The international dimension of Tunisia’s transition to democracy : from consensus over democracy to competitiveness within democracy

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The International Dimension of Tunisia’s Transition to

Democracy. From Consensus over Democracy to

Competitiveness within Democracy

Thèse

Pietro Marzo

Doctorat en science politique

Philosophiæ doctor (Ph. D.)

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The International Dimension of Tunisia’s

Transition to Democracy. From Consensus over

Democracy to Competitiveness within Democracy

Thèse

Pietro Marzo

Doctorat en Science Politique

Philosophiæ doctor (Ph.D)

Québec, Canada

Sous la direction de:

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Résumé

Après le déclenchement des révoltes arabes en 2010, la Tunisie est le seul pays arabe à s'être démocratisé avec succès, dans une région où un repli autoritaire est en train de sévir. Les chercheurs ont étudié la transition démocratique tunisienne en se concentrant principalement sur ses facteurs internes, alors qu'ils ont accordé peu d'attention à l'impact des facteurs internationaux et des influences externes sur le processus de transition. S'appuyant sur une analyse qualitative, cette étude examine la dimension internationale de la transition de la Tunisie vers la démocratie et soutient que les facteurs et influences internationaux ont joué un rôle important dans le processus de démocratisation. Cette recherche se concentre sur l'impact que l'agence des promoteurs internationaux de la démocratie a eu sur la structure nationale tunisienne. Il met en évidence la façon dont l'interaction entre les acteurs internationaux et les groupes nationaux tunisiens a contribué au processus de démocratisation, sans soutenir que les facteurs externes ont imposé les choix et des acteurs politiques et sociaux tunisiens. L'étude expose trois résultats théoriques qui contribuent au débat sur la dimension internationale de la démocratisation. Premièrement, cette recherche suggère que lorsque les promoteurs internationaux de la démocratie soutiennent les oppositions nationales à développer une confiance mutuelle à renforcer leurs liens, et de combler les divisions, il favorise l'émergence des nouveaux ‘centres de pouvoir’. Les données empiriques fournies par cette étude démontrent que les programmes d'aide à la démocratie et les influences libérales internationales ont favorisé la création d'une coalition tunisienne pro-démocratie d'opposition au régime de Ben Ali. Deuxièmement, cette étude avance que le faible niveau de la bataille étrangère pour l'influence en Tunisie a facilité le processus de négociation entre les élites de transition pendant le processus de démocratisation. Troisémement, cette étude soutient que lors de la transition tunisienne vers la démocratie, les promoteurs internationaux de la démocratie ont aidé les partis politiques tunisiens à passer d'un consensus initial sur la mise en place d'un système politique démocratique à une concurrence au sein du système démocratique mis en place. Bien que cette étude se concentre uniquement sur le cas de la Tunisie, tous les chapitres fournissent des preuves comparatives avec d'autres contextes régionaux.

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Abstract

Following the outbreak of the Arab revolts in late 2010, Tunisia is the only Arab country that has democratized successfully in a region where authoritarian retrenchment prevails. Scholars have studied the Tunisian transition to democracy focusing mainly on domestic factors, devoting little attention to the role international factors and external influences played in the transitional process. Relying on qualitative analysis, this study investigates the international dimension of Tunisia’s transition to democracy and argues that international factors and influences played a relevant role in the democratization process. This research focuses on the impact the agency of international democracy promoters had on Tunisian national structure during the transition to democracy, without downplaying the agency of Tunisian political and social actors. It highlights how the interplay between international actors and Tunisia domestic groups contributed to the making of the democratization process.

The study lays out three theoretical findings that contribute to the debates on the international dimension of democratization and democracy promotion. First, it suggests that when international democracy promoters support domestic oppositions in developing mutual trust, strengthening ties and bridging divisions, they enhance the emergence of new alternative ‘centres of power’ to the regime. Second, this study argues that the low level of foreign squabbling for influence in Tunisia facilitated the bargaining process among transitional elites during the democratization process. Third, this study suggests that during the Tunisian transition to democracy, international democracy promoters helped Tunisian transition elites to move from the initial consensus over democracy to competition within the democracy. While this study focuses only on the Tunisia’s case, all the chapters provide comparative evidence with other countries in the Middle East and North Africa to back up the empirical findings and the theoretical reflections.

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List of abbreviations and acronyms

AFTURD: Association des Femmes Tunisiennes pour la Recherche sur le Développement AMT: Association des Magistrats Tunisiens

ARFORGHE: Association des Responsables de Formation et de Gestion Humaine dans les Entreprises

ATFD: Association Tunisienne de Femmes Démocrates

ATIDE: Association Tunisienne pour l’Intégrité de la Démocratie des Élections ATUGE: Association des Tunisiens Diplômés des Grandes Écoles

CAPJC: Centre Africain de Perfectionnement des Journalistes et Communicateurs CFAD Centre de Formation et d’Appui à la Décentralisation en Tunisie

CIA: Central Intelligence Agency CDU: Christlich Demokratische Union

CSDHLF: Comité Supérieur des Droits de l’Homme et des Libertés Fondamentales CPR: Congrés pour la République

CSID: Centre for Study of Islam and Democracy ENA: École d’Administration Nationale

EU: European Union

FDTL: Forum Démocratique pour le Travail et les Libertés FH: Freedom House

FES: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung FNS: Friedrich Naumann Stiftung FOAP: Forum de l’Académie Politique GNC: General National Congress KAS: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung

GIZ: Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit

HAICA: Haute Autorité Indépendante de la Communication Audiovisuelle HBS Heinrich Böll Stiftung

HSS: Hanns Seidel Stiftung

IACE: Institut Arabe des Chefs d’Entreprises IDP: International Democracy Promoters

INGO: International Non-governmental Organization INLUCC: Instance National de Lutte Contre la Corruption IO: International Organization

IPSI: Institut de Presse and Science informatique IRI: International Republican Institute

ISIE: Instance Supérieure Indépendante pour les Élections IVD: Instance de Verité et Dignité

LTDH: Ligue Tunisienne des Droits de l’Homme MENA: Middle East and North Africa

MEPI: Middle Eastern Partnership Initiative NDI: National Democratic Institute

NED: National Endowment for Democracy NTC: National Transitional Council

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PASC: Programme d’Appui à la Société Civile PDP: Parti Démocrate Progressiste

PSD: Parti Socialiste Destourien PSL: Parti Social-Libéral

PVP: Parti Vert pour le Progrès PUP: Parti de l’Unité Populaire

OMT: Organisation Mondial contre la Torture ONAT: Ordre National des Avocats Tunisiens SPD: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands RCD: Rassemblement Constitutionel Démocratique RLS: Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung

RCD: Rassemblement Constitutionnel Démocratique TAN: Transnational advocacy networks

UAE: United Arab Emirates

UGTT: Union Générale des Travailleurs Tunisiens UDU: Union démocratique Unioniste

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to my family, Alietty, Antonio, Sara and Alberto

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Acknowledgements

This thesis is the result of four-year work during my Ph.D program at the Department of Political Science at Laval University. I am indebted to countless individuals who contributed in different ways to the making of this work.

The Department of Political Science at Laval University, with its faculty and brilliant doctoral and master students, was an incredible environment to carry out my work, providing me with solid theoretical and methodological training. I am grateful to the members of my doctoral committee, Professor Marie Brossier, Professor Jonathan Paquin and Professor Philippe Borbeau for the guidance offered alongside the process of thinking about and writing this dissertation.

The Interdisciplinary Centre for the study of Africa and Middle East – CIRAM – at Laval University has enhanced my comprehension of the social and political issues of the MENA region more broadly. Professor Muriel Gomez-Perez (Department of History) and Professor Monique Cardinal (Department of Theology) have commented earlier drafts of my chapters before they were submitted to academic journals. In depth conversations with my colleagues Alessandra Bonci, Nidhal Mekki, Bader Ben Mansour, Jean-Francois Lettournau and Olfa Riahi Ibrahim helped to refine my understanding of Tunisian political and social affairs.

A considerable number of researchers, policy makers, friends and colleagues helped me during my research on the ground in Tunisia and Washington, DC. I would like to thank Professor Haitem M’rar (University of Carthage) and Professor Mohammed Kerrou (University of Tunis El Manar) for the academic mentorship they provided in Tunisia; my friends Jean-Louis Romanet, Matt Gordner, Leo Siebert, Omezzine Khelifa, Imen Ben Mohammed, Alessandra Menegon, Giordano Segneri, Matteo Malvani, and Nicholas Noe. While I was conducting interviews in Washington, DC, Dr Kareem Mezran, Dr Amy Hawthorne and Dr Sarah Yerkes made my fieldwork more successful, connecting me with key respondents for my research.

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I would like to thank the personnel of the German Political Foundations and the US NGOs for their availability and their patience in responding to my queries during in-person interviews and the many long-distance follow-ups.

My supervisor Francesco Cavatorta deserves a special mention for the incredible support he provided since our first mail exchanges back in 2015, well before I began my Ph.D program in September 2016. I encountered hundreds of Ph.D students at international conferences and in the field and I have rarely heard a level of satisfaction for mentorship as the one I received from Francesco. While I am entirely responsible for the strengths and weaknesses of the dissertation, working with Francesco was intellectually fascinating and this thesis would not be the same without his guidance. I am thankful to him for transferring part of his knowledge and expertise to me and for helping me with practical suggestions. I am particularly grateful to him because through his ethical conduct, humble and supportive behaviour he showed me what it means being an outstanding researcher.

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Forewords

This is an articles-based dissertation. The work presented henceforth has been published in international peer reviewed journals. The remainder of the preface clarifies my contribution to each of the manuscripts that constitute the chapters of this thesis. The reader should note that each of the empirical chapters introduced in this dissertation is distinct and intended to ‘stand alone’ as published work. Although each article is self-contained, each of them addresses questions of theoretical and methodological importance in the common thread that runs through this thesis.

Chapter 1 has been published in the francophone review Recherches Qualitatives in June 2020. Thus, it appears here in the original French language. The article is part of a special issue I have co-edited with Professor Muriel Gomez-Perez on methodological challenges and fieldwork practises in Africa and Middle East. I am the only author of the article. In the chapter I present my fieldwork experience in Tunisia, exploring the methodological dilemmas and challenges I have encountered during my research on the international dimension of Tunisia’s transition to democracy. I provide more detail on data collection in the Annexe1 at the end of the thesis.

Chapter 2 has been published in Third World Quarterly (impact factor 2.15) in May 2020. I am the only author of the article. The chapter explores US foreign policy in Tunisia post 9/11 and it highlights how the US gradually realised that, unlike other countries across the region, regime change in Tunisia would not pose security challenges to its security and geopolitical interests. Most importantly, compared with other MENA countries, a large and heterogenous coalition of oppositions began to emerge in the 2000s, including the Islamist party Al-Nahda. Relying on interviews with Washington policy makers, US ambassadors and Tunisian political activists, the chapter offers evidence to rethink US foreign policy’s impact on Tunisian politics. Contrary to what the vast majority of the literature on US foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa contends, it refutes the idea that during the 2000s the US ‘liberal’ foreign policy in Tunisia – and its emphasis on democratic promotion – merely reinforced the incumbent. It rather shows that the US strategy ‘democracy assistance’ in Tunisia consisted in supporting a Tunisian democratic coalition

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of opposition inside and outside Tunisia, which contributed to undermining Ben Ali’s regime.

Chapter 3 has been published in Middle Eastern Studies (impact factor 0.3) in January 2019. I am the only author of the article. Building on evidence from semi-structured interviews and data triangulation, the article shows that since the late 1980s four German political foundations operating in Tunisia created platforms for ‘political debate’ – alternative to the regime’s but not necessarily subversive – and encouraged political training where opposition voices could be heard and could share their ideas. The article posits that initially the German political foundations helped Ben Ali’s regime in making his ‘façade’ liberalisation, but in the long run their activities generated unintended consequences that in part undermined authoritarianism. The article finally points out that their long-standing presence on the ground allowed German political foundations to develop patterns of trust with and between political and civil groups, ultimately improving their capacity to play a constructive role in the aftermath of the revolution.

Chapter 4 has been published in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs (impact factor 0.7) in July 2019. I am the only author of the article. The chapter argues that international promotion of democracy in Tunisia was an essential asset for the transitional process and contributed to the beginning of democratic consolidation. By buttressing the formal institutions as the only space to resolve political conflicts, international partners contributed to driving Tunisian transitional political parties from consensus over democracy to competition within democracy, reducing the risk of regression to authoritarian practices. Likewise, international democracy promoters (IDPs) assistance can foster the professionalization of civic leaders and can strengthen the capacity of independent national institutions to operate with a more solid legal framework. The chapter suggests that three conditions were indispensable for the fruitful partnership between IDPs and domestic groups. First, when the transition away from authoritarianism can count on the elites’ broad agreement on the political system to establish, IDPs have a more effective capacity to enhance the achievements of their partners. Second, the IDPs’ ability to work more effectively also depended on the foreign antisystem forces’ reaction to the power vacuum in the transitional period. Indeed, IDPs in Tunisia were successful in enhancing national

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democratic accomplishments because their assistance was not disrupted by external conflicts penetrating the country. Third, external and internal favourable conditions removed the potential tension in democracy promotion resulting from the Western clash of interests between promoting democratization and pursuing other crucial foreign policy goals.

Chapter 5 has been published in the Tunisia Review of Political Science in September 2019. I am the only author of this article. The chapter employs Oisin Tansey’s model (2016) to examine how international factors support or undermine authoritarianism in four countries: Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Algeria. The article argues that the Egyptian regime is now ruling in a supportive international environment for authoritarianism, as it enjoys considerable foreign backing for its strong repressive politics, while democracy promoters cannot pressure the incumbent. After Qaddafi’s demise, Libya’s has operated in an

international contested environment for authoritarianism because some foreign actors exert

pressure for democratization, others back authoritarianism, and others still waver in their support between democratic governance and the stability a ‘strong man’ is perceived to bring. The article suggests that the Algerian regime is ruling in an international permissive

environment for authoritarianism because it receives low external pressure to democratize

democratic actors and low external pressure to maintain its authoritarian structures of power from pro-authoritarianism actors. Finally, the article argues that following Ben Ali’s fall, low external pressure from authoritarianism forces and high pressure from pro-democracy forces have created an international constraining environment for

authoritarianism in Tunisia. This helped the Tunisian democratization journey unfold quite

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Introduction

What democracy? Definitions of democracy.

Political theorists have devoted considerable effort to the conceptualisation of democracy, proposing such a high number of definitions that some scholars have advanced the idea of employing ‘democracy with adjectives’ (Collier and Levitsky 1997) to make sense of the “theoretical chaos deriving from the plethora of variants being posited” (Schedler 1998, 92).

Irrespective of the departure point that democracy is an essentially contested concept, scholarly debate in political science is divided into three main approaches to understand the meaning of democracy. A first group of scholars put forth an ‘epistemic’ conception of democracy as a process of truth-seeking (Cohen 1986, Habermas, 1992, Estlund 1997). Theorists of ‘epistemic democracy’ argue that “political participation and public deliberation can serve to articulate and advance a general will” (Cohen 1986, 26). These scholars see “democratic deliberations as a justification process of our beliefs oriented to political rightness or truth, or towards the single correct answer to political problems” (Cortois 2004). In this respect, the epistemic approach is often associated with a ‘populist’ notion of democracy. Advocates of ‘populist democracy’ adverse the voting system of liberal democracies and its procedures, claiming that liberal democratic institutions produce arbitrary social choices instead of fulfilling the people’s will (Coleman 1986, 19).

Another conceptualization of democracy stems from the Marxist school. Theorists of “social democracy” try to reconcile socialist ideas with democratic politics, conceptualising democracy as political systems oriented toward social progress (Padgett and Paterson 1991, Esping Andersen and Van Kersbergen 1992). These scholars desire a politically and economically equal society, where the functions of democratic institutions go beyond the mere fulfilment of procedures and rules. In the attempt to bridge socialist ideas and liberal democratic values these scholars focus on the social results that democracy can generate for people (Keman 1993). For instance, drawing on the logic of Marxist class structures, Esping Andersen (1985) emphasises the importance of building democratic society where

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political and social actors (parties and unions) can generate social progress and societal development.

A third definition of democracy originates from the Schumpeterian theorization of liberal ‘procedural democracy’ as a competitive method for selecting leaders. Schumpeter conceives democracy as an “institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individual acquires the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people's vote” (Schumpeter, 1942, 269). Following Schumpeter, Przeworski (1999, 12) argues that democracy is a “system in which people select their rulers through competitive elections”. These scholars conceptualise their vision of democracy as a rational answer to totalitarianism and authoritarianism. However, by emphasising the role of political competition and elections as the essence of democracy, Schumpeter and Przeworski offer a minimalist conceptualisation of democracy that “does not take into account political equality as a key dimension of procedural democracy” (Saffon and Urbinati 2013, 456). Political theorists Saffon and Urbinati provides a more complete conceptualisation of procedural democracy, refining the idea of a simply functionalistic method devoid of normative values:

Procedural democracy is minimalist in the Schumpeter sense as it refers only to the procedures and not the outcomes it may achieve, that is the only relevant traits of these outcomes are their compliance with procedural rules. But, contra Schumpeter and Przeworski it focuses not only on democracy's capacity to replace violent politics but also and especially on its protections of political equality, which consists not only in political competitions between factions but also in the effective participation of all individuals (Saffon and Urbinati 2013, 460).

In this vein, drawing on the Schumpeter’s procedural model, a number of scholars have highlighted other components (contents and results) that define the ‘quality’ of a procedural democracy (Altman and Pérez-Linan 2002, Powell 2004, Morlino and Diamond 2005, Robert 2010). Morlino (2011) summarizes this debate, providing a list of factors that permits to gauge the quality of a democracy beyond its procedures: the rule of law, the responsiveness of elected officials, fair competition among political parties, citizens’

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political freedom and political equality, people’s political participation and the institutional accountability.

While political theorists and sociologists continue to debate the conceptualisation of democracy, the scholarly debate on democratic transitions has articulated its paradigm of analysis relying on the theoretical tenets of procedural democracy model. The rise of democratic transitions across the world in 1970s and 1980s (Southern Europe, Latin America and Eastern Asia) - what Huntington calls the third wave - generated a pressing need among Western scholars of democracy (especially in the US) to adopt an inclusive and comprehensive framework of analysis to study the global democratization trend. The academic knowledge originating from the Schumpeter’s conceptualization of democracy was apt for this purpose because it focuses overwhelmingly on democratic procedures and institutional achievements as separate therefore from discussions about the actual quality of democracy (Lipset 1959; Rustow 1970, O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986, Huntington 1991, Schmitter and Karl 1991, Rueschemeyer, Stephens and Stephens, 1992, Boix and Stoke 2003, Dahl 2011, Treisman 2019). In particular it provided a set of indicators that allowed political scientists - often living in the West - to examine processes of democratization occurring in non-Western countries through measurable institutional changes. Thus, the elaboration of a framework of analysis to study democratization processes, the so-called

democracy transition paradigm, drew extensively from the electoral and minimalist

conceptualization of democratization.

The seminal books of O’Donnell and Schmitter (1986) and Samuel Huntington (1991) became the backbone of the democratic transition paradigm. Following Schumpeter, these scholars conceptualise democracy as a political system encompassing a set of rules and procedures, mainly free and fair elections and oppositional rights. Most importantly, they put forth a template that included three phases through which one could examine transitions to democracy. In their understanding, processes of economic and social liberalisation encapsulate the first phase of democratic transition, a sort of opening step that paves the ground for authoritarian breakdown. This phase displays democratic ferment, demands for liberalisation and the de-alignment of political and economic elites formerly supportive of the regime.

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The authoritarian breakdown opens the second phase – democratization - or what O’Donnell and Schmitter (1986) call breakthrough. This period highlights the emergence of a new democratic system where power is distributed among national political groups.

Political leaders are selected through competitive, free and fair elections and they rule

within a democratic institutional structure, which is regulated by a new Constitution. As Schmitter and Karl (1991, 82) suggest, democracy works only if “who wins greater electoral support on influence over policy will not use their temporary superiority in the future, and that in exchange for this opportunity to keep competing for power and place, momentary losers will respect the winners’ right to make binding decisions”. According to Huntington (1991) during the democratization, two rounds of free and fair competitive multiparty elections prove that a country has moved from the transitional phase to the beginning of democratic consolidation.

The phase of consolidation represents the process by which a new democracy thrives, gradually eradicating the risk to regression to authoritarianism. During the consolidation process the resilience of a democratic system, alongside with its associated democratic institutions and actors, increases. According to Morlino (1988), a new Constitution, shared among parties and organizations, may be considered the beginning of the consolidation process. Linz (1990, 156) suggests that a democracy consolidates when “none of the major political actors, parties, or organized interests, forces, or institutions consider that there is any alternative to democratic processes to gain power, and no political institution or group has a claim to veto the action of democratically elected decision makers”. In this vein, the higher is the awareness among significant political groups about the democratic institutions as the only arena for political debates, the higher the level of democratic consolidation (Ghunter 1996). One of the most important elements to measure the process of consolidation of a given democracy is the level of legitimation achieved. This occurs successfully when citizens believe that existing institutions and the system itself is the best alternative, and this regardless the level of personal satisfaction within the democratic system (Schedler 1997). In short, in a consolidating democracy, political and social actors begin to perceive democratic institutions as part of normal order of things.

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While these scholars generated a useful framework of analysis to examine democratic transitions, the paradigm they elaborated relied on the minimalist “Western interpretation of democratization and the patterns of democratic change taking place” (Carothers 2002, 6). In this regard, the transition paradigm has recently met criticism for being a catch-all teleological framework of analysis that places excessive emphasis on competitive elections and procedures as indicators of democratic achievements (Carothers 2002). Whitehead (2009, 36), criticises the paradigm of democratic transition for being “at once too permissive and ‘too exacting’ to measure up to the diverse tapestry of transitions in the real world”. The paradigm of democratic transition has also drawn criticism because it offers a linear and normative template that does not fit with the real processes of democratisation. Sadiki (2009, 15) noted that limiting the analysis of democratic transition to a set of “fixed and inflexible theoretical propositions, which may be drawn from specific and ideal-typical case studies” fail to illustrate the functioning mechanism of ‘hybrid regimes’ (Diamond and O’Donnell 2002) that hold elections but are not democratic.

However, despite the transition paradigm - and the conception of procedural democracy on which it is built – suffering from flaws in grasping the real strength of a democratization process, and to gauge the quality of a democracy, another established framework of analysis to explore democratization process does not exist. Therefore, in order to investigate the international dimension of Tunisia’s democratization this study relies on the conceptualisation of procedural democracy and the transition paradigm that stems from it. Democracy hereafter is understood as a set of functioning procedures and processes that ensure the rule of law, free and fair competitive and multiparty elections, political participation, freedom to contest, and (inter)institutional accountability. The democratization process is examined through the theoretical tenets of the democratic transition paradigm.

Crucially, this conceptual choice is associated with the main goal of this study. The aim of this research is to understand what international factors contributed to authoritarian breakdown and democratization process in Tunisia. The conceptualization of procedural democracy (Schumpeter 1942, Prezworksy 1999, Saffon and Urbinati 2013) - and the paradigm of democratic transition that stems from it (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986,

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Huntington 1991) - is the most apt framework for this research purpose. Indeed, it enables to investigate how international factors accelerated authoritarian breakdown and enhanced institutional building and competitive politics during Tunisia’s democratization process. In other words, it permits to highlight what international conditions helped Tunisia to become the first functioning procedural democracy in the Arab world. The limit of such theoretical choice is that this research investigates the Tunisian democratization process through a minimastilistic and Western-made framework of analysis. This framework will not permit to grasp the impact that international political economy had in the democratization process. In particular this research will not examine the relation between the agency of international economic actors (i.e. World Bank, International Monetary Fund) and the level of social justice and economic distribution during the country’s democratization. Likewise, it will not investigate whether international influences impacted the satisfaction of Tunisians with the democratic system put in place. This worthy research questions are beyond the scope of this research. They would require a different conceptualization of democracy that goes beyond the definition of procedural democracy and the analytical approach that the transitional paradigm provides.

The evolution of the debate on the international dimension of

democratisation: from the bipolar to the unipolar world

The scholarly effort to develop and conceptualize knowledge related to the international dimension of democratization has followed the ‘polarity’ of the world system. During the Cold War, scholars claimed that Western powers – especially the US – secured authoritarian allies in power in Latin and Central America, Middle East and Eastern Asia - to prevent communist forces from taking over (Meernick, Krueger and Poe 1998). The Soviet Union, for its part, was not interested in democratization and it focused on exporting its socialist and centralist model in the countries under its sphere of influence (Roberts 1999). Therefore, as the international conditions were not intuitively favourable to democratization in the 1970s and 1980s, the scholarly debate argued that democratization processes had an exclusive domestic dimension and therefore focused on national political and social actors playing the game of the transition (Rustow 1970, Casanova 1983, Mainwaring and Viola 1985, O'Donnell and Schmmitter 1986, Diamond and Linz 1989). Scholars in that period investigated democratization processes as overwhelmingly

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endogenous and associated with “national forces, calculations and factors” (O'Donnel and Schmmitter, 1986, 5), with the international aspect playing at best a secondary role. In the introduction of their seminal book focusing on the wave of democratic transitions in Latin America, Diamond and Linz (1989, 47) argued that “without exception, each of our authors attributes the course of political development and regime change primarily to internal structures and actions, while acknowledging the way structures have been shaped historically by international factors”. These scholars studied democratization through the analytical tools of comparative politics, “where the dismissal of international factors has been more pronounced than in the other fields” (Yilmaz, 2002, 68), thereby screening out international factors.

A remarkable exception to this dominant approach was Alfred Tovias’ study (1984) on the international dimension of transitions to democracy in Southern Europe. Employing the case of Spain, Tovias illustrated how international agreements with foreign liberal states, especially in the domains of economics and security, accelerated the process of transition to democracy, as they created opportunities and incentives for a country entering the democratic coalition of states. The US and its West European allies had no concerns that authoritarian breakdown and democratization in Spain would bring the country into the communist camp. Indeed, the strong economic linkage and security cooperation Spain had with US and European countries made it very unlikely (Tzortzis 2019). Tovias argued that during democratic transition foreign actors offered assistance and partnership on condition that countries complied with a number of requirements and responded to a set of demands. These opportunities pushed domestic groups to take decisions that avoided regression to authoritarianism in volatile transnational periods. In this regard, the European Union was a crucial actor in accelerating democratization in Spain Portugal and Greece. In addition, international protective umbrellas in the domains of economics and security were a shortcut to resolve troubles when the country was exposed to risks (financial difficulties, domestic insurgence, and external threats) that may have escalated into chaos.

Tovias’ theoretical elaboration heralded a larger and more consistent debate on the significance of the international dimension of democratisation that took place in the 1990s and 2000s. Indeed, some scholars of democratisation gradually changed their approach and

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took into account international variables as having a facilitating impact in transitions or playing a prominent role in setting them off (Starr 1991, Pridham 1991, Chalmers 1993, Pridham et al. 1994, Shin 1994). In his seminal book The Third Wave, Samuel Huntington (1991, 85) concluded that “democratization in a country may be influenced, perhaps decisively, by the actions of governments and institutions external to that country”.

Four main elements bolstered a new research effort to explore the international dimension of regime change and democratization. First, US liberal hegemony dominated the new unipolar world system favouring the expansion of democracy in “non-Western countries” (Krauthammer, 1990). The US ushered in a more liberal approach in foreign policy because the demise of Soviet Union had reduced security and geopolitical concerns (Smith 2000). US INGOs speciliased on democracy promotion mushroomed and began to diffuse their influence globally. For instance, starting from the late-1980s US groups such as Freedom House, National Democratic Institute, International Republican Institute began promoting democracy around the world under the umbrella of National Endowment for Democracy (NED) founded in 1983.

Second, the relentless growth of globalisation began to impact the domestic level, driving social and national political processes (Schwartzman 1998). With globalisation progressing in every domain, neoliberal practices and influences lowered the significance of nation states’ control over national economies and domestic social processes. Studying the cases of the South African and the Brazilian transitions to democracy, Seidmans (1994, 97) demonstrated how elites and social classes who had been loyal and cooperative with the authoritarian rulers, as they depended economically upon it, began to contest the political system as new forms of wealth derived from transnational markets and global ties. Huntington (1991, 66) argued that in the later phase of the third wave the expansion of economic integration and the rise of global communications and transportation, “provided greater resources for distribution and compromise, create nongovernmental sources of wealth and influence, and open societies to the impact of the democratic ideas prevailing in the industrialized world”. In short, new international processes triggered by globalisation challenged the image of the state that realists provided, as external influences and global

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processes constrained and limited the action of authoritarian rulers (Opello and Rosow, 1999, Haynes 2001).

Third, the demise of the Soviet Union encouraged scholars to develop theoretical tools for better explaining how the interplay between international and domestic factors could enhance democratization processes. Indeed, the analysis of democratic transitions in Eastern Europe highlighted more neatly that geopolitical factors and international influence could not be divorced from national processes of democratization (Pridham, Herring and Sanford 1994). Kumar (1992, 441) underlined how the democratic transitions taking place in Eastern Union after the Soviet Union dissolution “were an international phenomenon right from the start”.

Fourth, starting from the mi-1990s, the agency of the European Union (EU) gained increasing relevance in the debate of the international dimension of democratization as the EU weaponised its instruments for democracy promotion through a number of direct assistance programs (McFaul, Mager and Stone-Weiss 2007). Most importantly, the EU imposed a set of socio-economic and political reforms – ‘conditionality’ - for granting EU membership to countries in transition to democracy. This reinforced the liberalisation processes in former communist countries across Eastern and Central Europe (Rose and Haerpfer 1995, Ágh 1999, Cichowski 2000, Kubicek 2003 and 2005, Schimmelfennig 2007). The European Union also demonstrated its potential to attract neighbouring states outside Europe to embrace democracy, as they would eventually benefit from joining the European common framework. Scholars argued that Turkey (Kubicek 2005) and Tunisia (Sadiki and Powell 2010) had chances to democratise, as political and economic negotiation with the EU would generate democratic socio-political reforms and economic liberalisation.

IR scholars hailed the impact of international influence on democratization processes in Eastern Europe and Latin and Central America as the triumph of international liberalism, highlighting the democratizing ability of a range of Western democracy promoters. The great emphasis on international organizations’ and INGOs democratizing ability brought the democratization debate into the broader debate between IR theorists. Although realist scholars (Mearshmeir 1994, Mastanduno 1997) resisted the ideas that international

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liberalism and democratization could lead to the ‘end of history’ (Fukuyama 1989), evidence suggested that international liberalism was allowing democratic momentum to spread around the world. Liberalists argued that the US liberal hegemony in the world system was favouring the expansion of liberal democracy. Indeed, the ‘democratizing force’ of the European Union and other international organizations helped emphasising the importance of the liberal tenets of international cooperation (Keohane and Martin 1995) and democratic peace (Owen 1994).

In light of the changes in the global environment, some scholars of democratization realised that time had come to consider international factors as crucial – not simply secondary or facilitating - in the study democratic transitions (Pridham 1991, Chalmers 1993, Pridham et al. 1994, Shin 1994). By investigating how international factors were correlated to democratic transitions, these scholars situated their research agenda at the crossroad between comparative politics and international relations (Haynes 2003), trying to reduce the “theoretical gulf in the two subfields of political science” (Moravcsik and Smith, 1993, 41), which seemed increasingly intertwined and interrelated. Pridham (1991, 9) was the first to challenge the assumption that international context had only a secondary role on democratic transitions, raising the attention on the heightened ability of multifaceted international forces to wield influence onto the national level. His work urged

transitologists to consider the weight of the international dimension, as none of the

democratizing world region seemed immune from the interplay between the national and international levels. Exploring transitions to democracy in Eastern Europe, Pridham and its colleagues (1994) proposed the concept of systemic penetration, arguing that instability during the transition process may lead domestic actors to seek aid beyond the country’s borders. They considered international factors as a dependent variable largely shaped by opportunities and conditions that domestic regimes offered at a given point, emphasising

“the case-specificity of the interplay between regime change and international causes”

(Pridham et al. 1994, 13).

Domestic politics across the globe, though to different degrees, had acquired an international dimension, whose investigation was essential to fully understand cases of authoritarian breakdown and subsequent democratic transition. Yet, this did not mean that

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external influences had a common denominator, as international actors were diverse in their nature and objectives. In addition to international organizations with their specific missions and state actors with their geopolitical interests, a considerable number of new international actors were operating into a globalised world, penetrating specific countries long before regimes change and democratization, wielding a degree of sway on domestic political, institutional and social processes. This included international NGOs, transnational advocacy networks and human right groups (Keck and Sikkink 1998, Finnemore and Sikking 1998, Risse-Kappen et al. 1999) and ideological and religious movements (Haynes 2001), among others. These studies raised the scholarly attention on the capacity of human right groups and advocacy network - Amnesty International, Human Rights Group, Lawyers Without Borders, among other - to target illiberal governments and their abuses in countries such as Guatemala, Tunisia, Morocco, Uganda and Kenya.

INGOs, international human rights and transnational advocacy networks entered the foreign national ground, establishing offices in third countries and diffusing international liberal norms. Researchers pointed out the capacity of these groups to accelerate liberalization processes in countries such as Chile, Ecuador, Philippine, and Poland among others (Risse-Kappen et al. 1999, 2). Their activities offered empirical evidence for elaborating new theoretical frameworks for scholars studying transitions. According to Chalmers (1993, 14) a new template of research considering “internationalised domestic politics” better enabled the assessment of international factors into trajectories of regime change. Analysing the role of external actors in transitions to democracy in Latin America, he introduced the concept of internationally based actors. This notion referred to any actor involved in a country’s domestic politics over a period of time, becoming embedded into the political institutions of the country and being identified as an international source of power. A number of scholars backed up this broad conceptualisation with in-depth case studies. Opello focused on the case of Portugal transition to democracy (1991) and Hurrell (1996) employed the case of Brazilian democratization. Both highlighted indirect external aspects of democratisation, which in their understanding produced a more diffuse impact on the political system. Hurrell (1996, 157), for instance, explained how in 1980s the rise of pressure that INGOs wielded on the Brazilian military regime stimulated domestic concerns on the deteriorating human rights records and the regime’s arbitrary rule of law. Hurrell

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(1996, 153) also highlighted the role that the Catholic Church played in the ‘resurrection of civil society’ in the 1970s and the growth of popular opposition to military rule. In this regard the notion of international civil society was part of the debate. The rise of transnational movements suggested that democratic entrepreneurs could diffuse democratic norms through a number of organizations and procedures. Likewise, new channels of communication and the emergence of global civil society had emerged at the forefront of campaigns to promote democracy and good governance, and to check the abuse of political and human rights in many countries of the world (Florini 2000).

While in early 1990s scholars began to raise the attention on the impact of international agents of democratization, the debate was missing conceptualisation and theoretical refinement. Laurence Whitehead (1996) attempted to systematise the knowledge by sketching three theoretical typologies to investigate the international dimension of democracy: contagion, control and consent. Contagion has to do with the “neutral transmission mechanisms that might induce countries bordering on democracies to replicate the political institutions of their neighbours” (Whitehead 1996, 7). The theory drew from democratisation as a ‘domino sequence’ (Starr 1991) among bordering countries, assuming that relevant changes in one country’s political institutions spread to neighbouring countries, and so on (O’Loughlin 1998). The second category Whitehead put forth is control, which implies more direct international interference into the process of regime change, sketching a casual mechanism between the agency of external forces and its direct impact on the changing structures at the domestic level. As Whitehead (1996, 58) argues, hegemonic countries such as the USA “through the allocation of aid and other economic concessions could encourage, redirect, or resist democratising impulses, even if it could not strongly control them”. The third path to democratisation – consent - refers to the capacity of global actors to enhance the consolidation phase of democratising countries. In this regard, one may argue that democratic consolidation and its mainstays – institutional arrangements, electoral routinization, and law enforcement - must have a prominently domestic dimension. Yet, international actors delivering expertise, financial aid and assistance may enhance the capacity building of their national partners in accomplishing the essential steps of democratic consolidation.

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Whitehead theoretical elaboration, however, focused mainly on state actors – with great emphasis on the US influence in Latin America’s democratisations - and devoted less attention to non-state actors. The debate was missing an encompassing theoretical framework enabling scholars to measure the international dimension beyond the agency of specific international actors on single regional cases. In this respect, Yilmaz’s (2001) study was groundbreaking as he offered a systemic model for the examination of the international factors. His theoretical model was important because, unlike previous studies, it encompassed the agency of diverse international actors, ranging from states to international organizations to non-state actors. Drawing from Dahl’s (1971) assumption that internal factors would bring about democratic change if the internal costs of suppression exceeded the internal costs of toleration, he introduced two intervening variables that could constrain the government actions: the expected external costs of suppression and the expected

external costs of toleration. He argued that:

Where an authoritarian state inhabits a democracy-promoting international environment, the leadership could and probably would inaugurate democratic reforms if it judged the internal costs of toleration to be lower than the external costs of suppression. From the state’s perspective, the external costs of suppression could present themselves in two forms, either in the form of the imposition of external sanctions (for example, a trade embargo) or in the form of the suspension of external rewards (for example, membership in a prestigious international organization). By so doing, the external costs of suppression help transform the internal relations of force in such a way as to raise the internal costs of suppression above the level of the internal costs of toleration. The principal role the external factors play in a democratic transition is to bring about that inversion in the initial internal relations of force. (Yilmaz 2001, 81-82)

Levitsky and Way (2006 and 2010), for their part, went on to build an additional model to explain different outcomes among authoritarian regimes in transition, illustrating why some of them democratised, other experienced political turnover without democratisation or remained authoritarianism. They demonstrated that the end of the Cold War caused a sharp drop in the international tolerance vis-à-vis authoritarian regimes and their undemocratic practices to retain power. International pressure on authoritarian governance forced many

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regimes created formal ‘liberal institutions’ to hold on to power, eventually transforming into what Levitsky and Way called competitive authoritarianism. By introducing two concepts - Western leverage and linkage to the West - they argued that leverage increases the cost of authoritarian abuses through economic sanctions, threatens to rule countries out of international agreements, but linkages to the West has to complement Western leverage to generate real effects in democratising countries. Linkages to the West can vary in their nature, including economic, geopolitical, social and communication linkages and they argue that such linkages bring about significant results in targeting authoritarianism. First, they allow domestic opponents to have a more global outreach. Second, they improve the capacity of foreign actors to react to the autocrat’s blatant abuses and assist local actors. Third they widen the spectrum of national actors who develop a pro-democracy attitude.

The end of the unipolar world and the decline of the debate on the

international dimension of democratization

Recent studies on the international dimension of democratization have refined the Levitsky and Way’s model (Tolstrup 2013) or applied it to a specific region (Hill 2016). Research on the international dimension of democratization continues to appear on specific cases (Gamal 2015) and comparative studies on regional democratization touch upon international aspects (Morlino 2012, Mainwaring and Pèrez-Linan 2013). Yet, the growing interest characterising the scholarly debate on the international dimension of democratization between 1990s and early 2000s has visibly slowed down in the last decade. Over the last decade, the debate on the international dimension of democratization has lost momentum and the research agenda did not progress, whereas new attempts to investigate the international politics of authoritarianism gained traction (Yom and Al-Momani 2008, Tolstrup 2009; Brownlee 2012, Heydemann and Leenders 2013, Soest 2015, Bader 2015, Tansey 2016). Such an abrupt shift of agenda has followed the mutated conditions of the international system. The decline of the US unipolar moment and the rise of a multipolar world, crisscrossed by rivalries and confrontations for hegemony, downgraded the significance of the theories suggesting that international influence and factors can play a decisive role in enhancing democratization. A number of factors also contributed to lowering the scholarly attention to study the international dimension of democratization.

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First, the idea that liberal democracy is a benign and teleological ideology is losing its power in driving the foreign policy of Western hegemonic powers (Whitehead 2015). Many Western democracies, although continuing to centre their domestic narrative on democratic values, are showing a preference for authoritarian rulers abroad when the democratic narrative is transformed into foreign policy options (Richter 2015, Tansey 2016, 72). Second, great autocratic powers have regained ground in influencing the domestic politics of third countries, overtly challenging the dominance of Western states and their liberal institutions. Third, the liberal democracy model has been under severe criticism for its failure to fulfil people’s needs and democratic governance and liberal institutions are under attack for generating increasing social inequality (Krastev 2016, Dixon and Suk 2018). In addition, scholars have pointed out that the governance of democratic states shares some governance features with authoritarian systems (Cavatorta, 2010).

Indicators of freedom and civil rights highlight the retrenchment to authoritarian practices. After thirty years of democratic expansion, world-renown observers and eminent scholars’ express pessimism on the future of global democracy (Colgan and Keohane 2017, Castells 2018, Galston 2018). Scholars have shifted their research efforts to the study of the international dimension of authoritarianism because new evidence is suggesting that democratic regression and authoritarianism resurgence characterise the political trend worldwide (Luhmann and Lindber 2019).

There is little doubt that in the last years democratic indicators around the world have been regressing. The 2019 Freedom House’s report Freedom in the World titled ‘Democracy in retreat’, showing that democratic indicators have declined across the world in 71 countries in 2017 and 68 countries in 2018, while they have improved in 35 countries in 2017 and 50 countries in 2018.1 This means that the number of countries experiencing democratic backsliding exceeds those where democracy is improving. Yet, processes of authoritarian breakdown and democratic transitions are still taking place in a globalised and interconnected world where the number and the outreach of ‘international democracy promoters’ has increased. Therefore, the investigation of the international context of democratization is still theoretically relevant. The comprehension of the mechanism

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through which international factors impact on the democratization process is particularly important because we are living in an age of multipolarity, where the conditions through which international actors boost or thwart democratization has changed compared to the past. The academic knowledge that scholars elaborated during the unipolar moment needs refinement to highlight how specific external variables are conducive to democratization in a multipolar world system where great and regional powers are battling across borders for hegemony, preserving or extending their influence. In other words, scholarly debate needs new conceptualisations that explain how the mutated world conditions constrain or create opportunities for international actors and factors accelerating authoritarian breakdown and boosting democratization, or conversely empowering authoritarianism.

Studying the International Dimension of Democracy in Age of

Multipolarity

Scholars suggest that democratization processes have more chance to emerge and succeed when the world system (or a regional system) is dominated by a liberal superpower, which wields its democratic influence unchallenged (Boix 2011; Mearshmeir 2018). In regional or national settings that show low internal conflicts and are not porous to foreign struggles for influence, liberal hegemonic powers can promote democracy without jeopardising their hegemony because the risk that regime change would draw interference from rival states is low. By exploring the structure of the international systems in long-term macro periods, Boix (2011, 814) builds an interesting argument showing how the conditions of the world system had a crucial impact on the development of democracy. He argues that the advancement or retreat of democracy correlates with global systemic changes. In what he called ‘constrained systems’ (Boix 2011, 815), where rival great powers confront each other for hegemony, “hegemonic states might well tolerate – and even support - authoritarian regimes”. Instead, in periods of liberal and authoritarian hegemonies - what Boix (2011) calls ‘unconstrained system’s - “the great powers are more likely to promote like-minded regimes” (Boix 2011, 815).

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Following this reasoning, realist scholar John Mearshmeier (2018) points out that occasionally a liberal democracy encounters such a favourable balance of power that it is able to embrace liberal hegemony. According to Mearshmeier (2018, 23), that situation is most likely to “arise in a unipolar world, where the single great power does not have to worry about being attacked by another great power since there is none”. Indeed, in a unipolar world, regime change does not jeopardize the interests of the hegemon because it manages to control the political void that surrounds democratization through its exclusive influence, driving the political and economic choices of the transitional elites toward its preferences and model. Therefore, in periods of liberal unipolarity, democratization processes are likely to put in power political elites that align with the economic and political preferences of the hegemon. Hegemonic powers impose considerable constrained to national actors, limiting their capacity to structure their own political and social model and reducing the options they have to frame other international alliances with enemies of the hegemon. In this regard, by supporting regime change and democratization, a liberal hegemon may have been willing to replace an authoritarian regime whose illiberal management of the domestic economy limits the advancement of its economic interests and foreign policy goals.

This reasoning on state actors behavior also binds the capacity of liberal international organizations and democratic entrepreneurs to advance democracy or enhance democratic consolidation in third countries to the contingent geopolitical situation of the world system, or the specific situation at the regional level. Indeed, the evidence on the democratizing actions of international organizations and INGOs, hailed as the triumph of liberalism during the unipolar post-cold War world, has recently diminished in strength within a multipolar and conflicting world. While a number of scholars demonstrated that international organizations have a positive effect on democratization and human rights (Pevehouse 2002, Mansfield and Pevehouse 2006) and that IOs can promote democratic consolidation (Hafner-Burton 2009), new scholarship shows that they are unsuccessful in tackling processes of authoritarian backlash during democratic transitional periods (Paust and Urpelainen 2015). Liberal international organizations and other democratic entrepreneurs can contribute to the emergence of democracy, as they possess skills and expertise to target authoritarian rulers such as naming-and-shaming, conditionality or even membership

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removal. Yet, they do not possess adequate tools to deter democratic regression as they lack key resources (i.e. weapons, army) to intervene into conflicts, that is “they cannot enforce policy or directly intervene in conflicts, so they cannot protect transitional democracies from coups and revolutions” (Paust and Urpelainen 2015, 49). Such changing ability thus goes hand to hand with the features of the international or regional system wherein they wield their agency. In periods where the world system – or a specific region - is crisscrossed by ideological and hegemonic rivalries and confrontations, the likelihood that countries living democratic transitions become battleground for great powers confrontation (either establishing proxy wars or backing military coups that prevent enemies to gain influence) lowers the democratizing capacity of international organizations.

There is a bourgeoning literature debating the capacity of international NGOs, global civil society and transnational movements to advance social and political causes in third countries (Keck and Sikkink 1998). For instance, INGOs, democracy promoters, transnational advocacy network and international civil society wielded a decisive influence in bringing about liberalisation processes in Eastern Europe, Latin America, Southern Asia and Africa (Risse-Kappen 1994). However, these explanations that helped to interpret the post-Cold War unipolar world system are less adaptable to a multipolar and conflicting world. The emphasis on INGOs and democracy promoters as international agents of political change toward democracy has faded over the last decade. According to Marlene Spoerri (2015, 1) “the past decade has not been kind to the world’s democracy promoters”. New studies examine in fact how their actions are increasingly ineffective, contradictory or disempowering, as conflicting interests characterised the state's foreign policy (Grimm and Leininger 2012, Börzel 2015, Bush 2015, Leininger et al. 2017).

In short, in an age of multipolarity the capacity and the agency of democratic entrepreneurs – democratic state actors, international organizations and INGOs involved in democracy promotion - cannot be divorced from the contingent geopolitical situation. Most of the great powers prefer to maintain the political status quo in those countries where ruling elites align with their foreign policy preferences and secure their economic interests, regardless of bottom-up challenges and demands for liberal political reforms and economic redistribution. For a great power holding a degree of influence in a given country, the stake

The international dimension of Tunisia’s transition to democracy : from consensus over democracy to competitiveness within democracy

The International Dimension of Tunisia’s Transition to

Democracy. From Consensus over Democracy to

Competitiveness within Democracy

Thèse

Pietro Marzo

Doctorat en science politique

Philosophiæ doctor (Ph. D.)

The International Dimension of Tunisia’s

Transition to Democracy. From Consensus over

Democracy to Competitiveness within Democracy

Thèse

Pietro Marzo

Doctorat en Science Politique

Philosophiæ doctor (Ph.D)

Québec, Canada

Sous la direction de:

Résumé

Abstract

Contents

List of abbreviations and acronyms

Acknowledgements

Forewords

Introduction

What democracy? Definitions of democracy.

The evolution of the debate on the international dimension of

democratisation: from the bipolar to the unipolar world

The end of the unipolar world and the decline of the debate on the

international dimension of democratization

Studying the International Dimension of Democracy in Age of

Multipolarity