Managing Expectations

Hailed as the single success story of the Arab Spring uprising, while simultaneously demonized for the large number of Tunisians involved with jihadist groups around the Middle East, the North African country of Tunisia lies in a delicate balance. Following several deadly attacks in 2015, the young government implemented a series of initiatives designed to curb the spread of extremism in the country. While well-intentioned, many of these new measures have focused solely on the security and military side of the counter-extremism equation, at the expense of community building and attempts to incorporate marginalized populations into the political sphere (Gartenstein-Ross and Moreng, 2015). Further, while the factors that drive young people, predominantly young men, to extremism are complex, some of the most commonly cited causes are economic grievances (Süß and Aakhunzzada, 2019).

This project will attempt to evaluate the threat of extremism in Tunisia by identifying at-risk regions within the state through the collection and analysis of demographic and unemployment data. Based on the relative deprivation theory, discussed further below, this project will examine the unemployment rates for different groups based on their education level across all 24 governorates.

For this paper, I will utilize USAID's definition of extremism: “advocating, engaging in, preparing or otherwise supporting ideologically motivated or justified violence to further social, economic and political objectives” (USAID, 2011). Additionally, I will use the terms "extremism" and "radicalism" interchangeably.

1. Where are the highest rates of unemployed secondary and tertiary graduates in Tunisia?
2. Do governorates that border Algeria and Libya have higher rates of unemployment for secondary and tertiary graduates compared to other governorates?

The Arab Spring uprisings are generally considered to have started with the self-immolation of street merchant Mohamed Bouazizi. Tired of mistreatment at the hands of local police and authorities, Bouazizi lit himself on fire in front of the governor’s office on December 17, 2010. Massive protests erupted around the country, calling for more freedoms and the resignation of Zine El Abedine Ben Ali, the Tunisian president. Ben Ali assumed power in a bloodless coup in 1987, and had consolidated enormous power for himself, but his regime quickly collapsed under public pressure and he ultimately fled to Saudi Arabia in January 2011, less than a month after the protests began (Gartenstein-Ross and Moreng, 2015).

Following the initial uprising in 2011, Tunisia experienced a number of difficult years, with unemployment soaring as various parties competed for control of the country, peaking at 18.3% in 2011 (World Bank, 2020). As of 2014, the year in which the last official census was taken, the unemployment rate was 14.8% (National Institute for Statistics, 2014). However, in the 5 years since that survey was conducted, unemployment has risen steadily across the country, reaching 16% in 2019 (World Bank, 2020).

While the political situation has calmed in the country, economic concerns remain a top concern for many Tunisians. In a 2015 survey of youths in the Tunis governorate, 90% of respondents claimed that their economic status had not changed since the Arab Spring, while 46% claimed their situation had worsened since the fall of Ben Ali's regime (Fahmi and Meddeb, 2015). In the Kasserine and Sidi Bouzid governorates, both significantly less developed than Tunis, 62% of secondary school graduates considered their socioeconomic situation to be worse than their parents (Fahmi and Meddeb, 2015).

Unfortunately, Tunisia has quite a problem with exporting extremism; that is, young Tunisians are being drawn to radical jihadist groups around the Middle East in record numbers. As of December 2015, it was estimated that up to 6,000 Tunisians had entered Syria to join various extremist groups, including the Islamic State (IS), by far the most of any country in the world (New York Times, 2015). Additionally, thousands of Tunisians have traveled through the porous border with Libya, a country in the midst of near total collapse and severe sectarian violence, to receive training from insurgent groups (New York Times, 2017).

The implicit assumption for many, both inside and outside academia, is that those living in absolute poverty with limited education will be most likely to become radicalized. In reality, there is limited evidence to support this theory. Instead, scholars have embraced the relative deprivation theory, defined here as "the absence of opportunities relative to expectations" (Bhatia and Ghanem, 2017). In other words, civilians who maintain high expectations for future social and economic prosperity will be more likely to develop radical tendencies and beliefs if their expectations are not met, regardless of whether or not they are living in absolute poverty.

The above chart demonstrates the effect of a sudden change that results in a drastic reduction in achievement, such as an economic downturn or individual tragedy, that may lead to the individual developing extreme or radical tendencies. However, as the graph below depicts, it is not the only scenario in which the relative deprivation model applies.

Frustration can also occur when a sudden event gives citizens reason to increase their expectations, possibly to unrealistic levels. For example, let's imagine a country that suddenly, after years of low standards of living and despotic rule that depressed expectations for social mobility, undergoes a dramatic revolution that inspires the population and inflates expectations across the board. These expectations are generally unrealistic, and once their social achievement slows and plateaus, systemic frustration will set in, and it is possible they will become drawn to extremism.

This second scenario is particularly salient for the Tunisian case, as optimism soared following the ousting of Ben Ali in 2011. Nine years later, many Tunisians have yet to experience real, tangible gains in their standards of living.

It is clear from the literature that this theory is supported by empirical evidence from the Middle East. A 2018 report from the World Bank examined the self-reported education levels for 3,965 Islamic State recruits from all over the world, finding that Daesh recruits were more likely to have graduated from secondary school or university than the average person in their home countries (Abdel Jelil, et. al., 2018). Similar research from Brookings looking at eight Arab countries indicates that "education coupled with unemployment or underemployment is associated with greater radicalization" (Bhatia and Ghanem, 2017). Further, they find that unemployed secondary graduates have the highest probability for radicalization, followed closely by tertiary graduates (Bhatia and Ghanem, 2017).

All of the specific data on unemployment in each of the governorates was gathered directly from the National Institute for Statistics (NIS), Tunisia's state-run statistics agency ( http://dataportal.ins.tn/en ), and the agency that conducts the census. The most recent data on that website is from the 2014 census, so any more recent data had to be collected from other sources. I relied primarily on the World Bank ( https://data.worldbank.org/country/tunisia ). The data was then copied manually over into an Excel document and inspected to make sure all of the numbers were in agreement with one another (ex: (number of unemployed) / (labor force) = unemployment rate).

The maps were constructed using GIS technology on Esri's ArcGIS Online platform ( https://www.arcgis.com/home/index.html ). This software uses the WGS 1984 Web Mercator as its default Projected Coordinate System, combined with the WGS84 Geographic Coordinate System. In general, the Mercator projection tends to exaggerate the size and shape of land masses the closer they are to the poles. For the sake of this project, however, I do not believe the projection will have a meaningful impact on the data, as Tunisia is a relatively small country located close to the equator, and the frame of the map is focused on a smaller area, making it less likely to experience distortion.

These maps focus on the education level of unemployed populations across the country. As such, I calculate the unemployment rate for populations based on their education levels as a percentage of overall unemployment. For example, to find this rate for individuals with no education, I take the total number of uneducated, unemployed people, divided by the total unemployment in the governorate.

Several phenomena can be observed from the above maps. First, it appears that unemployed individuals with secondary and tertiary education make up a significant portion of the total unemployed population in many of the governorates. Individuals with primary and no education tend to make up relatively small amounts of the unemployed population, suggesting that these populations are able to secure low-skill jobs.

Secondly, governorates that border Algeria and Libya do appear to have higher amounts of unemployed secondary and tertiary graduates, such as Medenine, Kebili, Gafsa, Tataouine, and Tozeur. This cannot be classified as a causal relationship, but should be of particular concern for the Tunisian government, particularly with those regions bordering Libya, as the border is relatively easy to pass through, and there is extensive documentation that many young Tunisians going to join extremist groups pass through the southern Tunisian-Libyan border. If these frustrated populations of unemployed, educated people are located closer to the border with a war-torn state, it is possible that the proximity and ease of access to extremist groups will convince them to enlist.

Third, governorates in the South, such as Kebili and Tataouine, have very low rates of unemployment for people with no education or only primary schooling, yet higher rates of unemployment for secondary and tertiary graduates. This suggests that many of the jobs in the South, which is composed largely of desert terrain, are low-skill, and there is a lack of high-skill positions for educated workers.

As mentioned previously, the factors that lead to radicalization are complex, and this project does not attempt to suggest that economic grievances will automatically result in a person being drawn to radicalization, nor that unemployed graduates are inherently violent or extremist. Rather, it attempts to identify regions that the Tunisian government should target for investment and other economic support measures.

Aside from a small number of lone-wolf attacks, extremist groups have far greater of an impact in the Middle East than in the West, and targeted programs that seek to combat extremism should be considered a public, global good. Policymakers that hope to tackle this problem must focus not solely on the military and policing aspect, but also on economic inequality and opportunity throughout their respective countries. In Tunisia, it is likely that the number of young citizens that join extremist organizations will continue to grow until real, meaningful economic change is felt throughout the country, not solely in the capital.

1. As stated above, all data comes from the National Institute for Statistics (NIS). While the data is trustworthy, there were discrepancies between datasets that appeared to be presenting the exact same data. For example, several datasets would have the unemployment rate of a specific governorate listed as one number, while another dataset would have a slightly different number (within a few tenths of a percent). To ensure accuracy, I selected the number that appeared most frequently among various datasets.
2. Since the most recent data provided by the NIS is from 2014, I had to utilize other organizations to get data on the unemployment rate over the past few years. Estimates of the unemployment rate varied widely across organizations, so for the sake of continuity, I relied on data from the World Bank when I was unable to use NIS data. If someone were to replicate this research and relied on data from another organization (ex: CEIC or Knoema), they would record slightly different results.
3. The data for employment in the Kasserine governorate appears to be inaccurate. For all levels of education, it displays the exact same number of employed people (13,283). This was unfortunate, as Kasserine has experienced a number of extremist attacks over the past few years, and looked to be one of the regions that would be most representative of the relative deprivation theory.

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