For decades, many of these regimes relied on food subsidies to ensure stability -- a social contract so pervasive that the Tunisian scholar Larbi Sadiki described it as dimuqratiyyat al-khubz, or "democracy of bread." But over the past several years, grain prices reached record levels, and these appeasement policies lost their luster. In Tunisia, pro-democracy demonstrations began in late December 2010 with protesters brandishing baguettes. In just a few months, a wave of uprisings rippled across the region, toppling Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt's longtime ruler, Hosni Mubarak.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67672/annia-ciezadlo/let-them-eat-bread