The Force of ObedienceISBN: 978-0-7456-5180-4
Paperback
380 pages
June 2011, Polity
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LSE Politics Blog
"The Force of Obedience is the best book written on
Tunisia in the last two decades. The great issues of social thought
- legitimacy, political economy, the common good, the public and
the private, authority and power, and how "repression" inspires
compromises and acquiesence - are brilliantly articulated through a
persuasive mix of documents and incisive ethnography. Hibou's book
not only offers a key to understanding today's Tunisia; it also
offers innovative ways of understanding political developments
elsewhere."
Dale F. Eickelman, Lazarus Professor of Anthropology and Human
Relations at Dartmouth College
"Hibou's highly original study shows what North Africans revolted
against in 2011. Her analysis of the politics of fear and
repression in Ben Ali's Tunisia is unrivalled, particularly for her
focus on the regime's destabilizing interventions in everyday
economic life. This book is destined to become a classic."
Keith Hart, Goldsmiths, University of London
"Anyone seeking to understand the revolutionary wave that arose in
Tunisia and swept across the Arab world in 2011 can begin with this
insightful study of the Ben Ali regime and its methods of control.
Rejecting simplistic accounts of an omnipotent authoritarian ruler,
Béatrice Hibou explains the decentralized, day-to-day
mechanisms of repression through which the regime governed. Her
careful account of the practices of domination offers not just a
history of a defeated political order but a model for understanding
the insidious forms of power against which struggles for political
freedoms must continue to fight."
Timothy Mitchell, Columbia University