This paper will present the final chapter of my dissertation, in which I compare the features and impacts of the first provisional administrations in Tunisia and Libya following the uprisings of 2011. My dissertation seeks to explain the drivers that shape first provisional administrations and their successes and failures, and the impacts they have on later phases of attempted transition from authoritarian rule. The dissertation studies how each first provisional administration formed, how it was structured, the decisions it took and challenges it faced, and how this affected the events and interim governments during the two-year period following the first post-uprising elections. I argue that the actors, institutions and strategies that characterize each provisional administration shed light on their similarities and differences, and that these features in turn help explain the differences in the two-year period following each one’s tenure. In Tunisia, for example, the actors that defined the first provisional administration included long-standing opposition figures, intellectuals and human rights activists, as well as figures associated with the authoritarian regime, while in Libya, the spectrum of actors was much more limited. Such differences informed each provisional administration’s ability to tackle key issues during its tenure as well as the abilities of its successors. The topic of interim governments has received little attention in the transitions literature. Yet as this research shows, interim governments face enormous challenges, and their decisions can determine the direction of the country’s political future. Furthermore, they must delicately balance legitimacy with legality while trying to maintain control and political, if not general, stability (Shain and Linz 1995). By illuminating important aspects of the first interim governments in Tunisia and Libya and how they addressed these challenges, this study makes an important contribution to, first, the scholarship on authoritarian breakdown and political transition, second, the literature on the events of the 2011 Arab uprisings. The paper will draw on interviews conducted in Tunisia and in Washington, D.C. between 2013 and 2015, as well as secondary sources published in the United States, Europe and the Middle East since 2011.