'Dégage RCD!' The rise of internal dissent in Ben Ali's Constitutional Democratic Rally and the Tunisian uprisings. Issue 2 (3rd April 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Wolf, Anne
• Is Part Of: Mediterranean politics. Volume 23:Issue 2(2018)
• Page Start: 245
• Page End: 264
• Publication Date: 2018-04-03
• Subjects: Mediterranean Region -- Politics and government -- 1945- -- Periodicals; 320.91822
• DOI: 10.1080/13629395.2017.1287629
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1362-9395

Abstract

Abstract: This article examines the historical evolution of Tunisia's Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) from its beginnings in 1987, when President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali took power, until his ousting in 2011 when the party was outlawed. I argue that the RCD evolved from a political force with wide popular support during a short democratic era (1987–89) into a repressive interest group in the 1990s, when the regime cracked down on political dissidents and popular freedoms whilst rewarding party members with lucrative benefits. In the 2000s the RCD adopted a quasi-mafiosi structure that profited the Ben Ali family, which increasingly monopolized economic and political power. Tunisia's transformation into a near dynasty marginalized many RCD members and its wider networks, a central dynamic to understand Ben Ali's ousting in 2011.