November/December 2019 67SARAH YERKES is a Fellow at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace.
footsteps have become mired in civil war,
as has happened in Libya, Syria, and
Yemen. Others, such as Bahrain and
Egypt, have returned to repression and
authoritarianism. Tunisia, by contrast,
has drafted a progressive constitution and
held free and fair elections at the presi-
dential, parliamentary and local levels. In
July, when President Beji Caid Essebsi
died at the age o¡ 92, the transition to a
caretaker government was smooth and
unremarkable. Several problems persist
and continue to hobble the country, in
particular a long track record o¡ economic
mismanagement and a disconcerting lack
o¡ trust in public institutions. But for all
the un ̄nished business Tunisia still faces,
its example remains a source o° hope
across the region.
In achieving this feat, Tunisia has
helped dispel the myth that Arab societies
or Islam is not compatible with democ-
racy. But the country’s story also oers
lessons for beyond the Arab world: that
transitions from authoritarianism require
brave leaders willing to put country above
politics and that such transitions are by
nature chaotic and halting. For the
international community, this means that
states in transition should be oered the
diplomatic and, above all, ̄nancial
support they need to bear the growing
pains o¡ democracy and come away with
as few scars as possible.AFTERSHOCKS OF REVOLUTION
Postrevolutionary Tunisia inherited a
state in disrepair. The Ben Ali regime
had been notoriously corrupt. It plun-
dered the country’s public coers and
stashed the money in bank accounts
belonging to Ben Ali’s wife, Leila
Trabelsi, and her family. The government
favored certain coastal regions, neglectingThe Tunisia Model
Lessons From a New Arab
Democracy
Sarah Yerkes
T
he story o° how the Tunisian
revolution began is well known.
On December 17, 2010, a 26-year-
old fruit vendor named Mohamed
Bouazizi from the town o¡ Sidi Bouzid
set himsel¡ on ̄re outside a local gov-
ernment building. The man’s self-
immolation—an act o¡ protest against
repeated mistreatment by police and local
o¼cials—sparked protests that quickly
spread across the country. Within a few
weeks, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali
had stepped down and ¥ed the country
after 23 years in power, oering Tunisia
an unprecedented opportunity for a
democratic opening. A massive wave o¡
uprisings soon swept the country’s
neighbors, reaching all the way to the
Levant and the Persian Gulf.
Less well known is what happened
inside Tunisia next. Even though the
country had become ground zero o¡ the
Arab Spring, its transition was quickly
overshadowed by events in more popu-
lous Arab countries with deeper ties to
the United States and more patently
cruel rulers. But nearly a decade on,
Tunisia remains the only success story to
have come out o¡ the many uprisings.
Across the Arab world, countries that
looked as though they might follow in its
TRUMP’S MIDDLE EAST