As scholars have rightly argued, the Arab Spring revolutions were not initiated by Islamists or caused by political Islam. Additionally, a legitimate argument can be made that the institutionalization of Islam within the state apparatus and its public presence is not in itself an obstacle to successful democratization. After all, the Tunisian transition since the demise of Ben Ali fulfilled the four major requirements for democratization. First, different protagonists reached a sufficient agreement about political procedures to produce an elected government. Second, a free and popular vote elected the transition government. Third, this government now has the de facto authority to generate new policies. Fourth, the executive, legislative, and judicial branches do not de jure share power with other bodies (e.g., the military or a religious power). However, the assassination of Chokri Belaid in February 2013 was a fatal blow to the building of political trust and strained the different protagonists’ agreement to work together toward new institutions. The assassination of Mohamed al-Brahmi, another secular opponent, in July 2013, deepened the political crisis, leading in September 2013 to the agreement of the Islamist-led coalition to consider a resignation.

In the case of Egypt, the transition to democracy is even more compromised for the reasons raised in Chapters 8 and 9. In 2013 the army took the political lead with the asserted goal to move the transition forward after the political paralysis brought to the country by two years of FJP governance. After the crackdown on pro-Morsi protestors on August 14, 2013, and the multiplication of arrests of Islamists, this goal seems in jeopardy. At the same time, the transitory government released in November 2013 a revised constitution that could be submitted to vote in January 2014.