Tunisia has undergone radical changes in the past decade, and faces more in the years to come, if the EU has its way. As the first country to topple its dictator in early 2011, it set off a chain of revolutions across North Africa and West Asia that led to a political reconfiguration, the impacts of which are still playing out. While Tunisia is often seen as the ‘success’ story of the ‘Arab Spring’, the transition has actually been a lot more complex than that.

Samir Larabi, Shelagh Smith and Hamza Hamouchene explore how the fight to create independent trade unions, the rise of the unemployed movement and the struggle against state oppression in Kabylia (Algeria) have fed into the emergence of the Hirak and assess the movement’s prospects for the future.

Northern African countries are key suppliers of natural resources to the global economy, from large- scale oil and gas extraction in Algeria and Tunisia, to phosphate mining in Tunisia and Morocco, to water-intensive agribusiness paired with tourism in Morocco and Tunisia. The commodification of nature and privatisation of resources entailed in these projects has led to serious environmental damages, and forced these countries into a subservient position in the global economy, sustaining and deepening global inequalities.