the ArAb Spring proteStS were greeted with euphoriA, but the reSulting inStAbility, SectAriAniSm, And extreme violence in SeverAl middle eAStern StAteS hAve led Some to believe thAt the toppled dictAtorS mAy hAve been the leSSer of two evilS. while tuni- SiA’S SucceSSful democrAtic trAnSition lookS like An AnomAly in itS current regionAl environment, egypt AlSo Achieved A SignificAnt hiStoric mileStone when it elected preSident morSi in free electionS. however, hiS Short tenure And egypt’S broAder fAil- ure to democrAtize promptS queStionS AS to how democrAtic trAnSitionS cAn Succeed After dictAtorShipS. by compAring the tuniSiAn And egyptiAn democrAtic trAnSition proceSSeS, the Article SeekS to elucidAte the cAuSeS of the difference in outcomeS of the proteStS in theSe two StAteS. new politicAl ActorS And certAin Ancien régime in- StitutionS plAyed criticAl roleS in ouSting the dictAtorS, but whAt proved cruciAl to the SucceSS of the trAnSition wAS whether democrAtic electionS took plAce before or After new conStitutionS were Adopted. thiS iS becAuSe conStitutionAl timing de- termined whether the country’S politicAl deSign would be dictAted by diAlogue And deliberAtion or run Ad-hoc by the politicAl Actor with the greAteSt populArity. Tunisian ExcEpTionalism oR mAx blAiSdell A Comparison of Democratic Transitions in the Middle East consTiTuTional Timing inTroduCTion If there is any incontrovertible theory in political science, it is that democracies do not go to war with one another. This democratic peace theory, whose origins lie in philosopher Immanuel Kant’s theory of perpetual peace, argues that shared liberal values amongst democracies and the constraints put on leadership by democratic institutions greatly reduces the likelihood of inter-democracy violent conflict.1 This theory was the linchpin underlying the Clinton Administration’s policy of democratic enlargement.2 Democracy promotion has not fallen out of favor with more recent administrations: President Bush’s administration argued that building a democratic Iraq was a valuable goal after evidence came out that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction and President Obama emphasized democracy and human rights as part of his foreign policy goals in his 2009 Cairo speech.3 Despite these rhetorical pledges, the United States’ alliances with authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, whether based on oil or security concerns, undermined the realization of democracy in the region. When the Arab Spring swept across the Middle East, from North Africa to the Persian Gulf, it seemed possible that democracy would autonomously emerge from the ashes of the long-standing authoritarian regimes. Recent examina- tion of the causes of the Arab Spring underscores how de- cades of repression and corruption sowed the seeds for popular unrest in the Middle East.4 The protesters clamor- ing for regime change also augured new thinking about Arab political culture, which for so long had been defined by obedience to the whims of strongmen. The uprisings also illuminated the contradictions between the United States’ priorities of democracy and stability in the region, pitting peaceful protesters against the police forces and militaries to whom the United States had given billions of dollars over the past several decades. Looking at the after- math of the Arab Spring, with Egypt once again under re- pressive rule, and chaos and violence still raging in Syria, Yemen, and Libya, the democratic success in Tunisia seems to be an anomaly rather than a precedent for future democratic transitions in the Middle East. The wide variation in outcomes of the protest movements of the Arab Spring is a quandary for political scientists, but this does not imply a lack of explanatory mechanisms. The failure of the Syrian revolt to topple longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad is in part attributable to the sectarian fault lines that exist in the country, causing ethnic groups who did not necessarily approve of Assad’s brutal actions to support his regime out of fear of the alternatives. Similarly, in Libya, the importance of clan and patronage ties under Muammar Gaddafi’s regime created the conditions for a fractured state in which no single group holds a strong enough claim for legitimacy or the monopoly of force nec- essary to induce stability. Unlike these failed revolutionary movements, the Egyptian and Tunisian protest move- ments were successful in toppling their dictators. Subse- quently, both held generally free and fair elections for the first time in their respective histories. Despite achieving this democratic milestone, Egyptians soon returned to the streets to protest their democratically elected president, which ultimately resulted in a popularly inspired coup by the Egyptian military on July 3, 2013. Tunisia, on the other hand, has witnessed a peaceful transfer of power through democratic elections, and a vibrant party system that incor- porates the far-left and far-right. What explains the divergence in outcomes between demo- cratic transitions? What insights can be drawn and applied to future democratic transitions from the comparison of these two cases? Answers to these questions are of vital concern to policymakers who put credence in democracy promotion as a component of foreign policy. In the sec- tions to follow, I first give a definition of democracy in or- der to clearly identify criteria and practices favorable to a democratic transition. Secondly, I examine existing theo- ries of democratic transition, ranging from modernization to institutional theory. Thirdly, I compare the democratic transitions of Tunisia and Egypt in light of these existing the egyptian revolution in tahrir square (Courtesy of flickr) 16 ElEmEnts : : FAll 2016 theories, and develop my own explanatory model for the divergence in outcomes in Tunisia and Egypt’s democratic transitions. I argue that a further nuancing of the politico- institutional approach which incorporates an analysis of time frame and chronological ordering of democratic tran- sition processes is the best model for understanding the Tunisian and Egyptian outcome disparity. This model al- lows me to draw conclusions from this particular compari- son to add insight and subtlety to the field of democratic transitions in the hope that policymakers and academics alike can learn how to better respond to future comparable situations in the Middle East. ThEorETiCal aPProaChEs To dEmoCraTiC TransiTions Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan’s book Problems of Demo- cratic Transition and Consolidation provides a comprehen- sive definition of democratic transitions — “a democratic transition is complete when sufficient agreement has been reached about political procedures to produce an elected government, when a government comes to power that is the direct result of a free and popular vote.”5 Any paper that considers the workings of democracy should abide by a concrete definition, as this will determine what consti- tutes a threat or aid to democracy. This paper will follow Jurgen Habermas’ formulation of deliberative democracy, the basis of which lies in “citizens’ free and equal delibera- tions on the laws that should govern their life together in the polity.”6 This conception presents a synthesis between constitutionalism and democracy; it guards against the ex- cesses of a majoritarian democracy, while also defending the principle that sovereignty resides in the public will. The importance of this theoretical understanding of de- mocracy is that it includes all members within the polity in the process of deliberation, thus building consensus as to the rules of the political game. Deliberative democracy also protects against the tyranny of the majority because of its vigorous attachment to constitutionalism, human rights, and judicial independence. This paper will examine and evaluate five theories of democratic transition, namely modernization theory, secularization theory, the elite and labor models, and the politico-institutionalist approach. It will begin with the modernization and secularization theories because they are the oldest and most prominent in the field. It will then proceed to examine the elite model, which was developed more recently in light of the Portuguese and Spanish transitions in the 1970s, as well as the labor model, which was developed in light of the second wave of African transitions in the 1990s. Finally, it will turn to the politico- institutionalist approach that provides the analytic framework with which this paper establishes its own theory of democratic transition. Modernization theory, one of the most prominent theories of comparative politics, contends that economic develop- ment underpins democracy, by precipitating democratic transitions and solidifying the institutions of existing de- mocracies. In his original formulation, Seymour M. Lipset argues that industrialization, urbanization, wealth, and education are the markers of economic development, which statistically correlates with democracy.7 This theory has not fallen out of favor amongst academics: Adam Prze- worski also argues that as countries economically develop, their social structures become increasingly complex—the bourgeois class emerges, workers organize, and civil soci- ety grows—thus making it impossible for a dictator to re- main effectively in command.8 This theory has faced criti- cism in recent years because of the persistence of economically developed authoritarian regimes like those in the Gulf States, which have extremely high indices of income per capita and yet remain under the thumb of dic- tatorship.9 However, the existence and persistence of de- veloped dictatorships such as the Gulf States can be ex- plained by their extreme economic reliance on valuable resources—in this case oil and natural gas—that allow them to co-opt opposition forces, buy off the public writ large, and employ expensive secret police forces.10 Addi- tionally, authoritarian regimes receiving large sums of for- “The throngs of protesters clamoring for regime change also augured new thinking about Arab political culture, which for so long had been defined by obedience to the whims of strongmen.” 17 Tunisian ExcEpTionalism or consTiTuTional Timing eign aid can use these transfer payments in a manner identical to resource-rich autocracies. These exceptions il- lustrate that the initial assumption that economic develop- ment and democracy are connected may be sound, but re- quires additional nuance to explore and specify the crux of the connection. Other scholars, such as Ilter Turan, see secularization as a prerequisite for democracy. Secularization theory argues that members of a polity are unlikely to compromise over matters of faith, and thus it is necessary to see the political sphere as autonomous from the realm of religion in order to have a functional democracy.11 The Iranian revolution and the takeover of the transition process by the radical Ayatollah Khomeini, exemplifies the concerns that fuel the argument that secularism is an absolute necessity for de- mocracy and that Islamists are not democrats, but hijack- ers of would-be democratic transitions. Nevertheless, the theological underpinnings of the Ayatollah’s rule are pecu- liar to Shia Islam and its hierarchical system, so it is un- clear whether Sunni Islamists could garner the popular legitimacy to create a theocratic state in the same vein as Iran, although Saudi Arabia might beg to differ. Further- more, viewing secularism as a unitary concept is problem- atic in light of the variety of existing interpretations, as il- lustrated by the differences between the U.S. and French conceptualizations of secularism.12 Mark Lilla persuasively argues in The Stillborn God that secularism is a political theology in its own right that only emerged after several centuries of debate amongst thinkers of the Christian phil- osophical tradition, and therefore each religious tradition must establish its own interpretation that is compatible with its theological underpinnings.13 In Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter’s sem- inal work, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies, initial elite com- pacts are regarded as central to democratic transitions.14 While important scholarship has emphasized the role of elites, Ruth Collier and James Mahoney contend that labor movements were critical to the success of democratic tran- sitions in Latin America and southern Europe in the 1970s and 80s.15 Other scholars support this view with evidence from the “African wave” of democratization that points to the number of legally recognized labor unions as the sin- gle most important factor in explaining the variation in successful protest movements.16 However, two countries with the largest numbers of legally recognized unions in the Middle East, Morocco and Algeria, have witnessed rel- atively fruitless and isolated protests in recent times.17 While all of the theories above are logically plausible and supported by empirical evidence in certain cases, the polit- ico-institutional approach is a uniquely comprehensive tool for analyzing democratic transitions. This approach emphasizes the distinctive institutional heritage of a coun- try and the complex interactions that take place between structures and political actors.18 This mode of analysis is well-suited for unpacking the dynamics of democratic transitions, as it highlights how the institutions that out- live a particular dictatorship shape political actions, and how competing actors attempt to redesign the political rules in their favor. However, drawing on the Haberma- sian conception, democracy does not survive in an envi- ronment in which competing actors or vestigial institu- tions in a country attempt to alter the rules of the political game on the fly. Instead it is dialogue and consensus build- ing amongst competing actors that determines whether or not they find an agreeable set of political rules and institu- tional designs. Enacting a constitution before major elec- tions take place is therefore crucial to the success of a democratic transition, as it sets down a legally legitimate set of rules and procedures agreed upon by the political actors in the country to govern elections and institutional structures. It is my particular contention that vestigial authoritarian institutions are a threat to democratic transitions if they are not sufficiently delegitimized by revolutionary actors, and that labor unions can function as the broad consensus builders necessary for reaching a constitutional agreement if they remain non-ideological. a ComParison of ThE PosT-rEvoluTionary Tunisian and EgyPTian TransiTions This paper will examine and compare the recent demo- cratic transitions in Tunisia and Egypt to evaluate the polit- ico-institutionalist approach and other competing models of democratic transition noted above. Tunisia’s democratic transition can be characterized as successful because the Ennahda, the Islamist party of Tunisia, and the secularist forces were able to agree upon the set of political proce- dures to regulate an elected government in the form of a constitution. They then conducted a free and fair election in which Beji Caid Essebsi won and his opponent conced- ed defeat, rather than challenging the results or resorting to violence.19 This series of developments satisfies the cri- teria of the definition of a successful democratic transition previously given. On the other hand, Egypt’s freely and 18 ElEmEnts : : FAll 2016 a protest in tunisia (Courtesy of flickr) fairly elected President Mohamed Morsi was deposed by a coup d’état on July 3, 2013 and a military regime was in- stalled in his place, thus bringing an abrupt end to the democratic phase of the Egyptian transition.20 It remains an open question, however, as to whether the Egyptian military will return to the barracks and cede control of the government to civilian control, or if it will further consoli- date its hold on the country in the long term. Before proceeding with my analysis of the transitions us- ing the politico-institutional approach, it is important to control for other potential explanatory factors, such as the neighborhood effect from the democratic domino theory, differences in levels of ethnic heterogeneity, or moderniza- tion theory’s emphasis on macroeconomics.21 Both of the countries are situated geographically in North Africa, and before the uprisings there was no proximate democracy to either. This negates the potential explanation that the neighborhood effect had any role in Tunisia’s democratic success or Egypt’s failure. Tunisia and Egypt also have mostly homogeneous Arab Sunni populations, and their demographic similarity eliminates the alternative explana- tion that sectarian differences doomed the Egyptian case. According to the United Nations’ Human Development Index, although neither country ranks particularly high— with Tunisia sitting in 90th place and Egypt in 110th— both still have medium to high human development statis- tics.22 Additionally, both Egypt and Tunisia maintained five to seven percent annual growth rates.23 This evidence then rules out the importance of macroeconomic factors in ex- plaining the variation in outcomes, and also underscores the need for greater nuance in modernization theory as an explanation for democratization. The politico-institutional approach is thus appropriate for analyzing the democratic transitions of Tunisia and Egypt because the secondary factors discussed above are removed from the foreground, while institutional struggles and structural transforma- tions are placed under the spotlight. auThoriTarian rEgimE Cross analysis The politico-institutional approach posits that the institu- tions that are left over from the authoritarian regime will structure the transition period. It is therefore important to examine the institutions that outlasted Mubarak and Ben Ali. Neither ruler relied solely on brute force to create a durable authoritarian state. In fact, they used the promise of democracy or the façade of democratic institutions to conceal their authoritarianism. In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak allowed the semblance of participatory politics to shield his regime from external criticism to co-opt members of the opposition, and to facilitate intramural competition amongst regime elites.24 However, the 2010 parliamentary elections in Egypt exposed the farcical democratic institu- tions when Mubarak’s National Democratic Party won 99% of the seats in a clearly rigged vote.25 The Rassemble- ment Constitutionnel Democratique (RCD) performed a similar function for Ben Ali. The Tunisian National As- sembly was filled with RCD members, with a small num- ber of seats shared among the opposition parties as a nom- inal nod at multiparty politics.26 In both countries, the dictators used the semblance of democracy to help legiti- mize their rule. The use of specious democratic institu- tions, such as rigged elections and parliaments, meant that the Arab Spring protesters’ goal was not simply to over- throw a particular leader, but to completely reconstruct their political systems. The police forces of Egypt and Tunisia were the main tools of repression employed by Mubarak and Ben Ali. Ben Ali was himself a former military police officer, who purposely kept his security forces powerful since he distrusted the military.27 In Egypt, the police force was used not only to curb dissent, but also as “the chief administrative arm of the state, aggregating the functions of several agencies.”28 Thus, in the wake of the protests, the police forces of Egypt and Tunisia became discredited institutions, as their ele- vated position had been based purely on loyalty to the now toppled dictator. So why is this important to the transition? Perhaps justifying the regimes’ mistrust of the military, during the protests, the Egyptian and Tunisian militaries refused to fire on protesters, defying orders from their re- spective dictators and thus sealing the fates of Ben Ali and Mubarak. This decision lent the militaries in both coun- 19 Tunisian ExcEpTionalism or consTiTuTional Timing a Child holding a sign that says, “free tunisia” (Courtesy of flickr) tries the protesters’ goodwill and a potential role in the transition process. However, the considerable difference in the capacities of the Tunisian and the Egyptian militar- ies must be noted. Under Ben Ali in Tunisia, the military was professionalized, but also underfunded and unde- requipped.29 On the other hand, the military’s share of the Egyptian economy was massive under Mubarak, with es- timates ranging anywhere from 5 to 40 % of the economy. This large range in estimates is due to the fact that it is illegal in Egypt to report on military holdings, and an ac- curate figure is thus impossible to calculate.30 The Egyptian military, under the aegis of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, sought to secure its extraor- dinary political and economic privileges after Mubarak’s fall, which is in line with the politico-institutional theory that incumbent institutions will try to retain arbitrary dis- cretion over rule changes in the transition period.31 The military was wary of Gamal Mubarak’s neo-liberal policies and concerned about him potentially succeeding his fa- ther.32 This supports Shadi Hamid’s contention that “Egypt’s revolution, rather than representing a sharp break from the past, may be better understood as a popularly in- spired military coup,” in that the military acted soon after Mubarak’s fall to ensure the continuity of their own insti- tutional privileges.33 It is easy to conclude that the Egyptian military’s extensive power doomed the country’s prospects for democracy, while the Tunisian military’s impotence meant it played little to no role in the transition’s outcome. This conclusion, however, lacks a causal link between pow- erful militaries and the failure to democratize. Looking at the Turkish case, it is clear that a powerful military can in fact encourage efforts to democratize. In the absence of such causal logic it is better to view the Egyptian military’s role as structuring the process by which the transition un- folded, but by no means predetermining its outcome. analyzing imPorTanT PoliTiCal aCTors in ThE TransiTions Islamists scored electoral victories in Tunisia and Egypt in the uprisings’ aftermath that put them in prominent posi- tions to determine the futures of their countries. There are several reasons behind the Islamists’ electoral successes. First, because the Ben Ali and Mubarak regimes had his- torically persecuted Islamist groups as either religious radicals or terrorists, the credentials as staunch opponents of the ancient regime were unquestionable.34 Second, be- cause they are not solely political groups but also religious ones, the authoritarian states could never fully root out these Islamist organizations lest they destroy their own Is- lamic credentials, thus giving Islamist opposition a devel- opmental advantage in comparison to secular opposition groups.35 Third, the institutional resources and social net- works of Islamist organizations allowed them to, “channel popular discontent in politically effective ways,” which aided their turnout at the ballot box.36 While Secularization Theory contends that the involvement of Islamists in a democratic transition jeopardizes its success because Is- lamists do not accept the strict autonomy of the political sphere from the religious one, the Ennahda party of Tuni- sia demonstrated a remarkable commitment to the demo- cratic transition in its handling of several major crises dur- ing the transition period.37 The Tunisian case demonstrates that Islamists are not inherently undemocratic, and that the failed transition to democracy in the Egyptian case was not predetermined by the victory of an Islamist to the Egyptian Presidency. A comparison of the role of labor unions in the Egyptian and Tunisian cases highlights qualifications to Michael Bratton and Nicholas van de Walle’s theory of democratiza- tion based on labor pluralism, instead suggesting that the goals of unions are relevant in shaping the political battles amongst revolutionary forces. Contrary to the supposition of Bratton and van de Walle’s theory that democratization is based on the pluralism of recognized trade unions, the Tunisian uprising prevailed with critical support from the single legally recognized labor organization in Tunisia, the Union Générale Tunusienne du Travail (UGTT), and the Egyptian uprising succeeded in toppling Mubarak without significant involvement from the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF). The UGTT was critical to the success 20 ElEmEnts : : FAll 2016 of the protest movement in two ways. First, UGTT mem- bers framed Boazizi’s self-immolation “not as a suicide resulting from the socioeconomic misfortune of an indi- vidual, but rather as a political assassination.”38 Second, their leadership was critical in expanding the protests geo- graphically, such that the police forces were too overex- tended to contain or quell the protests. In Egypt, factory strikes contributed in undermining Mubarak’s regime by causing a decline in the economy, but they occurred with- out orders from the ETUF leadership and reflected eco- nomic demands rather than political ones.39 The impor- tant contribution of the UGTT to the success of the Tunisian uprising made it a significant force in shaping the country’s political future and its demands for “political reforms…to deepen democracy” shaped the parameters in which the secularists and Islamists debated the future de- sign of the Tunisia.40 The lack of formal involvement by the ETUF meant that labor did not frame a set of political goals for other revolutionary actors and instead left the door open to the popular Islamists to decide how the coun- try would transition from military rule. ConsTiTuTional ProCEss and maJoriTarian dEmoCraCy Democratic transitions require tremendous feats of politi- cal maneuvering and compromise. Indeed, “a country in Tunisia’s or Egypt’s circumstances must steer between the Scylla of outsized influence by erstwhile autocratic incum- bents and the Charybdis of unconstrained new actors who seek to lock in newfound power.”41 However, the lack of a constitution before elections take place means that a stable consensus on the rules of the political game is not yet exis- tent, and thus the legitimacy of the democratic project, and the checks necessary to preventing the personal consolida- tion of power by the next president are not yet in place, jeopardizing the country’s democratic transition. Egypt’s transitionary process exemplifies the pitfalls de- scribed here. The lack of a constitution polarized the dispa- rate forces of the revolutionary movement at the major juncture of the democratic transition, the elections. In the initial aftermath of Mubarak’s fall from power, the military suspended the 1971 constitution, leaving the door open for an entirely new political structure.42 The military, however, moved quickly to preserve the economic and political priv- ileges it had enjoyed under Mubarak by appointing a spe- cial committee to propose amendments to the 1971 consti- tution, and lay out the path to transition away from complete military oversight. This committee was com- posed of three Islamists, none of whom represented secu- larist ideas.43 The committee first called for parliamentary elections that would select the 100-person constituent as- sembly followed by a presidential election. Because the elected president was charged with overseeing the adop- tion of a new constitution, he hypothetically held the pow- er to jettison the transition process or significantly under- mine its democratic procedures.44 These proposals were subject to approval by popular referendum scheduled for March 19, 2011. At this critical juncture, the combined op- position of the secularists and the Islamists could have se- verely undermined the legitimacy of this committee and the referendum. The military could not have sustained its pledge to represent the interests of the people and act as the guardian of the revolution had it blatantly ignored out- cry from both sides of the revolutionary spectrum. Addi- tionally, a crackdown against further peaceful protests rep- resenting a united revolutionary front could have sullied the reputation of the military and “increas[ed] the internal solidarity of the resistance campaign, [and] creat[ed] dis- sent and conflicts among the [military]’s supporters.”45 Instead the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafists, and other Islamists threw their considerable financial and organiza- tional weight behind the constitutional amendments and the restoration of much of the 1971 constitution until the constituent assembly was formed. This decision reflected purely partisan interests and not a deliberative attitude to- wards democracy.46 It also polarized the political spectrum, angering the liberals because two of their top presidential candidates were barred under the new selection criteria, and broke the nascent ties between the Islamists and the liberals that had developed in the revolution.47 From this moment on, the liberals and the Islamists found them- “Enacting a constitution before major elections take place is therefore crucial to the success of a democratic transition, as it sets down a legally legitimate set of rules and procedures agreed upon by the political actors in the country to govern elections and institutional structures.” 21 Tunisian ExcEpTionalism or consTiTuTional Timing selves in a bitter political conflict over the spoils of the revolution, a conflict further enflamed by Morsi’s heavy- handed tactics upon assuming the presidency and which ended only with his ouster.48 This conflict was predeter- mined by the failure of the revolutionary movement to establish a consensus for a new constitutional system be- fore the election of a president. Utilizing the existing con- stitutional framework left authoritarian levels of power in the hands of the executive and in such a setting, it is un- imaginable how a constitution based on consultation and dialogue could have been written, given extreme imbal- ance in power between the Islamists and the liberals. The Egyptian case demonstrates that handing the keys of an authoritarian state to another man by an election does not necessarily yield democracy. Rather, it is absolutely indis- pensable that power-sharing structures be established be- fore elections can ever take place. By contrast, the constitutional process allows revolution- ary actors of different strands to build trust and make con- cessions through dialogue and time, despite ideological disagreements over the structure of the future state and political crises. Similar to the military in the Egyptian case, the vestiges of Ben Ali’s regime attempted to com- mandeer the revolution and reassert their privileges.49 Unlike the Egyptian case, however, the secularists and Is- lamists remained united, participating jointly in demon- strations at the Casbah plaza to demand the ouster of in- terim Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, who not to be confused with the Ennahda’s Rachid Ghannouchi, was a holdover from Ben Ali’s ruling party, the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD).50 This demonstration ensured the “dissolution of the RCD…[the] legalization of Ennah- da, and that elections for the Constituent Assembly would be held.”51 The Casbah protests illustrate how the Tuni- sian revolutionaries’ were able to achieve concrete politi- cal objectives by remaining united against the vestigial regime forces attempting to break them up.52 Soon there- after, the Islamist Ennahda party won the country’s first free and fair election, sparking concerns that it would seek the spoils of political power just as the Muslim Brotherhood did in Egypt. Instead of confirming those fears, the Ennahda established a governing coalition in the Constituent Assembly and divided up leadership roles with the heads of the CPR and the Ettakatol, a power-shar- ing arrangement that was dubbed the Troika.53 Despite the continued potential for political opportunism by the Ennahda, the party approached politics in a consultative manner, not letting divisive issues jeopardize the continu- ation of the talks. In an act of magnanimity, the Ennahda made a decisive concession to the secularists with its an- nouncement in March 2012 that the party would not in- sist on making Sharia a or the source of legislation.54 Shortly after the counterrevolution in Egypt, though, left- ist Tunisian MP Mohamed Brahmi was assassinated, which sparked a week-long protest that called for the end of the coalition government. Parallel to Egypt’s transition, politically charged violence threatened the entire demo- cratic enterprise, but thanks to dialogue between the lead- ers of the opposition and the Ennahda, a compromise so- lution was reached and the Constituent Assembly was able to resume and then complete its work.55 The Tunisian Constitution contains numerous contradictions that will be open to interpretation and contestation in the years to come.56 However, it is also a reflection of the emerging consensus between Ennahda and the secularists and the product of major concessions made by the Ennahda on the protection women’s rights and the freedom of speech and religion.57 By rejecting continuity with the authoritar- ian regime’s institutions in favor of redesigning govern- ment, Tunisia’s revolutionary forces averted the polariz- ing effects of presidential elections and created a constitutional structure viewed as legitimate by both sides of the political spectrum. The legitimacy of this structure was tested by the 2014 presidential elections, in which the Ennahda party candidate Moncef Marzouki portrayed op- ponent Essebsi’s potential presidency as a reversal of the “Jasmine Revolution.”58 However, after the election re- sults confirmed Essebsi’s victory, Marzouki quickly con- ceded defeat, thus signaling that the Ennahda was accept- ing a transfer of power to the hands of the Nidaa Tounes and would not seek power outside of democratic means.59 ConClusion Democratic transitions occur in the aftermath of revolutions when the major political actors view democracy as the best form of governance for realizing their political objectives, but this is not enough to sustain democracy. Habermas’s conception of democracy refines the understanding of what sustains and jeopardizes democracy, an important clarification when the very definition of democracy is a point of contention amongst competing political actors. While the military ended Egypt’s democratic experiment and the UGTT framed the objective of Tunisia’s revolution as democratic, the interests of these institutions did not predetermine the outcomes of the transitionary period. Instead, the chronology in which presidential elections and the adoption of a constitution occurred contributed greatly to 22 ElEmEnts : : FAll 2016 the degree of polarization in the populace. This in turn affected whether political actors were willing to turn to extant institutions to facilitate a regime change away from the democratically elected administration. Egypt’s failed transition to democracy illustrates how the presidential elections without constitutional reforms first taking place polarized the electorate and drove many Egyptians, who had previously called for a removal of the military from a supervisory role, to cultivate its support in toppling the newly elected president. On the other hand, Tunisian political actors made important concessions and overcame political crises during the transition period to develop a consensus and hold presidential elections because the constitutional process was deliberative and inclusive. This paper indicates that the trust and deliberation necessary to build a functioning democracy cannot be constructed in a polarized environment, nor can it function when the rules of the political game are being decided solely by the will of the majority party. Additionally, the enormous sums of military aid that the United States gives to Arab dictatorships increase the political interests of the military, which then limit and threaten the autonomy of democratically elected civilians. If the United States is truly interested in spreading democracy to the Middle East, then it cannot continue buttressing the militaries of authoritarian regimes and preventing Islamists from taking power via elections. The Tunisian case suggests that rapprochement between secularist and Islamists is a possible and vital foundation for a future democracy. The United States should therefore not be overly wary of Islamist movements as prohibitive to democracy in the Middle East and be willing to provide sufficient economic aid to those countries transitioning to democracy. This is critical because many transitioning democracies struggle to provide their constituencies with real material gains in their first few years, which could in turn lead to counterrevolutionary movements that abruptly end the nascent democratic experiment underway. Further research should investigate whether Tunisia’s neighbor Algeria is well suited to transition to democracy. Their geographical proximity, shared ethnicity and lan- guage, and similar colonial history augurs that develop- ments in one country will influence the other. For exam- ple, the brutal Algerian Civil War of the 1990s legitimated Ben Ali’s repression of the Islamists in Tunisia, and this historical linkage suggests that future parallel democratic developments are possible. Another important topic for investigation is whether the instability that occurred in Libya and Syria after popular protests deterred potential protest movements in other Middle Eastern countries from challenging their regimes. This could offer an addi- tional explanation for the lack of widespread protest move- ments in Morocco and Algeria. EndnoTEs 1. John M. Owen, “How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace,” International Security 19, no. 2 (1994): 87–125. 2. Thomas Carothers, “Democracy Promotion under Clinton,” The Washington Quarterly 18, no. 4 (December 1, 1995): 13. 3. F. Gregory Gause III, The International Relations of the Persian Gulf, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 240; Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at Cairo University, 6-04-09,” Whitehouse.gov. 4. F. Gregory Gause III, “Why Middle East Studies Missed the Arab Spring,” Foreign Affairs, 83, 87. 5. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe, (JHU Press, 1996), 3. 6. Lasse Thomassen, Deconstructing Habermas, (Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought ; 51, New York: Routledge, 2008), 44. 7. Lipset acknowledges that there are exceptions to the rule, but still sees this as the prevailing pattern. Seymour M. Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,” The American Political Science Review 53, no. 1 (1959): 80. 8. Adam Przeworski, Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950-1990, Vol. 3. (Cambridge University Press, 2000). 9. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD. 10. Larry Diamond, “Why Are There No Arab Democracies?” Journal of Democracy 21, no. 1 (2010): 93–112. 11. Ilter Turan, “The Evolution of Political Culture in Turkey,” In Modern Turkey: Continuity and Change, edited by Ahmet Evin, 84–112, (Schriften Des Deutschen Orient-Instituts. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 1984). 12. Abdolkarim Soroush, Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam: Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush, Translated by Mahmoud Sadri and Ahmad Sadrim, (New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2002). 13. Mark Lilla, The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West, (New York, N.Y.: Vintage, 2008). 14. Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies, (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). 15. Ruth Berins Collier and James Mahoney, “Adding Collective Actors to Collective Outcomes: Labor and Recent Democratization in South America and Southern Europe,” Comparative Politics 29, no. 3 (1997): 285–303. 16. Michael Bratton and Nicholas van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective, (Cambridge University Press, 1997). 23 Tunisian ExcEpTionalism or consTiTuTional Timing 17. Vickie Langohr, “Labor Movements and Organizations,” from Marc Lynch ed.,The Arab Uprisings Explained: New Contentious Politics in the Middle East, (Columbia University Press, 2014), 187-188. 18. Sven Steinmo, and Kathleen Thelen, Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis, (Cambridge University Press, 1992), 7. 19. Patrick Markey and Tarek Amara, “Veteran Essebsi Wins Tunisia’s First Free Presidential Vote,” Reuters, December 22, 2014. 20. David D. Kirkpatrick, “Army Ousts Egypt’s President; Morsi Is Taken Into Military Custody,” The New York Times, July 3, 2013. 21. Peter T. Leeson and Andrea M. Dean, “The Democratic Domino Theory: An Empirical Investigation,” American Journal of Political Science 53, no. 3 (July 1, 2009): 533–51. 22. http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index- hdi-table. 23. Shadi Hamid, “ The Prize,” from Kenneth M. Pollack ed., The Arab Awakening: America and the Transformation of the Middle East, (Brookings Institution Press, 2011), 103. 24. Mona El-Ghobashy, “The Praxis of the Egyptian Revolution,” from David McMurray and Amanda Ufheil-Somers, eds. The Arab Revolts: Dispatches on Militant Democracy in the Middle East, (Indiana University Press, 2013), 60. 25. Hamid, 103. 26. Christopher Anderson, “Authoritarianism and Civil Society in Tunisia,” from David McMurray and Amanda Ufheil-Somers, eds. The Arab Revolts: Dispatches on Militant Democracy in the Middle East. (Indiana University Press, 2013), 33. 27. Milan W. Svolik, The Politics of Authoritarian Rule, Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 200. 28. Ghobashy, 62. 29. Robert Springborg, “Arab Militaries,” from Lynch Marc Lynch ed., The Arab Uprisings Explained: New Contentious Politics in the Middle East, (Columbia University Press, 2014), 146. 30. Shana Marshall and Joshua Stacher, “Egypt’s Generals and Transnational Capital,” from David McMurray and Amanda Ufheil-Somers, eds. The Arab Revolts: Dispatches on Militant Democracy in the Middle East. (Indiana University Press, 2013), 107. 31. Bratton and van de Walle, 42. 32. Marshall and Stacher, 107 33. Hamid, 104. 34. Quinn Mecham, “Islamist Movements,” from Marc Lynch ed. 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