Libya and Syria both descended into civil war. In Libya, the outcome has so far been an unstable political vacuum. In Syria, the death toll may exceed 500,000. Millions have been displaced, in refugee flows that have fueled challenges to liberal democracy in Europe. Now, the Syrian revolution faces outright defeat.

These facts—a success rate of only one in four and all the resulting deaths —present a troubling conundrum. Do we still believe that oppressed people have the right to resist? Or should we question whether a decision to rebel can really be justified?

One method for answering that question is to re-read philosophers on the subject, John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, both from the 17th century. In the minds of pro-democracy people, John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government (1689) and its arguments for freedom and the right to resist oppression loom large. Thomas Hobbes, on the other hand, wrote Leviathan (1651), a great defense of absolute monarchy. You might think Hobbes would simply discourage today’s freedom struggles, but the important insights his work offers into the dangers of rebellion aren’t necessarily the ones we might expect.

Hobbes’s arguments were worked out against the backdrop of political conflict in mid-17th-century England. He believed the excitement raised among parliamentarians by the revival of ancient republican ideals of “free government” had led them to tear down the walls that protected them. Aiming for the best they brought about the worst: civil war. What they should have done instead was settle for a middle way: a government that, while not ideal, at least held off the danger of widespread violence within the state. Personal security should have been prized higher than dubious ideals of freedom.

Transposing this argument to modern Syria, we seem then to have clear advice: It would have been better for the Syrians of 2011 to let things be, no matter how oppressive Bashar al-Assad’s regime was. And as for us liberals, if we cheered on the Syrian protesters like good Lockeans in 2011, we ought to have learned our lesson by 2018 and should now be shaking our Hobbesian heads in despair at our earlier naiveté (and theirs).

I think we can learn a lesson from Hobbes, but I’m not convinced that this is it. His political thinking points to a much more nuanced analysis.

The foundation of Hobbes’s theory of sovereign authority is what he calls the “Right of Nature”: All individuals can be expected to employ whatever means best preserve them against lethal threats, and everyone, he thinks, is permitted to do so. For people living in a world without government—the “Natural Condition”—the best means might include robbery, violence, and the preventive killing of anyone who could pose a threat. But in a society enjoying the benefits of a sovereign government with enough power to impose peace between citizens, the same Right of Nature dictates a different strategy. Such a government, whether republican or monarchical, overcomes the problem of mutual distrust between unprotected individuals by enforcing laws and agreements, making it possible for people to enjoy a peaceful, comfortable life. Thus, people should obey the government.

It’s the latter strategy that seems to recommend non-resistance against a regime like Assad’s. But Hobbes entered an important caveat to his theory. If the reason for obeying government is self-preservation, then what if the government itself threatens your life? In these circumstances, he thought, self-preservation may dictate forceful self-defense. Hobbes therefore concluded that individuals retain the right to defend themselves against actions by the state that threaten their lives.

So, in fact, he suggested three strategies for preserving yourself, each suited to a different context and each morally justified by the Right of Nature. The first is preventive attack in the Natural Condition. The second is passive obedience in a sovereign state that protects you. The third is self-defense in a sovereign state that attacks you. How would these three strategies have played out across the population in Syria in 2011?

Let’s assume that before the outbreak of violence in 2011, most citizens would have been best advised to follow the second strategy—to obey a sovereign Syrian state that protects them. Even so, things changed suddenly in February 2011.

The trouble began when security forces arrested 15 teenagers in Daraa, accusing them of graffitiing their school with slogans such as “the people want to topple the regime.” Terrified by rumors that the detained children were being tortured, demonstrators demanded their children back, and protest spread to other parts of Syria. The regime resorted to force and, on March 18, security forces shot (approximately) four people dead, and wounded hundreds in Daraa. By late April, escalating violence brought the city under full-scale military siege.

Hobbes takes the unusual view that even people engaged in wrongdoing (such as unprovoked armed resistance) have a moral right to defend themselves against state violence. If even wrongdoers have this right, then those who are innocent certainly do. And he thought their rights extended to protecting their children, too. Hobbes explicitly argues that it would be both morally and psychologically too demanding for political philosophy to insist that parents acquiesce in their own children’s imprisonment, torture, and possible death.

From a Hobbesian perspective, the danger for a government using force against members of its own population is that it is therefore likely to create an ever-widening category of people who are thereby released from the duty to obey the government. This is true even if —unlike in Syria—state security forces only intend to harm those who (in Hobbes’s view) wrongfully rebel. Any large-scale use of force almost always causes unintended harm to innocent people when they are mistaken for legitimate targets or exposed to risks of collateral damage. This means that, for every person the security forces deliberately threaten, others will also feel threatened.

The moral and political legitimacy of any regime depends on maintaining a wide enough social base that feels under an obligation to follow its commands, but this base can be diminished in two ways. First, spontaneous opposition might occur even if the regime hadn’t initiated any threat against its members’ lives. Second, defensive opposition includes those who haven’t rebelled spontaneously but who find themselves threatened by the regime and needing to defend themselves from it.

The more force a regime like Assad’s uses against its opponents as a whole, the more it expands the population engaged in defensive opposition. And if it keeps intensifying its violence as the opposition grows, then it will progressively eat away at its social base by forcing more and more people to change strategy from obedience to self-defense. If the government persists in doing this, then eventually the ratio between the regime’s social base and its opponents will reach a point where the country has fallen into full-scale civil war.

For Hobbes, civil war constitutes the death of the body politic and the greatest danger to those trying to survive within it. The need to avoid it was the reason why he doubted the idea of deliberately seeking political revolution. But avoidance of civil war is also the aim which ought to motivate governments, on his analysis, in their decisions about how to rule. Hobbes’s theory of rightful self-preservation helps identify errors that a regime like Assad’s should have avoided.

The philosopher’s analysis thus suggests that many people finding themselves in the spiraling cycles of violence that began in 2011 had no credible alternative and were therefore justified in resisting a regime that actively threatened them. We really can’t condemn those people. But what we can condemn is the government because it has failed its chief objective, which was to prevent the outbreak of civil war. Assad’s mismanagement of violence itself helped create and then expand the basis for legitimate defense against the regime and, hence, for wider rebellion and civil war.

So, what would Hobbes do now? After seven years of fighting, Syrian forces have recently retaken Daraa and are close to a complete victory over rebel forces. Now, it might seem tempting to think that Assad has made good on his mistakes and that a Hobbesian analysis would point towards a renewed obligation to obey the regime in Syria. But I think this conclusion is doubtful.

Hobbes argues that political obligation begins in a covenant by which individuals commit to obedience for the sake of protection. It is highly doubtful that a leader who has laid waste to vast swaths of his country, massacred hundreds of thousands of his own people, and secured victory over domestic opponents only with the military assistance of at least two major foreign powers (Iran and Russia) could offer to surviving Syrians a credible partner in a new social contract.

Syrians may not presently have any alternative to turn to. But Assad doesn’t even have the minimal legitimacy of a Hobbesian monarch, let alone anything that would merit the approval of a Lockean. Viewed in the unforgiving light of Hobbes’s political theory, his regime remains the problem; it is unlikely to have become the solution.

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The prize was specifically awarded to what was known as the Quartet for the National Dialogue: the UGTT (General Union of Tunisian Workers), UTICA (Tunisian Union of Industry, Trade, and Crafts), the FTDH (League of Human Rights) and the Bar Association (lawyers) for their work in maintaining our peaceful democratic transition. But given the size and diversity of those groups, and the great dedication of Tunisians to freedom, dignity, and democracy, the prize is an achievement in which all Tunisians can take pride. I myself am very proud.

You may have read about how the Arab Spring began in Tunisia, about our revolution for democracy, and about the obstacles—including violence and two major terrorist attacks this year—to our continuing democratic transition. But few people know much more than that.

Tunisia has a long history of moderation, cosmopolitanism, and integration of different groups that goes back to ancient times. There have been many civilizations here—from the Berbers to the Phoenicians (with their famous city of Carthage). We were the Roman province of Africa; we lived under Arab and Muslim and Turkish rule, and we were a French protectorate. We became independent in 1956, but soon fell into dictatorship. Today, as we have been before, we are a country on the sea that connects different regions of the world—Africa, Europe, the Middle East. Our democratic transition, begun five years ago, is at once revolutionary and a continuation of a tradition of mixing and change.

The Nobel Peace Prize honors an international campaign—with strong support from civil society groups across North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe—launched in February 2014 to promote a national dialogue that includes the largest components of Tunisian civil society. The UGTT—the general labor union—has led this dialogue, and often hosted key events at its headquarters in Tunis. As a scholar and president of the University of Carthage, I have been honored and flattered to be part of that campaign. The work has included creating processes to develop and support a new constitution, for peaceful transitions of power, for the establishment of an independent election commission, and for successful elections of parliament and a president. The collaboration has also created an opportunity to establish a modern direct democracy unseen in any Arab country.

In effect, the Quartet has brought together Tunisians so that their desire for democracy and human rights—now expressed via multiple elections in support of a constitution, a new parliament, and a president—was not only heard but drove the conversation.

The Quartet’s work helped to avoid the chaotic scenarios that have frustrated democratic transitions in so many other countries, and kept the transition here on a civil and peaceful path. The Quartet eased the turmoil after political assassinations, calling for peace and dialogue and warning against retribution. And it also provided a spark to re-examine and build up so many of our stagnant institutions. (The Tunisian economy, in particular, is struggling.) And the Quartet created an infrastructure for conversation, negotiation, and the forging of consensus among political parties and conflicting groups. That has been a force and voice for peace not only in Tunisia, but also in a region where countries like Libya and Egypt struggling with transition and turmoil.

Tunisia’s new constitution is the product of these efforts, and it is being followed by the establishment of local governments that include local democracy (including some innovations such as participatory budgeting). The Quartet’s work continues, and the Nobel Prize is an important spur. Tunisia’s strong civil organizations need to establish a culture of dialogue not only on political questions, but also on social, cultural, and institutional questions.

The conversation fostered by the Quartet has been characterized, incorrectly, as the Tunisian exception. To the contrary, the model of national dialogue here is an example that can and should travel outside Tunisia; we believe that it can work in every region of the world that still faces serious armed conflict. Central to the dialogue was drawing large cross sections of the society—different interests and different parts of the country—into talks, and being careful not to exclude people. The dialogue also focused on creating a roadmap to resolve multiple issues—often by expanding the conversation to more topics, so a dialogue can create more space for security, peace, and democracy. We are happy about this prize not merely for ourselves, but for societies involved in reducing conflict and pursuing democratic transition all over the world.

In Tunisia, this award should push us forward to build our human resources and take the next difficult steps in our democratic process, including the decentralization of power and the continous support for active citizenship and participatory democracy. Because of the long-term dictatorship, Tunisia does not have a system of local government and thus does not provide some basic local services. (Trash service has been a particular issue).

Last but not least, this honorable prize will also, no doubt, benefit our economic sector. Tunisia is a small country of 11 million people, and its economy relies on the outside world—through trade, investment, and tourism. The Nobel Peace Prize demonstrates international political trust in us; it grants Tunisia a certain credibility that should provide confidence to revive pending economic projects.

Many times such an award has merely symbolic importance. In Tunisia, however, this Nobel Prize should have profound and positive effects on our everyday lives.

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