Michele Penner Angrist, medforfatter av Authoritarianism in the Middle East, skriver om Tunisia i Foreign Affairs: "Much of

the reporting on the demonstrations has emphasized Tunisians’ economic

grievances: unemployment, inflation, and the high cost of living. But

material difficulties were not the central driver in pushing Ben Ali

from power. On a more fundamental level, Tunisians are protesting

dictatorship. The Ben Ali regime was contemptuous of its citizens,

treating them as too unsophisticated to entrust with freedoms — and

betting that they would be too meek to call the regime to account for

its excesses."