Tunisia has faced serious security obstacles since the 2011 Revolution which have hampered the consolidation of democracy. After successfully completing major steps in the political transition (new constitution, legislative and presidential elections in 2014), the economy and security remain major challenges. While there exist structural conditions and problematic policy decisions affecting the economic performance, domestic and regional instability significantly worsened the economy. In fact, the two are intertwined, for deteriorating socioeconomic conditions, e.g., the large informal sector, elevated inflation, high unemployment—especially among the marginalized youth (40%)—have radicalized many youngsters who have joined Salafi Jihadist groups. The Islamist Ennahda party decided during its tenure in power to free thousands of Islamist militants, some of whom Jihadists, imprisoned by Ben Ali, and demonstrated leniency toward their activities; Ennahda permitted Salafi preachers to exploit mosques across the country as platforms and now the vast majority of those mosques are under the domination of Salafists, enabling the dissemination of Jihadist messages. Furthermore, the civil war in Libya, the establishment there of safe heavens by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Ansar-al-Shari ’a, and the Islamic State, and the availability of weapons and arms smuggling, have further threatened security. Three thousand Tunisian Jihadists have joined the fight in Iraq and Syria and over 9,000 have been blocked at the border; both the returnees and those turned back pose credible threats to Tunisia’s stability. Because of the regional menace in the Sahara-Sahel and the threats that militias in Libya and Jihadists in Tunisia are posing in North Africa, new security alignments have emerged. Both Tunisia, whose armed forces have less sophisticated equipment than the Jihadists, and Libya, have turned to Algeria, which has greatly flexed its regional military power, to secure both countries' porous borders. Based on active fieldwork, including dozens of recent informative views on three continents, this paper examines Tunisia’s current security challenges and to what degree its cooperation with Algeria and the latter’s with Libya may improve the country’s stability which, in turn, could help the economy, attract tourists and investments, and create jobs, developments which will contribute to the democratic consolidation in Tunisia. But are the security strategies to address emerging security challenges and realignments up to the task?

Since the Arab upheavals of 2011, Tunisia’s political transition has been exemplary. It is the only country that has moved forward and started dismantling some of the most deleterious aspects of the authoritarian system. However, the same cannot be said about its economy, which has been ailing since 2011 and none of the transition governments has been willing or able to tackle the most pressing concerns of citizens, domestic businesses, labor unions and foreign trade and investment partners. Everything was put on hold until all executive and legislative functions were filled on the basis of a new constitution and a political consensus on the way forward. In the meantime, the economic growth rate has gone from negative to sluggish, new foreign investment and tourists have become rare, the unemployment rate remains high, especially for the educated youth, and government expenditures and deficit increased while a large and growing current account deficit is causing concern. This paper looks into the political economy of transition in Tunisia since 2011 with a focus on a) the economic cost and consequences of the social upheaval; b) the nature, cost and effect of the ad hoc stopgap measures used to slow down the economic decline and its social consequences; c) the impact of political inertia on economic revival; d) the role and power of various actors—including the state—in promoting or inhibiting stringent reforms and social protection measures; and e) the role of external actors (IMF, World Bank, the EU, the United States, and Arab Gulf states). Questions to be tackled include: a) To what extent is Tunisia moving away from the development model of the past decades or merely adjusting it? How is post-Ben Ali Tunisia handling youth unemployment, labor laws and job protection, the regulatory setting for foreign investment, and subsidies? b) To what extent does the current configuration of political and economic forces in Tunisia inhibit the stringent reforms needed for a prompt economic revival? d) How does Tunisia intend to reconcile neoliberal economic reforms with the need for social equity, regional economic balance, and youth employment? Analysis will be based on economic data, surveys, field interviews, and archival research on policy debates and decisions since 2011. The paper will also draw on the literature on transition, the developmental state, and the link between political and economic liberalization.

Under what conditions does an authoritarian ruler hire or fire ministers? How do autocrats maintain or mismanage ruling coalitions? This paper, based on original statistics and fieldwork gathered in Tunisia, examines this topic, with a focus on Habib Bourguiba’s four presidential administrations between 1957 and 1987. Bourguiba’s crafty manipulation of elite coalitions buttressed his resilience as one of the Arab world’s longest-serving autocrats, and set the stage for contemporary politics including the 2013 caretaker government and the 2014 election aftermath. It also helps to explain the recent resurgence in the political popularity of Bourguiba-era ministers, like President Beji Caid Essebsi and Parliament President Mohamed Ennaceur. These findings are not limited to explaining the resilience of Bourguiba regime, but also inform our understanding of authoritarian coalitions throughout the Middle East and North Africa. This study analyzes the duration of ministers from an originally gathered dataset of 117 minister profiles and durations over a 30-year period. Specifically, we use an event history model to investigate survival rates of the various types of ministers, depending on the minister’s socio-economic background, profession education, and regional origins. This analysis allows us to identify ministers who successfully survived or did not survive coalition purges. We find that ministers with specific educational and career paths—a College Sadiki secondary education, a French university education, and law career— were much more likely to serve longer in higher ministerial posts. Ministers belonging to an elite social class like an aristocratic Tunis-era family and ministers from certain regional origins were not advantaged. Meanwhile, ministers advancing through auxiliary networks in which they interact with elites and form lifelong bonds in school organizations, unions, and other non-elite organizations were found to be longest surviving ministers. Organizational affiliation, in short, was one of the longest predictors of a minister’s survivability in Bourguiba’s coalition. The findings suggest that consistent cooperation and non-exclusive recruitment in several auxiliary networks with diverging and converging political interests such as professional unions and student organizations normalized elite-mass relations, creating ‘honeymoon’ periods between autocratic regime and mass mobilization networks. During these periods, the central social capital network and auxiliary members institutionalized social preferences that overtime have metastasized into a social decision making processes. These processes, such as national dialogue between party elites and unions, continue to resurface in political society in calls for moderation and national dialogue as trumps to elite divisions or mass organization at the grassroots levels.

Tunisia’s foreign policy since independence has been a reflection of Tunisian identity. Based on fieldwork in Tunis during four months in 2014, this paper examines how the shaping and reshaping of Tunisian identity explains essential elements of Tunisian foreign policy. I will draw on and incorporate theories about identity politics, nationalism, state formation and citizenship. Habib Bourguiba’s foreign policy reflected Tunisian elites’ secular and western identity and vision for the country in the immediate post-colonial environment. He envisioned a Tunisia that was more European than Arab or Muslim and purposefully neglected ties to North African, Middle Eastern or Mediterranean neighbors. With the Islamic revival and other cultural shifts of the 1980s, President Zine el-Abidi Ben Ali shifted Tunisian foreign policy toward a more complex and multi-faceted Tunisia that was European, Mediterranean and Muslim/Arab. He endeavored to (re)shape Tunisian identity by seeking new relationships with Arab monarchs, North African neighbors, and Mediterranean countries. After the Tunisian revolution the moderate Islamist Ennahda party formed a coalition government, which included secularist parties Ettakatol and CPR. The foreign policy portfolio was shared by both CPR leader President Moncef Marzouki and the Foreign Ministry, which fell under Ennahda’s control until the formation of a technocratic government in early 2014. While Tunisia’s overall posture and positioning did not go through a tectonic shift, the Troika government did make symbolic and actual shifts in foreign policy. Tunisia was no longer nearly as close to Arab monarchs and friendlier to democratic forces and efforts. Tunisia had tense diplomatic relations with Egypt after Islamist president Mohammed Morsi was ousted by the military. After 2011, Tunisia also repaired and strengthened diplomatic ties with the U.S., which were in decline since 2005 largely due to U.S. disappointment with Tunisia’s human rights’ record. With the election of Beji Caid Essebsi, Tunisia has reasserted a secularist identity in the context of deep political and sociological polarization. Tunisia’s identity debates are likely to continue to fuel shifts in its foreign policy, in changing regional and global contexts.

Tunisia experienced a significant expansion in its youth populations (those aged 15-24) during the last decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century, along with the other states of the Maghreb (Libya, Algeria, Morocco, and Mauritania). “Youth bulges” created social stresses and contributed to the 2011-2012 revolts. Youth as a proportion of total population will decrease during the next twenty years yet youth unemployment is expected to remain high, especially of university youth. This paper examines the imminent contraction of the “youth bulge,” its relationship with trends in youth unemployment, and the importance of understanding youth unemployment in the context of obtaining social stability. It looks at the future of labor markets in North Africa and corollary effects upon the underground economy and migration. Despite the current decline in the “youth bulge,” occurring at varying rates across the Maghreb, labor markets in North Africa will still remain under pressure. North African governments will have to focus not only upon GDP growth but also balance the provision of meaningful jobs from the public sector and other scalable government-led jobs creation efforts in order to avoid continued unrest among urban youth. Since the mid-1980s the proportion of jobs in the public sector have noticeably decreased while the private sector has been unable to create the huge numbers of jobs needed to have a meaningful effect upon youth unemployment. This contradiction in the labor market with its related developments both in the informal sector and in realigned regional migration. Reimagining a state role for employment creation within the public sector may be required. This paper will rely on analysis of primary and secondary sources—including demographic, labor, and economic data—along with field interviews with officials and experts.