Peter J. Schraeder is professor of political science at Loyola University in Chicago. He has been a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Tunis, teaches every January at the University of Carthage, and each May leads U.S. students to Tunisia.
The wave of unrest that swept through the Arab world at the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011 originated in Tunisia. What happened— and what are the prospects that Tunisia will make a successful transition to democracy?
The uprisings that swept the Arab world beginning in 2010 toppled four entrenched rulers and seemed to create a political opening in a region long impervious to democratization.