Béatrice Hibou is director of research of the CNRS at CERI-SciencesPo, Paris, France. Her comparative research in political economy focuses, from a Weberian perspective and a foucaldian conception of power, on the political significance of economic reform, on state trajectories and on the exercise of domination, based on cases from sub-Saharan Africa, the Maghreb and Europe. Her most important publications include Anatomie Politique de la Domination (2011), The Force of Obedience, Political Economy of Repression in Tunisia (2011); ed. Privatising the State (2004).