Tunis

The Arab Spring's sole democratic survivor is dying in Tunis. From the 2011 revolution that toppled Ben Ali through 2021, this city of 693,000 (metro area 2.5 million) was the proof that Middle Eastern democracy could work. Then in July 2021, President Kais Saied suspended parliament, rewrote the constitution, and concentrated power in himself. The 2024 presidential election saw 27.7% turnout—the lowest since Ben Ali's fall—with nearly all viable opponents jailed, exiled, or barred from running. Wikipedia describes Tunis as a UNESCO heritage site and Mediterranean trade hub; what it undersells is that the city has become the capital of the Arab world's most instructive failure. Debt approaches 100% of GDP. Growth was 0.4% in 2023 and 0.7% in 2024. Tunisia broke with the IMF entirely in 2025, preferring monetary printing to reform conditions. Olive oil exports and tourism generate cash but cannot service the debt. Saudi Arabia contributed $500 million and Algeria $200 million—drops in an ocean of arrears. The biological parallel is alternative stable states: democracy and autocracy are two equilibrium conditions, and economic stress pushed the system past a tipping point. Once a society flips from one stable state to another, returning requires more force than staying would have. Coral reefs work the same way—stressed beyond a threshold, they shift to algae-dominated states that resist restoration. Tunis now demonstrates what political scientists only theorized: that democratic transitions can reverse completely within a decade, leaving fewer institutional safeguards than existed before.