During regime change, how does the balance between security and liberty shift? In Arab states in particular, this tension is often reflected in a struggle between Islamists on the one hand and nationalists/anti-Islamists on the other. In the so-called Arab Spring states of 2011-2014 – Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, and Syria—this dynamic led to three different outcomes. First, as in Egypt and Yemen, the traditional authoritarian state gained the upper hand over contesting Islamist parties, claiming itself necessary for restoring security, resulting in a return to the status quo. Second, as in Libya and (to some extent) Syria, neither side gained the upper hand, and the result was civil war. In Tunisia, instead, a compromise between the two sides was reached in the form of a democratic institution-building project. This paper argues that, over the course of the three years following the fall of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s regime in January 2011, though some of the old repressive tools of the state re-emerged, a balance between security and liberty/democracy was reached without a return to traditional authoritarian methods. Islamists represented the rhetoric of revolution and democracy, while anti-Islamists or nationalists, on the other side, insisted on the nation-state and the return of the apparatus as a guarantee for security and stability. The two sides eventually agreed on a ‘democratic deal’ according to which Islamists would be obliged to support the strong state and recognize a free dialectic between the two camps in the frame of the new constitutional rules. This paper uses research from several neighborhoods in Tunisia during 2012 and 2013 to shed light on how this process played out. The findings can contribute to understanding of how and why post-revolutionary processes unfold differently in different countries, as well as how the concept of the authoritarian state in the Arab world has evolved since 2011. It can also shed light on the inevitable tension between security and liberty in countries seeking to establish democratic regimes.

This paper will present findings from my PhD thesis and fieldwork in Tunisia (2013-2014) with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), demonstrating that Tunisian civil society has played effective role during the political transition. Drawing on Transitiology literature (O’Donnell and Schmitter) and democratic consolidation (Diamond and Linz & Stepan) this paper addresses how both Liberal Associative (DeTocqueville and Putnam) and Oppositional Resistance (Gramsci) conceptualisations of civil society have been and continue to be active in Tunisia in the from Watchdog and corruption fighting organisations to citizenship and social groups. This paper identifies the advantages of state and civil society working together regarding the formulation of policy and how increasing the strength of civil society does not simultaneously weaken state power; rather the two exist to mutually benefit the other (Carothers, 1999). The role civil society is playing in developing belief in democratic system as a co-operative, rather than confrontational, relationship with the government is beneficial to democratic consolidation is also addressed. Berman (1997), Diamond (1999), and Carothers (1999) identify that civil society is not always ‘good’ and it naive to assume they only partake in noble causes and elements of corruption and anti-democratic currents are present in Tunisia. The consolidation of civic political culture (Almond and Verba) and civil society completes the stabilization of the socio-political substructure of democracy (Merkel, 2007) but until then Tunisia is still at risk of returning to authoritarianism. Under dictatorship, Tunisian Civil Society had a role that was constrained by an oppressive state whereas in the period of transition, the CSOs face new constraints such as lack of expertise and dependence on foreign funding. I hypothesize that Civil Society can continue to support the democratic transition by continuing its various roles but adapting, in order to remain relevant, for organisations to survive and to facing the numerous challenges, will be necessary. This conference paper will use interviews conducted in Tunisia in 2013-2014.

In Egypt and Tunisia, Islamist parties won by considerable and comparable margins (both the Muslim Brotherhood and Ennahda won roughly 37% of the vote) in each country’s first free and fair parliamentary elections following the deposition of its long-standing president in 2011. Explanations drawn from existing literature largely paint this outcome as a result of rational voting due to regime economic punishment and Islamic social service provision, or offer ideological explanations in which rhetoric invoking Islam had a unique and strong influence over Muslim voters. Though undoubtedly both rationalistic and ideological explanations account for why some individuals support Islamist parties, neither is fully satisfactory in explaining the electoral outcomes observed in 2011. Rationalist explanations fail to explain outcomes in Tunisia, where Islamist social provision simply did not exist after a massive crackdown on Ennahda in 1989. Similarly, ideological explanations do not suffice; a vast majority of citizens support the influence of Islamic tenets and a role for religion in politics (though they often disagree about the exact role) in representative survey data, which would suggest larger margins of victory for Islamist parties than observed. In addition, the countries have diverged significantly in their democratic consolidation since 2011, a divergence which has been driven by the behavior of leadership rather than a difference in electoral mandates. This paper is part of a larger dissertation project on the subject which moves beyond rational and ideological explanations for Islamist support, to an explanation that is rooted in the politics of repression and collective memory. The working theory of the dissertation is that repression of opposition groups by authoritarian regimes before 2011 matters for explaining post-2011 developments in Egypt and Tunisia. Both Islamist movements were significantly repressed by the previous Egyptian and Tunisian regimes, but when considered within their respective political contexts, their experiences of repression look different; in Egypt, Islamists were overwhelming targeted by repression while other opposition was not punished to the same extent, while in Tunisia, Islamists were highly repressed but within a context in which the majority of opposition was similarly stifled. I argue that by targeting certain groups in certain ways, these authoritarian regimes created different kinds of collective memory, which facilitates certain elite behaviors and creates certain patterns of mass support after the liberalization of each country’s political sphere. This paper outlines the dissertation’s theory and presents original survey, interview, and archival evidence supporting the argument from Tunisia.

Following the 2011 overthrow of Ben Ali, highly publicized conflicts involving the role of Islam in public life seemed to dominate the Tunisian landscape and threatened to disrupt the democratic transition. Politically, the government faced the challenge of an increased public presence of religious groups and discourses that had previously been banned, particularly from salafis. Legally, a number of blasphemy cases made their way through the courts. As a result of these tensions, the press coverage leading up to the 2014 Tunisian presidential and parliamentary elections, framed the elections as competition between Islamists and secularists. While this oversimplified binary has been rightful challenged, the discourse on Islam and Islamism during the 2014 elections warrants further examination, particularly following the coup and ban on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This paper, through participant observation and analysis of party documents and events, examines how a variety of political actors utilized Islam and (anti-) Islamist discourses during the 2014 campaigns. It finds that there was an inversion in how “secular” and “Islamist” labels mapped onto the actual discourse in the elections between Ennahda and Nidaa Tounes, the purported “Islamist” and “secular” parties, with the later making concerted efforts to highlight its religious credentials during the electoral campaigns and the former deemphasizing its Islamist character when compared to the 2011 elections. It argues that these two shifts had the effect of the two largest political parties in Tunisia converging upon a discourse in which they both sought to portray themselves as Islamic without necessarily being Islamist. I argue that this shift in rhetoric points to the normalization of religious discourse in Tunisia and a refocusing on other central issues, including the economy and security.