Did terrorism or the response threaten Tunisia more?

The short answer

• Freedom for preachers and recruiters. Ennahda’s members had themselves suffered decades of repression, and the new government hesitated to repress religious activists. With mosque surveillance ended and political prisoners, including jihadist veterans, released, Salafists could preach and organize among young men with few prospects. Some preachers banned under Ben Ali returned to their pulpits; Salafist groups seized other mosques by force.
• A security state in transition. Tunisia’s security institutions had been built for a different political order. The police, a backbone of Ben Ali’s rule, were distrusted and partly purged; the small army had little counter-insurgency experience. Intelligence networks that watched dissidents were ill suited to tracking armed groups. Officers who feared prosecution for conduct under Ben Ali were often reluctant to take risks. Effective democratic policing had yet to fill the gap left by the removal of repressive practices.
• Libya’s collapse next door. A recruit could reach camps near Sabratha in hours and return almost as easily. That possibility grew from Libya’s collapse after Gaddafi fell in 2011 and its slide into civil war by 2014. Ungoverned space lay within a day’s drive of Tunisian towns, weapons were plentiful, and the Islamic State held territory around Sirte. Smuggling routes, long tolerated because border towns depended on them, carried fighters as well as fuel.
• Grievances the revolution had not met. The revolution had raised economic hopes that remained unmet. Unemployment in 2015 was higher than in 2010, especially among young graduates and in the interior. Recruiters could offer unemployed young men pay, belonging and purpose. Many came from towns and suburbs that had protested in 2010–11: grievances shared by protesters could also help draw a minority toward violence.

What it changed

Emergency rule returns. The emergency declared on 4 July 2015 was lifted on 2 October, reimposed on 24 November and renewed continuously for years. Powers over movement, strikes and gatherings were available against political opponents as well as armed groups. Adopted to protect democracy, they later became tools for undermining it.

An economy without visitors. When visitors stayed away, coastal resorts emptied; some towns lost most visitors for two years. Tourism receipts fell about 35 per cent in 2015, growth nearly stopped and unemployment remained around 15 per cent. The interior, already short of the revolution’s economic benefits, received even fewer. Economic disappointment later became the most common reason Tunisians gave for losing faith in democratic politics.

A prize for compromise. On 9 October 2015, between the two emergency declarations, the Nobel Peace Prize recognized the National Dialogue Quartet’s compromise. The award brought attention and aid while Tunisia was under attack. It also reinforced the country’s image as the Arab Spring’s one success story, an image that helped and burdened subsequent governments.