Based on a wealth of new primary data, this book offers the first account of the internal regime factors that ultimately caused the fall of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali's long dictatorship in Tunisia during the Arab Uprisings. Anne Wolf's account challenges studies that focus on the role of mass mobilization alone, and demonstrates that in the last decade of Ben Ali's presidency, dissent within his ruling party - the Constitutional Democratic Rally - mounted to such an extent that followers began challenging their own powerbroker. The culmination of this was a secret coup d'état staged by regime figures against Ben Ali in January 2011, an event that has not previously been uncovered. Wolf proposes a new theory of power and contention within ruling parties in authoritarian regimes to explain how dictators seek to fortify their rule and foster party-political stability, but also when, why, and how they succumb to internal contention and with what effect.
Author(s): Anne Wolf
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 266
City: Oxford
Cover
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
List of Abbreviations
A Note on Transliteration
`Who's Who?' in Ben Ali's Regime
Introduction
1 The Dictator's Party
The puzzle
Key arguments and theory
Methodological considerations
Outline of chapters
2 A Man amongst Others . . . a Man above All
The coup
Strategies of legitimation
Thwarting internal resistance
The remaking of the ruling party
The old guard’s decline
Co-opting the opposition
Be with us, oragainst us
Establishing executive control
The man above all
Creeping internal dissent
3 Fortifying Carthage
Stoking fear, evoking chaos
Expanding the palace
The rise of the lumpen activist
A grid of spies
Silencing the opposition
The tiger of the Mediterranean
All the President’s ‘technocrats’
Limited internal opposition
4 All in the Family
A looming succession
crisis
High stakes, many clans
The Trabelsis
The party and the family
Elite restructuring
The rise of family associates
Forms of resistance
Usurping the party leadership
The congress of succession
5 The Rebellion
A Destourian revolt?
Sidi Bouzid’s ‘traitors’
Sidelined loyalists
The old guard’s revenge
Eroding countermobilization
Where are the Trabelsis?
Ben Ali’s ousting
The dissolution of the RCD
6 Conclusion
Correctivism and the personalization of power
New normative ideas, authoritarian regeneration, and decay
Internecine contention and regime collapse
Implications for future research
Selected Bibliography
Index
