In the run-up to every New Year, newspapers and the blogosphere are full of articles
about what happened in the year just gone. 2011 was a particularly eventful year so there will be much to pick from. But what about the things that did not happen, though they were widely expected?
Here are five things that did not take place — though, as the year unfolded, many people would have bet on their occurrence:
1) Algeria’s revolution. As one North African dictator after another fell to pro-democracy protesters, everyone expected Algeria to be next. But it wasn’t. there are many reasons for this, as Hakeem Debouche and Susi Denison argue in this new report; including the country’s oil wealth, people’s fear of a civil war, and that fact that the Algerian regime is less repressive than those in Tunisia and Egypt.
2) Outright failure in Durban.
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