In 2014, Tunisia constitutionalized the principle of creating a decentralized "local power", following into the footsteps of other countries that have previously took the path towards a democratic transition. The transfer of some of the powers of the Tunisian State to locally elected officials was intended by the "constituents" (members of the National Constituent Assembly) as a way to break with the regimes of Bourguiba and Ben Ali (1956-2011), where the tendencies of state centralism and authoritarianism seemed to have mutually reinforced each other. This paper therefore proposes to analyze the process of decentralization in Tunisia by focusing on the project of the "constituents", which was to rebuild the power relations between the State and local authorities (Chapter VII of the Tunisian Constitution). This reorganization mainly involves today two types of actors: a) the representatives of the State – ministries of Interior, Local affairs, Finance, and Equipment, as well as governors and delegates (wali and mo'tamad ) of provinces - and b) representatives of local populations - presidents of municipal councils, parliamentarians and civil society associations. By describing the changes in their institutional and political relations - such as state supervision and the decision-making power of locally elected representatives - we will aim to analyse the process of political and financial empowerment of local authorities vis-a-vis the State. This will also allow us to examine if these changes have an impact on the consolidation of the Tunisian democratic transition at the local level, especially after the municipal elections of 2018. This paper is based on a series of interviews conducted over the last two years with the main actors of the decentralization in Tunisia, as well as surveys in three localities (Sfax, Mednine and Hay Ettadhamen in the suburbs of Tunis). While the decentralization process is often looked at by academics and experts from a technical and formal angle of how local government fits into the institutional-territorial architecture, this study will analyse the decentralization as a cross-national dimension of Tunisian politics in its context of a democratic transition, thus offering a different perspective on the process.