Tunisia was once the Roman world's gateway to North Africa. Today, it is a relative backwater, even in the Mediterranean Basin. Its economy has been stagnant since the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2011 , even if its political climate has been more placid than those of other Arab Spring nations. And it has acquired a paradoxical reputation as a bastion of both democracy and religious extremism . The extremist threat emerges most clearly from Tunisia's mountainous interior, which former ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who led the country for 24 years, called "the dark regions." Border instability from the Islamic State-occupied regions of Libya has made the problem worse. Moving forward, the interplay between Tunisia's underdeveloped interior and the shifting power politics among its coastal elites will define the country.