Not Ready for Democracy

Comparing Egypt and Tunisia, Tarek Masoud argues that the distinctive make-ups and strengths of civil society in those two countries explain why their transitions took different paths. He dismisses previous arguments about the role of the army or the democratic commitment of politicians, arguing instead that Tunisian civil society was stronger and had a less pronounced religious coloration than Egypt’s, with the result that its secular politicians could easily acquire a substantial political base, leading to more balanced electoral results. As no single party or camp had hegemony, leading politicians were forced to make the necessary political compromises. Masoud then builds on this conclusion to suggest a more structural argument: that the greater economic development, industrialization and urbanization of Tunisia explains why its civil society had those specific features that Egypt’s lacked.

Militaries and Democracies in the Middle East

Steven Cook’s contribution adopts a comparative approach by putting the Egyptian case in perspective with Turkey and Libya. The Turkish case shows that while a civilian government has the ability to domesticate an army, this does not guarantee a democratic outcome. And the Libyan case demonstrates that, contrary to some of the optimistic assumptions prevalent in 2011, having “not enough” military poses other challenges in terms of national cohesion and security.

With or Without You?

Frédéric Vairel offers a comparison between transitional justice processes in Tunisia and Morocco. He shows how the Moroccan Equity and Reconciliation Commission established in 2004, the first in an Arab country, inspired and partly informed Tunisia’s Truth and Justice Commission. He discusses the similarities and differences between the two entities and their actions. While in authoritarian Morocco, the top-down process through which the commission was created allowed it to work reasonably well, though with quite limited results, its Tunisian counterpart followed a much more ambitious roadmap but was not able to function efficiently due to the politicization of transitional justice in Tunisia’s new democratizing context.

Trashing Transitions

Marc Lynch examines the paradoxes of Arab media—in which he includes TV channels, radios and newspapers, both national and transnational, as well as websites and social media outlets, all of which form a single ‘media ecosystem’—which both proved crucial to the uprisings and contributed to the failure of democratic transitions. While discussing the significant differences that exist among Arab countries, he shows that the media’s susceptibility to political capture (by regional actors or domestic forces) and its tendency to magnify fear and uncertainty helped fuel the political polarization that would eventually tear the democratic transitions apart.

Toward a ‘Democracy with Democrats’ in Tunisia

Chapter 1 is explicitly anchored in democratic transition theory, while introducing a dimension that democratic transition theory had never much considered: religion. By contrasting Tunisia with Egypt, Stepan seeks to explain why a democratic transition happened in the former. His argument is twofold: one pre-condition, he believes, was the rapprochement between the leading Islamist party Ennahda and secular forces on a democratic platform in the years leading to the 2011 revolution, which created the ground for a sustainable cross-ideological coalition. But this outcome was above all made possible, at a moment in 2013 when the institutional process was on the verge of collapse, by the personal commitment and leadership of the heads of the Islamist and secular blocks, leading to what Stepan calls a ‘two sheikhs’ compromise.

Transitional Justice in Post-Revolutionary Egypt

Nathalie Bernard-Maugiron offers a contrasting perspective on Egypt, where a highly biased version of transitional justice—or, in other words, no transitional justice at all—was implemented. Since February 2011, criminal cases against state officials have been dropped and fact-finding committees investigating massacres perpetrated by state officials either delivered conclusions favorable to the perpetrators or were silenced. In contrast, since the summer 2013, Muslim Brotherhood leaders and members, as well as secular revolutionaries, have been heavily prosecuted and subjected to harsh sentences.

Confronting the Dictatorial Past in Tunisia

Kora Andrieu examines how the concepts and procedures of transitional justice, as developed through transitology and adopted by international organizations, were uncritically embraced by Tunisian politicians in the wake of the uprising. She then shows how her case study challenges the common understanding of transitional justice as being a neutral and strictly judicial tool. In Tunisia, it quickly became politicized, reawakening polarizing debates about the fundamental issues of memory and identity.

Constituting Constitutionalism

Nathan Brown looks at the constitutions that were drafted in Arab countries after 2011 through the prism of the ‘new constitutionalism’, which emphasizes the need for democratic and participatory processes and has recently gained traction among constitutionalists. Instead of focusing on the actual texts that were produced, Brown looks at the peculiar circumstances in which those constitutions were written and explains how, in the chaotic context of ‘passionate reality’ which characterizes transitions, certain procedural choices were made (or imposed) that greatly affected the outcome.

International Assistance to Arab Spring Transitions

Zaid al-Ali examines the action of international actors— especially those with ties to the United Nations—during the transitions in Libya and Yemen. He paints a rather depressing picture of international organizations with no genuine roadmaps and no sound analyses of the countries where they operated. Individuals who happened to be in charge of UN missions (sometimes more or less by chance) were left to act according to their own preferences and biases. Though the international community was not responsible for the collapse of the democratic process in Yemen and Libya, it was not capable of preventing it.

Introduction

This book focuses on the few countries where actual transitions have happened: Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Syria, where the authoritarian breakdown was only partial, will also be considered. Most of the book’s contributors adopt a comparative approach, either comparing those different countries among themselves, or comparing them with other Arab and non-Arab countries with similar features (i.e., Morocco, Algeria, and even Turkey). The choice was made to focus on a limited number of themes which have not received systematic comparative attention, and which offer crucial insights into the dynamics of the Arab transitions as they took place. The first part of this book deals with the dynamics of accommodation and polarization generated by the institutional process during transitions. The second part of the volume looks at the role of militaries in the different transitions. The third part of the book looks at several non-state actors that have impacted the transitions. The last part of the volume addresses the often overlooked issue of transitional justice, or the lack thereof.