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Elite Political Tolerance in Tunisia and the Malleability of Democratic Norms
Abstract
What structures intolerance among social and political elites in Tunisia? This question is compelling in its own right, as evident from the numerous studies that compare mass and elite level political tolerance (primarily in America and other English-speaking settings). Yet, it is all the more pressing to gauge this norm in the Tunisian context for at least two reasons. First, Tunisia’s nascent democracy remains vulnerable to authoritarian backsliding and, historically, political entrepreneurs will often scapegoat disliked political groups to facilitate a consolidation of autocratic power. Second, my earlier findings from an original mass-level survey in Tunisia indicate that the populace is willing to extend tolerance toward entities they dislike so long as these groups engage in formal politics; yet these attitudes are rather malleable and, as a result, susceptible to elite messaging. In this paper, I present findings from an original elite survey in Tunisia (n=250) fielded in the weeks leading up to the country’s most recent round of elections in fall 2019. I demonstrate that tolerance is exceptionally high among civil society personnel and political party members, although there are notable divergences from this general pattern in terms of elite type and target group. Beyond these descriptive findings, I outline the key determinants of tolerance among this sample, noting the deviations from the mass-level model and discuss the implications of these results for both short-term fluctuations in Tunisian democracy and the study of political tolerance in non-Western settings.
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Tunisia
Sub Area
Democratization