’s implicit insurance against any risk of sociopolitical disaster has made this bargain possible. Rentierism, patronage and moral hazard
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51