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Beyond the euphoria of the early revolutionary moments, in 2010-2011, muted counter-revolutionary setbacks followed elite-led 'democratisation'. For those who construed the political developments in the aftermath of the popular uprisings in Tunisia, in the wake of Ben Ali's autocratic regime dismantlement, as a first step in the direction of a 'democratic transition', disappointments were on the horizon. By the summer of 2021, the sudden re-emergence of a powerful presidency in the name of 'returning sovereignty to the people', while the ghost of the oligarchic state and the spectre of the authoritarian elites still hung about, opened the door for the return of a bureaucratic police state. Meanwhile, the effects of lingering economic and health crises were compounded by politico-constitutional wrangling. These further clouded an already polarised social environment and created the political conditions for the 'restoration' of the 'presidentialist regime'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does democratisation affect the politics of migration? This paper analyses Tunisian immigration and emigration politics in the decade before and after the 2011 revolution, drawing on 57 interviews with Tunisian high-level civil servants, as well as representatives of civil society and international organisations. It shows that the democratisation of policy processes and the expansion of citizens' political freedoms did not result in pro-migrant rights reforms, but instead led to the continuation of restrictive migration policies inherited from Tunisia's authoritarian past. The paper explains this by dissecting the ambiguous effects of democratisation on political legitimisation, as well as on inter-institutional and transnational dynamics of migration policymaking. It demonstrates that despite the unprecedented dynamism of Tunisian civil society and efforts of various institutional actors to reform Tunisia's security-driven migration policy, there were both domestic and international forces that put brakes on migration reform. By focussing on the intricacies of Tunisian migration policymaking, this analysis allows to advance theory-building on the link between political regimes and migration politics, to revisit regime transformations from the inside and to overcome the still-dominant Eurocentrism in scholarly debates on North African migration policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significant role of women in all fields of the Tunisian society has been decisive since the country's struggle for independence from the colonial power, France, and during the state-building process of the post-colonial period. Furthermore, the events of and after the Arab Spring brought about a more active role for women's rights activists, which resulted in a widespread debate on gender equality. However, despite the efforts of the Tunisian Government to ensure protection against the discrimination of women, the growing socioeconomic crisis, amplified by the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, brought to the surface the difficulties of vulnerable groups, including women. Women engaged in rural activities were more at risk of facing deteriorating circumstances. In this context, the current study examines the relationship between the process of democratisation and the role women can play in the shaping of the political field and vice versa. In addition to applying statistical indicators, the article verifies the main theses of the research in the empirical part due to the incorporation of qualitative data collected from interviews conducted with five representatives/activists of local Tunisian NGOs. Although international relations themselves remain strongly gendered, the mobilisation of women's rights activists can contribute to overwriting traditional masculine and feminine roles in public versus private spheres, and thus can result in a more gender-friendly environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the analysis of local media and democratic transformation in Tunisia since the Arab Uprisings. It aims to assess the extent to which pluralism, freedom of expression, and participation--central tenets of democratisation--are evident at the local level. Tunisian local media, unlike the national media, is relatively free of governmental control. Local media is also decentralised. It is this autonomy from the government which makes the analysis of local media fundamentally important for understanding politics in Tunisia. While national media is linked to the most powerful elements in the country, the diversity of voices within the media at the local level provides an opportunity to grasp the grievances, struggles, and agency of people in Tunisia, especially the most marginalised communities. This article will detail the changes in the media landscape, especially for local media, in Tunisia and connect our analysis of local media to better understand the Tunisia that has developed between dictatorship and democracy and the extent that the fledgling Tunisian democracy can withstand its most recent test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of civil society as a democratising force, both under authoritarian regimes and during political transitions, has received renewed attention in the wake of the 'Arab Spring' uprisings. Considerable praise has been reserved for Tunisia, whose civil society played a prominent role in the country's successful transition. However, as a thorough analysis of the Tunisian example illustrates, this contrasts sharply with its relatively marginal role in the pre-2011 period. Indeed, Tunisian civil society has not always been a pro-democracy force, its functions shifted with the political context, and different types of civil society organisations (CSOs) played widely different roles. Tracing the evolution of civil society in Tunisia from the establishment of the Ben Ali regime in November 1987 until after its fall in January 2011, the article develops a more nuanced and dynamic understanding of its roles before, during, and after the revolution. More specifically, it shows that before the revolution, only a handful of CSOs served as islands of political resistance, while the majority functioned as vehicles of regime resilience, helping to strengthen authoritarian rule in the country. During the revolution, members of more critical CSOs played an important supporting role in the spread, organisation, and continuation of protests. Finally, in the post-revolutionary period, former oppositional CSOs, together with a plethora of newly created CSOs, were crucial not only in successfully steering the country towards a democratic transition but also in strengthening the nascent democracy. Civil society should thus be understood in its variety and particular political context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article puts forth a new heuristic model for analysing the EU's democracy assistance to non-accession countries. The EU's democracy assistance has predominantly been scrutinized in academia through the so-called democratization-stability dilemma, whereby allegedly the EU is found to single-mindedly promote regime stability to the detriment of democracy. Nevertheless, we argue that this conceptualization falls short of analysing the full dynamics of EU democracy assistance. Our contribution provides an alternative to the traditional conceptualization of EU democracy assistance, by proposing three alternative nexuses of analysis: formal/substantive democracy, elite/non-elite engagement and security/stability. We apply this new analytical framework to the study of EU's democracy assistance to Tunisia from 2011 to date. While EU's political and financial investment in the transition has been considerable in the three nexuses, negative interaction effects have generated several inconsistencies that affected several areas of EU's democracy assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After decades of irrelevance, the 2011 regime changes in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia stimulated hope that political parties would eventually strengthen their importance across North Africa, as in the projected future democracies the varieties of opinions across the citizenries were expected to be needed represented better in the political processes. Local as well as international organisations engaged in tailormade programmes for the setup and support of democratic and inclusive political parties. However, apart from notably Tunisia, no visible strengthening of democratic parties has occurred so far. While this failure has many reasons, this article argues that a core problem for higher relevance of political parties in North Africa is the lack of sufficient arenas for their activism, resulting in particular from the weakness of parliaments. As long as no relevant legislatures exist, the article claims, no adequately democratic, and effective, parties can be created. Yet, the relation between parliaments and parties is not a one-way road, as also the other relation is important: as long as parties remain irrelevant, parliaments will not be able to grow into meaningful loci of politics either. Hence, the paper problematises the fundamental 'chicken and egg' question for the analysis of the mutual interdependence of political parties and parliaments in North Africa. After a thorough assessment of both institutions' current shortcomings, it will trace ways to strengthen the relevance of both, political parties and parliaments, and show that both endeavours bear the chance of lasting success only if conducted in parallel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarly consensus postulates a sharp contrast exists between liberal values and realist interests in US foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, which finds its expression in the 'security–democracy' dilemma.​ This means the US rhetorical determination to abide by the values of a 'liberal' foreign policy is neutralised by the 'realist' priority of maintaining US strategic interests, which requires support for friendly authoritarian rulers. Scholarship tends to apply this reasoning indistinctly to the entire region, providing an encompassing framework of analysis for understanding US foreign policy, which is valid across time and space. This study challenges this theoretical assumption and argues that while the US might indeed have a comprehensive regional approach in the MENA, the resulting foreign policy follows country-based trajectories that respond to national specificities and the perceived implications for US strategic interests. Exploring US foreign policy in the MENA after 9/11, the article demonstrates that while the US emphasis on liberalism crumbled when faced with security issues, the US liberal approach to Tunisia unfolded more consistently. Although the US continued formal cooperation with Ben Ali's regime, it empowered at the same time a coalition of democratic opponents, solving the security–democracy dilemma and positively influencing the Tunisian democratisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arab uprisings paved the way for democratic elections in the Middle East and North Africa region. Yet countries in this region, except for Tunisia, were not able to maintain further democratisation. Tunisia, regardless of economic turbulence and security problems, managed to hold its second parliamentary elections in October 2014, and Ennahda, the party of the popular Islamist movement, could not keep mass support. A large number of studies have examined the rise of the Islamist parties as their electoral success in the post-Arab Uprisings elections by focusing on their organisational strength as well as their social services. However, the social basis of secular parties in the region has been overlooked in the democratisation literature. In this study, four competing arguments, religious–secularism cleavage, nostalgia for the old regime, negative campaign targeting Islamists, and retrospective voting, are considered as the key determinants of citizens' party choices. By using original election survey data, this study asserts that secular Nidaa Tounes derived its support from secular people, who, at the same time, sympathised with the old regime and disfavoured Islamists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article employs the concept of critical junctures within the Tunisian transition to explain Al-Nahda's transformation. The party's new attitude is explained as a product of the causal mechanism that links critical junctures and path dependence. Relying on qualitative analysis, this article offers an innovative approach to the development of the party. It shifts the focus from the causes behind Al-Nahda's transformation to the effects that the party' choices had on the transition to democracy and the new political system, highlighting how the agency of their decision-making in 2013 and 2014 guided the party–and the Tunisian transition–on a trajectory that enhanced the democratisation process. The article argues that since 2013 Al-Nahda has gradually accumulated democratic capital, fostering national reconciliation, which ultimately provided the party with the freedom to adopt a new political outlook. Finally, this article offers an innovative reasoning that refines theoretical tools when it comes to investigate the participation of Islamic parties in democratisation processes or political change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article charts the rise of the jihadi Salafi movement in Tunisia during the transitional period and analyses the way in which the national attempt to construct a more liberal and democratic system influenced its internal dynamics and debate. It highlights in particular how democratic mechanisms and liberal norms being put in place in Tunisia impacted on the movement and how then this was reflected in its interactions with the other social and political actors in the system. The unique Tunisian environment in which democratic mechanisms and individual liberal freedoms were introduced immediately after the revolution led the jihadi Salafi movement to operate through contradictory behaviour and actions in a process of what can be called ‘stop-start’ democratic learning, which ultimately failed. The novelty of the political arrangements was beneficial to jihadi Salafism initially, as the new liberal environment allowed it to proselytise and organise in the open while railing against democracy and liberalism. In doing so they unwillingly contributed to strengthen the consensus of political actors on the necessity to build a democratic system. However, under the weight of this contradictory attitude, the movement ended up threatening the transition and failed to integrate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After winning the 2011 elections, the Ennahda Islamist Party was the majority partner in successive coalition governments, whose poor performance – namely in the economic and security fields – disappointed the people’s high post-revolutionary expectations. Opponents accused Ennahda of incompetence, greed for power and double talk. Many of the Ennahda-led governments’ failures were due to factors beyond their control, but some did indeed depend on Ennahda’s own political weaknesses. Nevertheless, Ennahda contributed positively to the overall development of Tunisia’s political transition thanks to its moderation and pragmatism and its contribution remains paramount for the democratic consolidation of Tunisia and other political Islamic actors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Fostering a participatory political culture is a crucial part of the on-going transformation processes which we witness across North African and Middle Eastern countries since 2011. This paper considers which role participatory communication plays in these processes, by examining the potential of citizens' radios to accompany Tunisia's transition at a grassroots level. Analysing the case of Radio 6 Tunis -- a local, non-commercial Internet-radio founded by Tunisian journalists under the rule of Ben Ali in 2007 -- citizens' radios are discussed as sites of political contestation and cultivation of critical consciousness. While they empower citizens to reclaim both their voice and public space, their influence is however limited. The manifold challenges which citizens' radios face in the transitional context of post-autocratic Tunisia, may well impede nascent democratisation dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present monograph issue focuses on the 2011–2012 global wave of protests that began in Tunisia in 2011. This introductory article notes that two streams of mobilization can be distinguished in terms of the specific grievances they express, and the socioeconomic and political contexts in which they have emerged. The article argues, however, that despite these differences both threads find their antecedents in the increasing and widespread social and economic levels of inequality, which requires social movements theories to ‘bring political economy back’ in the analysis of mobilization. It is further argued that the various occupy movements that have emerged since 2011 constitute diverse manifestations of a new international cycle of contention. With its innovative and distinctive traits in terms of diffusion, coordination, action repertoires, frames, and types of activism, this new cycle seeks to both transform the economic system to provide greater equality, opportunities, and personal fulfillment and, simultaneously, to democratize power in more participatory ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no universal agreement on the specific function of elections in the processes of political liberalisation on which many countries in the Arab World are embarked today. This work considers the argument that the observation of electoral policies is one of the best ways of approaching and understanding the role played by elections in these countries. In line with this predetermination, this article presents a case study focused on the Tunisian casuistry, aiming to clarify the role played by elections in the process of Tunisian political liberalisation on which Ben Ali embarked 22 years ago. With this purpose in mind, the analysis focuses on the parliamentary and presidential policies implemented throughout the five elections held in Tunisia between 1989 and 2009. In doing so, it seeks to answer the following questions: What was the covert strategy that underlies each election policy? What were the legal foundations for those policies? What impact did they have on the elections? Did they affect the configuration of the party system? As a result, this paper concludes that in the short term these elections have legitimated the prolongation of the dominance of Ben Ali and his party. In the long term, these have favoured three phenomena: first, the maintenance of the cleavage between insiders and outsiders of the legal system; second, the decomposition of the political image of the institutionalised parties; and third, the disarticulation of the non-institutionalised political forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the constitutions of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia approach and reach the half-century mark, it is interesting to trace their evolution. The constitutions of all three countries have undergone myriad amendments and revisions over the years which, while creating an impression of active constitutional process, also indicate instability and the shortcomings of governing formulas in the region. This article explores a number of parallels that can be observed in the countries' constitutional evolutions. It finds however, that to a large extent, the number of reforms is misleading: many changes have been cosmetic, designed not to advance the countries along a constitutionalist path, but rather to tweak their political operating systems so as to adapt them to political developments, and above all, allow for their rulers' survival. However, while reforms such as the modification to the Algerian constitution on 12 November 2008 allowing the unlimited re-election of the Head of State, hardly represent democratic progress, the fact that a constitutional revision has to be undertaken first should be seen in itself as an advance. This goes to show something that will be made clear during the course of this article: the increasing, long-term importance in recent decades of constitutional law, even in countries without constitutionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]