Industrial policy in Tunisia

Tunisia's industrial policy is generally perceived as ‘best practice’ in its regional context. A semi-closed statist economy has increasingly been turned into an outward-oriented market economy which has consistently produced growth rates well above the regional average. This has mainly been due to consistent government investment in public infrastructure and particularly in the education sector, a comprehensive, incremental approach to socio-economic reforms, and a professional civil service able to ‘deliver’ and harness foreign financial inflows for development-oriented purposes. But the Tunisian ‘miracle’ is still rather fragile, and recent events have proven this. The main fault-lines are a high degree of vertical fragmentation, a strong dependency on a few foreign markets, a strong focus on simple assembly activities, and a correspondingly limited capacity to create qualified employment. A major obstacle for the regime's declared goal to achieve a qualitative breakthrough toward a fully developed economy and enhance upward mobility for the broad public has also been the fact that the country's political and economic elites are intertwined in numerous, intricate ways, and that there are thus few incentives for private businessmen to make the necessary long-term investments in knowledge-intensive sectors

The DESERTEC initiative: powering the development perspectives of Southern Mediterranean countries?

DESERTEC is the name of a project that aims to secure the energy needs of the countries north and south of the Mediterranean via the large-scale deployment of solar and wind energy plants in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and their inter-connection with European energy markets through high-voltage direct-current lines. This Discussion Paper explores (i) whether such an approach is feasible and desirable for MENA countries, (ii) what needs to be done to pave the way for its implementation, make full use of it and find a way around possible pitfalls and (iii) what role development cooperation can play in this context

Ben Ali's "New Tunisia" (1987 - 2009) : a case study of authoritarian modernization in the Arab world

Zugl.: Berlin, Humboldt-Univ., Diss., 2007Steffen Erdl

The relations among well-being outcomes, religiosity, and personality

A major focus of attention in psychology has been on the consequences and determinants of well-being. Religiosity and personality have both been shown to predict mental health and well-being, but the two predictors have not often been investigated together. In 4 studies involving 7 surveys (total N = 1,530) in various social and religious contexts, the relations among well-being, religious orientation, and personality factors were studied. Results showed that Extraversion was the single strongest correlate of higher levels of subjective and psychological well-being. Religiosity had null or weak positive relationships with well-being, and managed to explain variance in some aspects of positive functioning beyond personality factors. The null or week relationship of religiosity with well-being beyond personality was consistent across the HEXACO and the Big Five models of personality structure. It has been suggested that religion is relatively more important for eudaimonic than for hedonic way of living

Outcomes in Newly Diagnosed Atrial Fibrillation and History of Acute Coronary Syndromes: Insights from GARFIELD-AF

BACKGROUND: Many patients with atrial fibrillation have concomitant coronary artery disease with or without acute coronary syndromes and are in need of additional antithrombotic therapy. There are few data on the long-term clinical outcome of atrial fibrillation patients with a history of acute coronary syndrome. This is a 2-year study of atrial fibrillation patients with or without a history of acute coronary syndromes

Analysis of Outcomes in Ischemic vs Nonischemic Cardiomyopathy in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation A Report From the GARFIELD-AF Registry

IMPORTANCE Congestive heart failure (CHF) is commonly associated with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (AF), and their combination may affect treatment strategies and outcomes