Review of Ben Ali’s Tunisia: Power and Contention in an Authoritarian Regime
Book by Anne Wolf, Oxford University Press, 2023 (Hardcover, $110, 250 pages)
Ambassador (ret.) Gordon Gray
I joined the Foreign Service over four decades ago to witness history, and January 14, 2011 did not disappoint. That was the day that Tunisia’s long-time strongman, Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, flew to Saudi Arabia, never to return. I was the U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia at the time. Contrary to some published accounts, however, I did not call Ben Ali and tell him that his number was up and it was time to step down.
Rather, the widespread demonstrations in Tunisia that launched the Arab Spring gave elements of the ruling elite the opportunity to “save their own skins,” as Anne Wolf put it. As she explains in Ben Ali’s Tunisia: Power and Contention in an Authoritarian Regime — her thought-provoking and comprehensively researched study of Ben Ali’s consolidation of power and his eventual political demise and exile — Ben Ali fully intended to return immediately to Tunisia after escorting his family to safety in Saudi Arabia.
A de facto opportunistic coup prevented him from doing so when its leaders ordered his personal pilot to fly back to Tunisia without Ben Ali. An equally important moment, which I vividly recall watching on Tunisian television, was the declaration on national television by Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi (no direct relation to the currently imprisoned Ennahda party leader Rachid Ghannouchi) that — since Ben Ali had fled the country — article 57 of the constitution stipulated that the Speaker of Parliament was now the interim president.
Anyone who lived during the fin de regime in Tunisia will relish the detailed accounts of Ben Ali’s avaricious family, their bitter rivalries and nagging anxieties, and his abrupt departure. The breadth of Wolf’s interview list is as impressive as the scope of the information she succeeded in eliciting.
Ben Ali’s Tunisia is, therefore, an excellent political history. More important for general audiences, however, are the lessons for today as we seek to understand the rise of populist leaders with distinctly authoritarian inclinations. Wolf’s analysis illuminates the behavior of despots far beyond Tunisia’s borders.
Particularly important this year — when seven of the world’s ten most populous countries will hold elections — is Wolf’s thesis that most autocratic and populist leaders rely on “correctivist frames” to consolidate their power. Prime examples that she cites are Xi Jinping’s “rectification campaign,” Hafez al-Assad’s “Corrective Movement,” Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, and Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 speech to the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party. One can and should add Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” to this list.
Each of my diplomatic postings overseas was to a country ruled by an authoritarian leader. Little did I imagine when I concluded my ambassadorial posting in 2012 that the specter of authoritarianism would not only haunt Tunisia but would also soon loom in the United States.
Gordon Gray is the Kuwait Professor of Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Affairs at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. Ambassador (ret.) Gray is also a non-resident fellow at Georgetown’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. He was a career Foreign Service officer who served as U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia at the start of the Arab Spring and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. Follow him on X (Twitter) @AmbGordonGray.
Interested in learning more about the Arab Spring, authoritarianism, and diplomacy? Check out ISD’s in-depth case studies library and join the faculty lounge to access free instructor copies:
