Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution: A Spatial Demographic Analysis of Protest, Violence, and Voting Patterns

In the wake of the past two years of popular uprisings and revolutions in the Arab region, three theoretical explanations with a major demographic component have gained prominence. These three “new” theories posit 1) a youth bulge, 2) demographic disparities, and 3) the role of digital media, respectively as likely causes of revolution and of the success of Islamist parties in elections. Using Generalized Spatial Two-Stage Least Squares Regression to analyze sub-national data from Tunisia, preliminary results indicate that these three phenomena are not statistically significant predictors of the occurrence of protest, the timing/duration of protest, or the district vote percentage for the main Islamist party “Ennahdha.” Further analysis with both time and spatial dimensions will clarify other demographic factors that seem to be linked to protest, violence and vote outcomes, including government marginalization and women’s demographic factors.