2024 Theses Master's

The Fall of the Arab World’s Only Democracy

Al-Saif, Daniel

This paper seeks to detail Tunisia’s recent democratic backsliding through the theoretical model of Tom Ginsburg and Aziz Huq, supplemented by the democracy-as-freedom framework developed by Haemin Jee, Hans Lueders, and Rachel Myrick.

The paper finds that President Kais Saied has utilized all five modalities in Ginsburg and Huq’s theory to undermine democracy in Tunisia, resulting in substantial democratic backsliding in all three democratic arenas as described in the theory by Jee, Lueders, and Myrick. Hereafter, Tunisia’s experience is contrasted with Hungary’s.

Comparing Tunisia's recent democratic backsliding to Hungary's experience sheds light on both the common patterns and divergent paths in these two countries. Both countries have experienced a decline in democratic institutions and a rise in executive power. However, Tunisia's backsliding has been more abrupt and direct, while Hungary's has been more gradual and incremental, and it is argued that Tunisia’s authoritarian turn is likely to be less stable than Hungary’s. Still, as shown in the paper, the two cases share many similarities, including specific legislation and a rule by decree.