Tunisia’s democratic success: Power-sharing and human rights after the Victory
Country: Tunisia
Tunisia’s democratic resilience in the legacy of the Arab Spring speaks to the power of a rights and tolerance-focused attitude to governance, even in tense and unstable political conditions. These virtues may be essential in the post-Trump era of American politics.
Lessons:
Power-sharing and forced compromise can be stabilizing forces, but only when backed by norms of basic democratic and human rights. The language of rights and legitimacy could help restore lost common ground in the United States.
A major divide in America’s so-called culture war is the dispute between having less or more religious influence in politics. Tunisia provides an instructive example of how political leaders can frame secular–religious divides as a normal part of ideological, political disagreements -- and not as an existential threat to either group.
On December 17, 2010, a Tunisian street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire as a protest against extortion and harassment under the government of then-President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali. [1] Bouazizi’s death was the spark that lit a simmering cauldron of discontent, first in Tunisia, and then across the Arab world. The pro-democracy movements—which toppled dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya and caused significant upheaval or violence in almost a dozen other countries—were driven by long-standing anger over stagnant economic conditions and the harsh political realities of dictatorship and further propelled by social media connectivity.
Yet this series of protests and uprisings dubbed the Arab Spring failed to bring summer. Mental barriers of fear and apathy were broken at scale for many everyday citizens by this unprecedented surge of democratic action, but movements petered out, were quashed by new forms of authoritarianism, or in some cases deteriorated into full scale civil war. Today, the only exception to this trend is Tunisia. To be sure, Tunisian democracy is fragile,[2] but with its third democratic elections in the fall of 2019, this small Mediterranean country stands in sharp contrast to its neighbors.
Of course, for many Tunisians the revolution has been a disappointment, failing to bring significant economic or social benefits. Asma Cherifi, the founding CEO of TACID Network (a network of more than 200 Tunisian nongovernmental organizations), says that the real project of social and economic change is ongoing .[3] Without attention to economic inequalities, democracy will always fall short.
These frustrations are widespread in Tunisia. The cost of living has increased by 30 percent since 2016, and almost 90 percent of poll respondents see the economic situation as either “somewhat” or “very bad.”[4] That said, the same poll found that a majority of Tunisians are at least somewhat satisfied with the government’s efforts to fight corruption and “the capacity of municipal and regional governments to address the needs of citizens.”[5]
Tunisia is not just the sole success story of the Arab Spring, it is one of the only democratic success stories of the past decade anywhere in the world. As Larry Diamond has observed, “around 2006, the expansion of freedom and democracy in the world came to a prolonged halt.”[6] Many see this “democratic recession” as a global phenomenon, affecting even advanced democracies like the United States.[7]
That Tunisian democracy stands in sharp contrast to this trend suggests that it should be studied by democracy advocates everywhere. In this vein, there are several broad lessons to be gleaned:
Tunisia shows how power-sharing can be a stabilizing force—but only when backed by norms of cooperation. According to Radwan Masmoudi, the President of the Center of the Study of Islam & Democracy, “electoral laws and the [new 2011] constitution were written in a way to prevent any single party from dominating the political process or political institutions.”[8] Like the United States, checks-and-balances and separation of powers are built into the Tunisian Constitution. Unlike the United States, politicians on both sides of Tunisia’s main partisan divide so far tend to be invested in the norms behind coalition government. Factions of all ideologies are “determined not to go back to dictatorship,” says Masmoudi. “They’ve seen the alternative [to power-sharing] for 23 years and how it tore the country apart.”[9]
This delicate balance is built on a deliberate and careful language of rights and legitimacy. In Tunisia, the emphasis on basic democratic civil and human rights—the notion that all parties around the table have real and important priorities and grievances, if not the same opinions—has been critical in building trust, even in a fragile moment.
Because the basic notion that ideological opponents are still politically legitimate can no longer be taken for granted in the United States, a contemporary reframing of the universality of basic political rights following Tunisia’s example could be a timely effort to help preserve democracy in the United States. Political leaders will have to work to restore some cooperation lost in recent decades. The ideas of (a) power-sharing as a necessary part of the politics and (b) language about the universality of civil and political rights for all can help frame that process.The careful balance between secular and religious forces has interesting parallels for cultural and political divides in the United States—in particular the language used to debate religious versus secular politics. “There is a danger of backlash against secular democracy when it is seen as not being respectful enough of religious values,” says Masmoudi.[10] The reverse is also undeniably true, as secularist fears of religious zealotry were an underpinning of Egypt’s return to authoritarianism.[11] For now, Tunisia has managed to not trigger this clash. In part, this is because political leaders have been careful to frame secular–religious divides as a normal part of ideological disagreements and not an existential threat to either group.
Democracy in Tunisia may be 228 years younger than in the United States, but the fundamental problems in both countries today are not necessarily that different. When asked about threats to Tunisia’s upcoming elections, Masmoudi highlighted two concerns: “the influence of money and rich business people in the political process [and] the influence of outside players and countries who are trying to influence the elections.”[12] Cherifi agrees that corruption and “the relationship between power and money” should be a central and pressing concern for the young democracy. ”[13] Unless this nexus is broken, democracy will fail to deliver on its promise.
Perhaps the best things Tunisia has going for it are a clear-eyed view of its challenges, a political class broadly willing to compromise, and citizenry eager to help bring change. For the 2019 Tunisian elections, almost 1,600 people—one in every 7,000 Tunisians—ran for Parliament.[14] Such an environment producing promising results in the near and long term provides valuable food for thought for democracy reformers in the United States.
End Notes:
[1] Lin Noueihed, “FEATURE-Peddler’s Martyrdom Launched Tunisia’s Revolution,” Reuters, January 19, 2011, https://af.reuters.com/article/libyaNews/idAFLDE70G18J20110119.
[2] “Tunisia’s Fragile Democracy Faces a Stiff Test,” The Economist, July 4, 2019, https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2019/07/04/tunisias-fragile-democracy-faces-a-stiff-test.
[3] Asma Cherifi. Interview by Ben Raderstorf. Phone. September 13, 2019.
[4] “Tunisia Poll Confirms Deep Economic Unease; Satisfaction with Anticorruption Campaign | IRI,” International Republican Institute, January 10, 2018, https://www.iri.org/resource/tunisia-poll-confirms-deep-economic-unease-satisfaction-anticorruption-campaign.
[5] “Tunisia Poll Confirms Deep Economic Unease; Satisfaction with Anticorruption Campaign | IRI.”
[6] Larry Diamond, “Facing Up to the Democratic Recession,” Journal of Democracy 26, no. 1 (2015): 141–55, https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2015.0009.
[7] “Democracy in Crisis: Freedom House Releases Freedom in the World 2018,” Freedom House, January 16, 2018, https://freedomhouse.org/article/democracy-crisis-freedom-house-releases-freedom-world-2018.
[8] Radwan Masmoudi. Interview by Ben Raderstorf. Phone. September 10, 2019.
[9] Radwan Masmoudi. Interview by Ben Raderstorf. Phone. September 10, 2019.
[10] Radwan Masmoudi. Interview by Ben Raderstorf. Phone. September 10, 2019.
[11] Shadi Hamid, “Muslim Brothers,” Foreign Affairs, February 13, 2019, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2018-08-14/muslim-brothers.
[12] Radwan Masmoudi. Interview by Ben Raderstorf. Phone. September 10, 2019.
[13] Asma Cherifi. Interview by Ben Raderstorf. Phone. September 13, 2019.
[14] “Tunisia: 1,592 Applications for Parliamentary Elections,” Middle East Monitor, July 31, 2019, https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190731-tunisia-1592-applications-for-parliamentary-elections/.
