As the first post on African Analytics, I would offer a note on why there seems to be so much surprise at the fall of the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia. We often find even close observers - from scholars to business analysts - surprised by the rapid emergence of such "people power" revolutions that bring down long-standing authoritarian regimes.
Why do we find ourselves surprised? The reasons for opposing the regimes are clear enough, especially in retrospect. So why should we not be ready for the rapid falls of authoritarian leaders.
After the Eastern European revolutions of 1989, Timur Kuran put his finger on a key factor: preference falsification by the population. Preference falsification is, in the simplest terms, faking it. Under conditions of repression, there may be very few open opponents of the regime even when the vast majority of the population opposes. This is simply because few people are willing to be the first to take to the streets and risk imprisonment or worse. They fake support for the regime, conforming in public while fuming in private.
But if a trigger event can motivate a few bold advocates to take to the streets, and if the regime's response signals that mass repression is unlikely, then the majority that opposes the regime may perceive that the risks of taking to the streets are reduced. And a cascade of opposition can emerge. In some cases, like Tunisia today, the ultimate result can be the fall of an authoritarian regime.
We may continue to be surprised - as Timur Kuran noted - by these falls of authoritarian regimes where revolutions seem to emerge spontaneously. The likelihood of such revolutions as the ongoing "Jasmine Revolution" are hard to capture; this is one more reason for those interested in Africa as a business frontier to direct political, economic, and social attention to Africa's relatively stable democracies, where a crisis of a government does not necessarily become a crisis of regime.
-- JTD
