Tunisian Revolution and Regional Imbalance

Hela Hermassi

Email: atiabdessatar@yahoo.fr

Abstract 17 February 2013

Abstract

Tunisia has been a classical example of what Clifford Geertz calls authoritaritarian liberalism. The disconnection between economic growth and political reformalways ends up producing its toxic effects: development of a patronage and predatory capitalism, lack of transparency, lack of judicial security, and eventually disintegration of the effectiveness of the system and its attractiveness to foreign investors. What lies beneath the so-called “jasmine revolution”is the growing intolerance towards inequality between regions, social classes and generations. The paper focuses particularly on the questions raised by regional disparities: the geographic distribution of budget resources, the provision of targeted programs, the importance of such dimensions as deconcentralization and decentralization; the challenges for policy makers are, at least in the short and medium terms, almost insurmountable.

Keywords: revolution, decentralization, education