Tunisia lights the match

In a mo­ment that caught many in the world by sur­prise, the small North Afric­an na­tion of Tunisia ous­ted dic­tat­or Zine el Abid­ine ben Ali in Janu­ary 2011. The re­per­cus­sions of this forced re­gime change are only now start­ing to be un­der­stood. Rising to power in 1987 through blood­less coup, Ben Ali’s re­gime was char­ac­ter­ized by re­pres­sion and plagued with cor­rup­tion, but it was ul­ti­mately the high un­em­ploy­ment rate that proved to be the cata­lyst for the so-called Jas­mine Re­volu­tion. Read more »