Reconstituting Tunisia: Participation, Deliberation, and the Content of Constitution

This article introduces a theory on military role expansion in emerging democracies and poses a broad question: who wants the military to adopt which role in society and politics? Drawing on an original, nationally representative survey conducted in Tunisia, the article explores people’s preferences for the military to remain a security provider or serve in government and contribute to policing protests. Findings reveal that public support for military role expansion is substantial and varies across political cleavages. We test hypotheses to account for cleavages driven by the country’s authoritarian past versus partisan divides during Tunisia’s transition to democracy. Findings indicate that popular support for military role expansion is driven by anti-system sentiments prevalent in contemporary Tunisian politics: while voters prefer the military as a role model for security provision, non-voters support its enhanced role in politics. These observations have ample implications for the research programs on civil–military relations and the dynamics of democratic consolidation. Tunisia’s experience warrants greater attention to anti-system attitudes caused by people’s disillusionment with democratic procedures. In turn, authoritarian legacies do not appear to play a prominent role during such challenging transitions toward democratic consolidation.

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Political Cleavages and Support For Role Expansionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Role Model or Role Expansion? Popular Perceptions of the Military in Tunisia

Albrecht

Bufano

Koehler

2021

“…While remaining cautious about a causal relationship, we speculate that participation might lead to popular support for the constitution through increasing constitutional knowledge. Previous studies show that a cycle of drafting and constitutional protests prompted a widespread debate on constitutional issues and transformed constitutional provisions into a matter of public concern (Maboudi 2020b). This process spread knowledge about the constitution and increased public’s awareness of contentious issues in the constitution leading to more grassroots constitutional protests and advocacy.…”

Section: Does Participation Generate Constitutional Legitimacy?mentioning

confidence: 99%

From Public Participation to Constitutional Legitimacy: Evidence from Tunisia

Maboudi

Nadi

2021

Self Cite

Does public participation in constitution-making processes enhance constitutional legitimacy? Using an original public opinion survey conducted in Tunisia shortly after the adoption of the 2014 Constitution, this article examines whether public participation in constitution-making activities enhances perceived constitutional legitimacy. The results show that participants are more likely to support the constitution and its institutions than non-participants. We argue that participation increases constitutional literacy among the general public and this increased knowledge impacts the respondents’ perception of the constitution. The empirical findings confirm normative assumptions of participatory model of the democratic theory and suggest that inclusive and participatory constitutional reform processes, in contrast to an elitist approach, are more likely to yield democratic constitutional outcomes which are supported by larger segments of the society.

“…Inclusiveness has attained multiple meanings in the debates about constitution-making and those have not, in many cases, been explicitly distinguished. The term is often used to refer to vertical inclusion, emphasizing concerns about the involvement of citizens, minority groups, or organized interests (Eisenstadt, Levan, and Maboudi 2015, 2017; Ginsburg, Elkins, and Blount 2009; Hartshorn 2017; Maboudi 2019). This article focuses on the horizontal aspect of inclusion and the question of whether all the major political parties take part.…”

Section: Constitution-making Processes and Inclusivenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Mistrust to Understanding: Inclusive Constitution-Making Design and Agreement in Tunisia

Jermanová

2020

In 2014, Tunisia’s National Constituent Assembly (NCA) almost unanimously approved the country’s first democratic constitution despite significant identity-based divisions. Drawing on the Tunisian case, the article explores the role of an inclusive constitution-making process in fostering constitutional agreement during democratization. Emerging studies that link different process modalities to democracy have so far brought only limited illumination to how inclusive processes matter, nor were these propositions systematically tested. Using process tracing, and building on original interviews gathered in Tunisia between 2014 and 2020, this article traces a causal mechanism whereby an inclusive constitution-making process allowed for a transformation of interpersonal relationships between political rivals. It demonstrates that more than two years of regular interactions allowed NCA deputies to shatter some of the prejudices that initially separated especially Islamist and non-Islamist partisans and develop cross-partisan ties, thus facilitating constitutional negotiations. However, I argue that the way these transformations contributed to constitutional settlement is more subtle than existing theories envisaged, and suggest alternative explanations. The article contributes to the debate about constitution-making processes by unpacking the understudied concept of partisan inclusion and applying it empirically to trace its effects on constitutional agreement, bringing precision and nuance to current assumptions about its benefits.