Unmaking Democracy: Civil Society and Democratic Backsliding in Tunisia

• In Event: Autocratic Dynamism and Democratic Backsliding in MENA

Abstract

The year 2010 marked the spark of the Tunisian Jasmine revolution that led to democratization in Tunisia. The wave of the “Arab Spring” uprisings following the Jasmine revolution, brought back much of the optimism regarding the possibility of democracy thriving against all odds. The divergent paths and outcomes of democratization in the MENA region led scholars to focus on studying different aspects of the aftermath of the Arab Spring including, political culture, the role of money and the rise of Islamist parties to power. Therefore, the optimism soon waned with only Tunisia emerging as the first country to democratize and the only to sustain its democracy for a decade.
A decade later, Tunisia started witnessing a process of democratic backsliding through executive aggrandizement with President Kais Saied. The role of intermediary actors specifically civil society organizations in democratic backsliding remain obscured. The focus of democratic backsliding literature is on the role of incumbent, ruling parties and political polarization. However, these factors do not provide the complete picture of the dynamics of democratic backsliding. Moreover, democratic backsliding literature places CSOs as the victims of the process of democratic backsliding. While civil society organizations are usually the victims of repressive measures by incumbents, their role in the democratic backsliding process necessitates further investigation. This paper argues that civil society organizations play an active role as backsliders themselves. The question at the center of this paper is : what role do civil society organizations play in democratic backsliding in nascent democracies? By shedding light on the role of such intermediary actors in the process of democratic backsliding in the case of Tunisia, this research aims at contributing to a better understanding of the causes of democratic backsliding and its dynamics in nascent democracies/
Civil society organizations in Tunisia were praised for playing a major role in securing the transition to democracy and overcoming the political crisis through the national dialogue initiative. However, by tracing the Tunisian case I argue that civil society organizations in nascent democracies can play the role of a backslider activating underlying cleavages and using populist rhetoric which increases polarization and legitimizes the acts of incumbents. Civil society contribute to legitimizing populist authoritarian incumbents’ undemocratic actions, inhibiting economic reforms, weakening political parties and political opposition to populist authoritarian incumbents. They can also help justify violations of democratic norms and spread grievances. Tracing the Tunisian case unveil such dynamics and understand the conditions under which they unfold by addressing the importance of authoritarian legacies and the interaction between structural and individual level elements that help explain the role of civil society organizations including the UGTT as the largest civil society organization in Tunisia in democratic backsliding. This paper uses qualitative data collected through elite interviews of civil society officials, opposition leaders and party officials, and journalists as well as quantitative data.

Author

• Haifa Souilmi, University of Oregon