THAT'S THE RECIPE--HOMOGENEITY AND A NEUTERED MILITARY:

Tunisia's strongest asset may be its cohesive society. With no sectarian, ethnic, religious or tribal divides, political and ideological differences do not turn into societal divisions, as they do in Iraq, Syria or Lebanon. And with a modernisation process that dates back to the 19th century, the country's population is largely urbanised and relatively well educated, with a broad middle class and a vibrant civil society.

If the armies of Egypt and Tunisia were widely celebrated as "guardians of the revolution" after the toppling of Hosni Mubarak and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the roles each has played since could not have been more different. While the former proceeded to seize power and rule with an iron fist, the latter has quietly retreated to its barracks. This was not merely accidental, but stems from the radically divergent functions the two military institutions have exercised through their countries' recent history.

Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia's post-independence president, was highly suspicious of the army and anxious to prevent a repetition of the coups staged by Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt and the Ba'ath party in Syria and Iraq. Kept to its barracks, the Tunisian army's role was, therefore, confined to protecting the country's rather quiet borders, as far away from politics as possible. Bourguiba's authoritarian rule rested on a mixture of national liberation legitimacy, personal charisma, and doses of police repression. The last of these was to deepen with Ben Ali's rule, which turned Tunisia into a virtual police state.

Government in Tunisia was thus left to the politicians, free from the overbearing presence of military men. Without their omnipresent shadow, politics has been able to evolve spontaneously amid the post-revolution uncertainty.

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