Democratic Transition In Tunisia Research Articles

The Crisis of Democratisation in Tunisia: Causes, Indicators, Lessons Learned

The democratic transition in Tunisia was unique in the Arab region before it veered off course. The current political crisis is the most precarious, disruptive moment yet seen in the country. This study aims to highlight the reasons for the failure of the Tunisian democratic transition and the lessons that can be drawn from the experience. Beginning with a definition of democratic transition as a theoretical introduction, the study uses a descriptive analytical approach to describe and explain the failure of the democratic transition in Tunisia. It concludes that despite the existence of various instruments of democratisation in Tunisia, such as the peaceful transfer of power, guarantees for rights and freedoms in Tunisian constitutions, a consensual constitution, and participatory transitional institutions, the transition in Tunisia has faltered. The most important lessons the study draws from the stalled transition are: economic development is an important factor in democratisation; the peaceful rotation of power is not sufficient to ensure the success of the transition; genuine consensus must be built between elites and the opposition; and finally, the lack of specific constitutional institutions may hinder the democratic transition.

The Failure of the Democratic Transition in Tunisia (2010- 2021): The Reasons and the Expected Scenarios

The study aims to highlight the theoretical rooting of the concept of democratic transition, and to study the reasons for the failure of the Tunisian experience after ten years of the democratic transition process in light of the escalation of the political and constitutional crisis and the conflict between the three presidencies (President of the Republic, Head of Government, Speaker of the Assembly of People’s Representatives). The paper also aims to study the justifications that prompted the President of the Republic to issue exceptional decisions (7/25/2021) to freeze the democratic process. The article uses the historical, descriptive, analytical, and probabilistic inductive approach to prove the validity of its hypothesis. There is a correlation between the stumbling of the democratic transition process and the form of the mixed political system that was adopted in the 2014 constitution. The study foretells the scenario of amending and restructuring the political system towards the presidential system. Keywords: Tunisia, The democratic transition, Ennahda party, Qais Saied, Rashid Ghannouchi, Hybrid political regime.

Strategic Choices: How Conservative Women Activists Remained Active throughout Tunisia's Democratic Transition

Gender politics scholars conclude that conservatives and religious actors curtail women's rights and political participation during a democratic transition, except in post‐conflict contexts. Yet, this was not the case in Tunisia. This article documents how Islamist women activists remained active throughout the democratic transition in Tunisia. I argue that Islamist women within Tounissiet remained politically active by making two strategic choices: (1) not challenging conservatives and (2) aligning with liberal feminists when it was in their interest. This article builds on the emerging scholarship on women's roles in a democratic transition, especially conservative women, by providing original empirical work on an Islamist women's rights organization in a democratizing Tunisia. I suggest that more needs to be understood about conservative women and new actors that democratic transitions empower and embolden.

The Power of Bipartisan Mobilization: The Success of Tunisia’s Feminist Movement During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Abstract The Tunisian government, which is deeply divided, especially along ideological lines, responded to growing concerns over increased violence against women during the Coronavirus pandemic by establishing a new domestic violence shelter and 24/7 hotline. This article asks: Why did the state respond to gender-based violence(gbv) concerns during the Coronavirus pandemic in Tunisia, despite ideological and political divisions? We argue that the state addressed some concerns around violence during the pandemic because combatting gbv has bipartisan support in Tunisia. Tunisian Islamist and secularist women’s rights organizations succeeded in building a bipartisan coalition of support on this issue because they worked either together in a short-lived coalition or in tandem with similar goals over the past decade during the democratic transition in Tunisia. Building on the existing coalition literature, we show that feminist coalition formation before a pandemic has implications for feminists’ success in times of crisis.

“I Do Not Forgive!”

Abstract Reconciliation is a central goal of transitional justice. Yet, its importance for democratization can give reconciliation a coercive edge, pressuring victims to abandon legitimate grievances for the good of the nation to come. This article considers struggles over popular sovereignty in Tunisia's democratic transition, by examining the anticorruption campaign Manish Msamah (“I do not forgive”). Manish Msamah was formed in 2015 to defeat the Project Law on Economic and Financial Reconciliation, legislation that proposed amnesty for crony capitalists who profited from the Ben Ali dictatorship. Drawing on participant observation, media analysis, and activist interviews, the author shows how Manish Msamah debunks the ruse of consent at the heart of reconciliation, and in doing so maintains fidelity to the ideals of the 2011 Revolution. The campaign is revealed as an early participant in the “second wave” of the Arab Spring, which has refused the lure of procedural democracy in favor of deeper structural change.

Corporate law and governance: A case of Tunisia after the Arab Spring

This paper reviews the corporate governance practices of listed Tunisian companies. Besides that, the paper explores the evolution of corporate governance legislation between 2013 and 2017 in order to identify the changes caused by the revolution to accompany the current context’s needs and the democratic transition in Tunisia. Although the most of companies in Tunisia are dominated by family small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and very small enterprises (VSEs) we have chosen to focus on listed companies. These companies present more advanced practices of corporate governance given the legislation in force. Results of this paper shed light on several important features of the Tunisian corporate governance system, for example, interlocking directorates. It is interesting to notice that a limited number of directors control the majority of the market capitalization in Tunisia. The practice of interlocking directorates reflects the Tunisian way of economic lobbying. As for gender diversity, although there are no laws imposing a minimum quota of women directors, the proportion of female board members has slightly increased during the last years, moving from 7.87% in 2013 to 9.92% in 2017. In contrast to Arab and African countries, it should be noted that the majority of women directors sit on boards as members of the family controlling the company or because they are civil servants representing the state’s interests in state-owned enterprises

Fighting Corruption within the Framework of Transitional Justice: The Impact on Democratic Transition in Tunisia

Fighting Corruption within the Framework of Transitional Justice: The Impact on Democratic Transition in Tunisia

Social Dialogue and Democracy in Tunisia

Promoting social dialogue is a requirement of the democratic transition in Tunisia. But, the effectiveness of this dialogue remains limited in particular because of the shortcomings of the law concerning the institutionalization of tripartite social dialogue, as well as the lack of an appropriate legal framework for bipartite social dialogue.

Currency returns during democratic transition: evidence from Tunisia

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the question whether democratic transition elections influence currency returns. Also, the paper examines the behavior of the currency market around these elections in Tunisia.Design/methodology/approachEmpirical data are collected from the International Monetary Fund, the Central Bank of Tunisia and the Tunisian stock market websites. The paper employs event study analysis using a market model and investigates abnormal currency returns around the four election events that occurred during the period of democratic transition in Tunisia (2011–2015). A robustness test is also conducted to control for monetary policy effects.FindingsThe results indicate that democratic transition does impact currency returns. The authors did not find any significant effect on the events dates (t0). However, event windows around the elections days reacted significantly to the events. The authors notice a significant decrease in cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) at event periods leading up to the elections. Post-event windows perceived negative CARs in the first and second election, and positive CARs in the last two elections. The authors also find that the change in the victors of the elections does not cause major differences to CARs. Further, the authors do not find significant results when controlling for inflation and interest rate.Originality/valueThere is no evidence yet on how democratic transition elections can affect currency returns. Given that currency is a leading indicator of the performance of the financial sector, this paper should provide policymakers with new evidence on the response of currency returns to democratic transition.

Do democratic revolutions ‘activate’ participants? The case of Tunisia

The democratic transition in Tunisia and free and fair elections that followed offer a unique opportunity to assess whether the experience of participating in successful political efforts translates into subsequent political participation. We consider whether participation in a democratic revolution is associated with greater rates of participation in nascent ‘normal’ democratic processes. Leveraging data from two surveys fielded in the wake of the revolution and the Constituent Assembly elections that followed, we find scant evidence of a relationship between protest participation and subsequent turnout. We also consider the possibility that young – presumably more impressionable – Tunisians were more likely to be ‘activated’ by protest participation. However, our findings run directly counter to this expectation. Our findings show that the socializing effects of monumental historical events can be strikingly circumscribed.

A Socio-Cognitive Approach to Factive Presupposition and Epistemic Modality in Hillary Clinton's Political Discourse: Tunisia's Democratic Transition as a Case Study

Since political discourse portrays politicians’ knowledge state and their ideological assumptions, a critical analysis of Clinton’s speeches may unveil her perceptual and conceptual worlds. More specifically, critical discourse analysis may uncover her mental representations about the Tunisian Revolution and the US attitude towards such an important political event in North Africa and the Middle East. Studying factive presupposition and epistemic modality seems to be an effective pragmatic tool to reveal what is presented as factual and ideological knowledge in political discourse. The research instrument used to work out the frequency distribution of these lexical features is the latest version of ‘AntConc’ software. To uncover the epistemic state of Hillary Clinton, van Dijk’s (1995b) socio-cognitive approach, mainly discourse-cognition-society paradigm, is applied to analyze her speeches between January 2011 and December 2012. At the discourse level, research findings reveal that factive presupposition, epistemic modality and evidential verbs unveil the speaker’s strong personal commitment to the truth value of her propositions. At the cognitive level, results show that the speaker’s personal and social values, attitudes, ideologies and knowledge unmask her mental mapping of Tunisia, democracy and human rights. It also uncovers the cognitive mechanisms that govern discourse production and understanding via ICMs, cognitive frames, mental models and context models. At the social level, research demonstrates that Clinton's perceptual and conceptual worlds are based on a dichotomy that involves ‘WE’, or democracies Vs. ‘THEY’ or the enemies of democracy, hence a dual vision of the world or polarization. This research bridges the lack of research combining epistemic presupposition, epistemic modality and evidentiality within a socio-cognitive framework

Modelling for a living: two-level games and rhetorical action in the foreign debt negotiations of post-revolutionary Tunisia

ABSTRACTThis article discusses the global-level financial constraints that shape Tunisia's foreign policy, this debtor state's international agency and the way its post-2011 authorities have managed/negotiated the issue of foreign debt both internally and internationally, including the ‘odious debt’ inherited from the Ben Ali dictatorship and the renewed borrowing necessities of the country. Viewed against the backdrop of the geopolitical and economic vulnerability that has driven Tunisian foreign policy throughout history, foreign debt is shown to have featured as a highly politicised issue in the domestic sphere in 2011–2012, until the February 2013 crisis enabled an increasingly technocratic government to halt the parliamentary bill calling for a debt audit and to break the taboo on new borrowing from the IMF. On the external front, a distinction is drawn between an adaptive/compliant and a resistant type of foreign policy agency, which can be observed in the international action and rhetoric on this matter deployed by Essebsi and Marzouki respectively. Adaptive/compliant foreign policy agency is technocratic and de-politicising in nature, as it attempts to isolate or blackbox domestic politics when negotiating Tunisian foreign debt abroad – while paradoxically exploiting an ideal representation of Tunisia's democratic transition (role modelling) in order to demand greater international financial support. Resistant foreign policy agency is more openly political inasmuch as its builds on post-revolutionary domestic politics and contestation. Although the latter approach bore some material fruit in the form of debt conversion measures by the country's major bilateral creditors, adaptive/compliant foreign policy agency prevailed from 2013 onwards.

A Socio-cognitive Approach to Factive Presupposition and Epistemic Modality in Hillary Clinton's Political Discourse: Tunisia's Democratic Transition as a Case Study

Since political discourse portrays politicians’ knowledge state and their ideological assumptions, a critical analysis of Clinton’s speeches may unveil her perceptual and conceptual worlds. More specifically, critical discourse analysis may uncover her mental representations about the Tunisian Revolution and the US attitude towards such an important political event in North Africa and the Middle East. Studying factive presupposition and epistemic modality seems to be an effective pragmatic tool to reveal what is presented as factual and ideological knowledge in political discourse. The research instrument used to work out the frequency distribution of these lexical features is the latest version of ‘AntConc’ software. To uncover the epistemic state of Hillary Clinton, van Dijk’s (1995b) socio-cognitive approach, mainly discourse-cognition-society paradigm, is applied to analyze her speeches between January 2011 and December 2012. At the discourse level, research findings reveal that factive presupposition, epistemic modality and evidential verbs unveil the speaker’s strong personal commitment to the truth value of her propositions. At the cognitive level, results show that the speaker’s personal and social values, attitudes, ideologies and knowledge unmask her mental mapping of Tunisia, democracy and human rights. It also uncovers the cognitive mechanisms that govern discourse production and understanding via ICMs, cognitive frames, mental models and context models. At the social level, research demonstrates that Clinton's perceptual and conceptual worlds are based on a dichotomy that involves ‘WE’, or democracies Vs. ‘THEY’ or the enemies of democracy, hence a dual vision of the world or polarization. This research bridges the lack of research combining epistemic presupposition, epistemic modality and evidentiality within a socio-cognitive framework

Neighborhood Policy, Cross-border Cooperation and the Re-bordering of the Italy–Tunisia Frontier

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the contents and outcomes of the cross-border cooperation program between Italy and Tunisia in light of a review of the limits of the European Neighborhood Policy and of its impact on the construction of the EU external frontiers. The transfer of the CBC policy model to this and similar cases, it is argued, produces ambivalent results due to various asymmetries and the lack of a proper multi-level governance of trans-border relations. Some suggestions are proposed about how a renewed approach may increase the political relevance of the program, support the democratic transition in Tunisia and contribute to a rethinking of Euro-Mediterranean policies.

Transition to democracy in Tunisia: Learning about citizenship in a national and transnational context

In this article devoted to the democratic transition in Tunisia, we will provide an opportunity to reflect once again on the process and dynamics entailed in learning about citizenship in a context of transition. We want to stress the different experiences and various moments or events that contributed to bringing about this ‘citizenship’ (mouwâtana).

Cartooning and the Democratic Transition in Tunisia

Cartooning and the Democratic Transition in Tunisia

Arabské jaro 2011: sekularizace na ústupu? Nová vlna islamizace v zemích severní Afriky

The process of revolutionary changes in the North African region in 2011 sparked the flame of hope for change and implementing reforms viewed through the lens of the West. The fall of the dictator and the process of democratic transition in Tunisia as a major commitment to a peaceful future for the whole region and coming closer to the Western-style concept of democracy. How unrealistic has this premise proved to be, it is illustrated by the recent development in Tunisia, Libya, as well as Syria. It is really important to ask, how the requirements and goals of the Arab revolution 2011 reflected into the actual change at the national political scene in various Islamic countries. Isn't the call for democracy inspired by its western model, taking the form of the dictator's subversion, revision of the constitution and observing human rights, particularly the freedom of speech and fighting for the abolition of the censorship, the reason for strengthening the effort of some political Islam groups (such as Salafiyya) to obtain more influence in the society? Can the current sectarian violence in Libya be viewed as a new, slowly coming wave of violence in the name of fighting between different Islamic sects? Does the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's attitude restrain the real reform and transition to a new system in the country? And isn't Tunisia becoming a victim of its own dream of better tomorrow after Ben Ali's fall?

Democratic transition in Tunisia: A rewarding path

Democratic transition in Tunisia: A rewarding path