ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Tunisia’s economic performance and describes regional disparities. By most conventional measures Tunisia has been particularly successful among Third World countries in stimulating economic growth. The ideological and political factor is related to, and deeply rooted in, the conception of development itself of the Tunisian leaders. In the early 1960s, self-reliance was one of the most important goals of Tunisian socialist development. In line with Samir Amin’s central argument, Dudley Seers denounces the deliberate assimilation of “development with economic development and economic development with economic growth.” Amin, Giovanni Arrighi and Andre Gunder Frank are considered among those who have popularized the concept the most. But it was Amin who first developed it in his study on the “Development of Capitalism in Ivory Coast.” The fundamental questions to ask about a country’s development, Seers says, are not about economic growth or increases of per capita incomes alone.
