Founder's Trap and New Social Movements Theory: An Analysis of Tunisian Revolution

Popular uprisings in the current Islamic awareness or Arab spring led to demands articulated by different sections of Tunisian society, and new social movements paved the way for the occurrence of disorderly behaviors. Indeed, domino like changes led to the formation of Tunisian revolution, as a result of general orientations of Arab rulers, on one hand, which can be called as a problem of "Founder's Trap", and as an importance of new social movements in the explanation of changes in the northern Africa, on the other hand, which faced with research gap prior to that. By utilizing qualitative method and descriptive-analytical approach, this study, with the purpose of filling a part of the existing gap, is aimed at replying to this main question: to what extent, by considering Founder's Trap crisis, the occurrence of revolutionary developments in Tunisia, does adopt with the theory of new social movements? Findings of this research show: first, Founder's Trap crisis in the country under study is among important reasons responsible for the formation of new social movements. Second, exploiting new social movements is one of the main factors in the changes happened in this country, which covers requests and demands of the people, and determines the occurrence of the revolution. Finally, theory of new social movements encountered theoretical fault once faced with revolutionary changes and current realities of the Arab world. This, in turn, necessitates considering the subject of political economy in reviewing, development, and more efficacy of the theory.