The COVID-19 Outbreak in Tunisia: Politics, Policies, and Public Dissent

Abstract

This paper reviews state and non-state responses to the Covid-19 pandemic in Tunisia from March 2020 to March 2021. It offers a context-based narrative of the country’s key political and socio-economic features throughout a global health crisis and identifies four main phases that marked domestic dynamics. The paper investigates moments of political and socio-economic rupture and continuity with pre-pandemic policies to then argue that the Covid-19 crisis was rather seized by the power elite to perpetuate the system, to sustain self-preservation, and to further resuscitate Tunisia’s pre-uprising authoritarian legacy, which, in return, fueled resistance from below and ensured its continuity despite the quasi-annihilation of the civic space.

This paper reviews state and non-state responses to the Covid-19 pandemic in Tunisia from March 2020 to March 2021. It offers a context-based narrative of the country’s key political and socio-economic features throughout a global health crisis and identifies four main phases that marked domestic dynamics. The paper investigates moments of political and socio-economic rupture and continuity with pre-pandemic policies to then argue that the Covid-19 crisis was rather seized by the power elite to perpetuate the system, to sustain self-preservation, and to further resuscitate Tunisia’s pre-uprising authoritarian legacy, which, in return, fueled resistance from below and ensured its continuity despite the quasi-annihilation of the civic space.