Much scholarly attention in the last decade has been devoted to post-conflict constitutional processes and their impact on the overall transition. However, such an approach neglects the vital proto-constitutional phase which inevitably precedes the election or selection of a constituent assembly. This short period is often governed by unelected transitional administrations which fundamentally shape the nature of the constitutional and political processes which follow. The High Commission for the Realisation of the Objectives of the Revolution, Political Reform and Democratic Transition in Tunisia, and the National Transitional Council in Libya are two such transitional administrations. After explaining the structure and make-up of these bodies, I will argue that variation in the transitional trajectory taken in Tunisia and Libya can partly be attributed to the decisions and decision-making processes chosen by these bodies. These factors determine the opportunity and threat structures perceived by different domestic actors and constituencies. I suggest that decisions, particularly concerning the choice of electoral system and candidacy criteria for elections, significantly condition the actors who secure decision-making roles and constituencies which are represented in the political sphere. This impact both the policy direction taken and the character of the State as a whole. Furthermore, in establishing the putative “rules of the game”, particularly who is de facto excluded from participation, these transitional administrations significantly impact upon the acceptance and legitimacy of the transition, and may determine the State’s success or failure to emerge from conflict and unrest. For example, the decision to adopt a system of proportional representation in Tunisia for the 2011 National Constituent Assembly (NCA) elections ensured that no Party was able to govern alone and dominate the constitution-drafting process. This attenuated concerns about Ennahda dominance during the transitional phase. Conversely, the decision to opt for a largely individual-based electoral system, over a list-based system, in the 2012 General National Congress (GNC) election in Libya created intense fragmentation in the GNC. This fragmentation paralysed the GNC and led to its ineffectiveness, with concomitant effects on the GNC’s legitimacy and acceptance by the population. This ultimately led to the need for two further national elections in the ensuing two years (2013 and 2014) with disastrous results for post-revolutionary Libya. The study’s methodology is qualitative, based on extensive interviews with the principal decision-makers inside these two bodies. Additional primary sources include contemporaneous newspaper articles and interviews, archived documents and public materials, memoires and biographies of key figures.

Following the overthrow of Qaddafi, Libyan politicians pressured the new government into issuing a law to organize the political sphere and allow for establishment of political parties. The Transitional National Council issued law 29 in May of 2012. During the first general elections for the General National Congress (GNC) in July 2012, political parties were given the chance to run in the form of lists that would compose 40% of the GNC. The decision was made in attempt to ensure that parties participate but do not have the majority to hijack the congress. Some parties, however, directed their members to run as individuals, which composed the other 60% of GNC. The public mistakenly perceived individuals as "independents" and therefore was surprised as parties took over the GNC completely within few sessions. Considering the unstable situation and inefficient government performance between 2012 and 2014, the public largely blamed political parties, leading to pressure to ban parties from participating in the parliamentary elections in June of 2014. The sentiment continued with the ongoing reconciliation process and national dialogue. I argue that, contrary to public belief, political parties have been critical in preventing the spark of a civil war between 2012 and 2014, as they offered an alternative to strong tribal and regional affiliations that later came to control the Libyan political arena post summer 2014. For this paper, I utilize interviews with politicians, both independent and party figures, as well as government officials. I also compare the functioning mechanism of NTC, GNC, and HoR to evaluate the uniqueness provided by party participation. I review tensions between 2012 and 2014 and study the role of GNC, and especially party-affiliated members in resolving such issues. Comparing the performance of the GNC with its predecessor and successor will help understand the positive role that political parties played in containing tensions and introducing legislations.

In January 2014, Tunisia’s National Constituent Assembly (NCA) approved the country’s first democratic constitution by near unanimity of votes. The high approval rate which involved politicians representing leftist, centrist, Arab nationalist, Islamist and secularist inclinations who held diverging views on the organization of politics following the 2010/11 popular uprising gained Tunisia a ranking of “free” by the Freedom House in 2015, certifying its democratic change. It also set the country apart from nearby Egypt, where the 2012 constitutional disagreement was seen as a prelude to the military’s intervention in politics in the following year (El-Shobaki, 2014). Recent accounts of the Tunisian post-revolution political pact have pointed to role of the political elites’ commitment to dialogue and compromise, their previous experience with cross-ideological negotiations, and pragmatic approach to politics maintained by the leadership of the major Islamist party, Ennahda (Bellin, 2013; Stepan and Linz, 2013; McCarthy, 2019). However, just a few months before the constitution’s adoption, when non-Islamist parties withdrew from the NCA and called for its dissolution, few would have predicted such a broad approval. Drawing on more than 50 in-depth interviews with partisans, members of civil society and experts, analysis of the constitution’s consecutive draft, opinion polls, and secondary literature, this article disentangles the constitutional agreement. It focuses on three key areas of divergence between the political parties, and the resolution of the contentious issues between the outset of constitution-making and the constitution’s adoption. These are the religion-state relations, the configuration of the political system, and the resignation of the Ennahda-led government coalition. I show that despite their initial electoral weakness and their fragmentation compared to Ennahda, non-Islamists managed to turn the constitution increasingly to their liking, while also restricting Ennahda’s control over the government. Although multiple factors contributed to arriving at a constitution that was acceptable across the religious divide and consequently agreed, this article highlights the importance of a situation in which there was no alternative to settling the differences, a state of affairs that was facilitated by the changes in the balance of power between Ennahda and its non-Islamist political rivals between 2011 and 2014. This finding brings nuance to the debate about the political transformation in Tunisia. It also contributes to the literature on democratization which has predominantly focused on the regime-opposition power configuration (e.g. Stradiotto and Guo, 2010), by stressing the importance of the power balance between the opposition forces themselves.

The proposed paper analyses how Tunisian gender politics developed over the course of the Tunisian democratization process (2011-2014). It uses Bourdieu’s concept of the “political field” to understand the actions and framings of actors in gender politics in interrelation with their position in the overall power structure and the dominant rules and values in the field. Since Tunisia’s struggle for independence, the country’s political dynamics were shaped by a conflict between the modernist regime and its conservative challengers. The conflict was carried out in a direct competition during the transitional process and finally mitigated in 2014 with all major political actors accepting each other as legitimate participators in the political field. Gender politics served as a major battlefield of this conflict and women’s rights are intertwined with claims of a modernist Tunisian identity on one side, or claims of an “authentic” Arab-Islamic Tunisian identity, on the other. Modernism remained the hegemonic discourse and transitional gender policies are best described as in continuity with former regime policies. Modernism provided liberal and leftist feminists’ demands with legitimacy and strength. At the same time, however, it also limited what feminists could demand as women’s empowerment was not seen as a struggle against male domination, but as a struggle of modernisers against backward habits. A feminist critique of modernist policies and actors could hardly be voiced or articulated. Only in 2014 when the conflict between conservative and modernists lost importance, women across the political spectrum started to identify more strongly with each other than with their modernist or conservative “camp”. The mitigation of the main conflict in the field thus opened up possibilities for new alliances and alternative discourses and demands. Tunisian transitional gender politics differ from other cases in feminist transitional studies in that women’s empowerment is usually seen as deflecting from the greater goals of a revolution and a legacy of so-called ‘state feminism’ usually leads to a backlash against women empowerment after the revolution. My research thus contributes a unique case study to feminist transitology and advances an original theoretical approach by using Bourdieu’s political field to analyse policy fields. The analysis is based on a qualitative content analysis of interviews with activists, NGO members and politicians conducted during three three-month long research stays in Tunisia 2012-2014 and complemented with minutes and draft laws of the decision making bodies.