Anatomy of an autocracy

As the end of his reign quickly approached this week, Tunisia’s President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali attempted to conjure the spirit that buoyed his government in the months after he seized power more than 20 years ago. In a televised address to the country on Jan. 12, Ben Ali — speaking in colloquial Arabic and ...

ABDELHAK SENNA/AFP/Getty Images
ABDELHAK SENNA/AFP/Getty Images
ABDELHAK SENNA/AFP/Getty Images

As the end of his reign quickly approached this week, Tunisia's President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali attempted to conjure the spirit that buoyed his government in the months after he seized power more than 20 years ago.

As the end of his reign quickly approached this week, Tunisia’s President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali attempted to conjure the spirit that buoyed his government in the months after he seized power more than 20 years ago.

In a televised address to the country on Jan. 12, Ben Ali — speaking in colloquial Arabic and in unusually humble tones — pledged not to run for reelection when his current term ends in 2014 and to usher in a gentler phase of governance in the meantime.

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Christopher Alexander is Davidson College's McGee director of the Dean Rusk International Studies Program, an associate professor of political science, and author of Tunisia: Stability and Reform in the Modern Maghreb.

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