Tunisia remains an important, and perhaps the only, example of a country caught up in the Arab Spring uprising that has emerged as a relatively stable democracy. So when the Central Bank of Tunisia’s latest governor, Marouane El Abassi, describes the country as a “public good”, he may have a point – at least from the perspective of those interested in liberal democracies.

Tunisia can be viewed as a pioneer in the Magreb and the Arab world for a number of reasons. It abolished slavery in 1846