The minimal contribution of robust opposition parties, civil society groups and foreign funders to the upheaval in Tunisia not only undermines authoritarian leaders’ misconceptions of the color revolutions, writes Thomas Carothers, head of the Carnegie Endowment’s Democracy and Rule of Law Program. The uprising confirms that there is no sure formula for perpetuating authoritarian rule.See also the previous contributions to the Democracy Digest-POMED Tunisia symposium from Amr Hamzawy, Steven Heydemann, Larry Diamond, Arun Kapil, Shadi Hamid, Kamran Bokhari, Nabila Hamza, Kristina Kausch and Nathan Brown.With the ...

Models of constitutional democratic transitions from Eastern Europe are not easily applied to Tunisia, writes Nathan Brown, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at The George Washington University.  Instead, Tunisians must reach consensus by engaging all actors and social groups in the process.  As Islamists seek to re-establish their social presence in Tunisia over the next decade, their participation will become particularly important.See also the previous contributions to the Democracy Digest-POMED Tunisia symposium from Amr ...

While embarrassed about supporting former President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, the West’s democracies are unlikely to change their overall strategy towards the region, writes Kristina Kausch, a researcher at FRIDE, the Madrid-based think-tank, specializing on EU policies in the Southern Mediterranean, democracy, human rights and political Islam. But the revolt in Tunisia confirms the need to move from a static model of stability-through-containment to sustained inclusive participation and far-reaching reform – before the system implodes.See ...

After decades of oppression, Tunisia was ripe for revolution and the notion of “Arab exceptionalism” has been discredited, writes Nabila Hamza, a Tunisian gender-equality activist who is currently the President of the Amman-based Foundation for the Future.  Although Arab public perception of the possibility for change has shifted dramatically, Arab regimes will likely placate the frustrations of the masses through controlled political openings and reinstating or raising economic subsidies.  The U.S. and Arab ...

We should not let the dramatic and exhilarating events in Tunisia cloud a realistic analysis of the prospects for democratization, writes Kamran Bokhari, Middle East and South Asia director at STRATFOR. While experts conflate what is happening with what they want to happen, western NGOs are focusing on making it happen – translating an anti-autocratic insurgency into a democratic transition.See also the previous contributions to the Democracy Digest-POMED Tunisia symposium from Amr Hamzawy, Steven Heydemann, Larry Diamond, Arun Kapil and Shadi Hamid.The fall of the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia has ...

The success or failure of a democratic insurgency may rest on the state’s capacity and willingness to use lethal force, Shadi Hamid writes , director of research at the Brookings Doha Center and a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy. With political Islamists likely to play a more prominent role should unrest break out in strategically significant states like Egypt or Jordan, decisive state violence will be easier to deploy – and condone – against such ...

The Arab world is not about to experience a 1989-style democratic contagion. Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution is a one-off event, writes Arun Kapil, a political science professor at the Catholic University of Paris (Institut Catholique de Paris-FASSE). He is skeptical that the regime’s old guard could yet make a comeback, but believes prospects for successful democratization hinge on the behavior of the Islamists and the shape of the pact negotiated by the major political actors.See ...

History – and the grim realities of a bad neighborhood’s pervasive authoritarianism – do not justify optimism about the prospects for democracy in Tunisia, writes Larry Diamond, Director of Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.  Yet the third wave of global democratization saw successful democratization in more unlikely circumstances, and it won’t take huge resources for democracy assistance groups to make a difference – if we move quickly.See ...

Tunisia’s strongman President Zine al-Abdine Ben Ali has been deposed. But if his ruling party was kicked out the door, is it now coming back through the window?There is a serious risk that the old order will cling to power and frustrate hopes for a genuinely democratic transition, writes Steven Heydemann, Vice President at the US Institute for Peace and Special Adviser to USIP’s Muslim World Initiative.He identifies the canary-in-the-coalmine indicators that ...

Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution has captured the imagination and raised the hopes of democracy advocates across the Arab world and beyond.Within days of being warned by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that citizens had “grown tired of corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order,” the Middle East’s authoritarian rulers watched one of the Arab world’s most repressive and supposedly stable regimes become the first to be ousted by a genuine people’s power movement.Given the region’s profound malaise, ...