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Political Pacts, Liberalism, and Democracy: The Tunisian National Pact of 1988

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Lisa Anderson
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Extract

MOST OF WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE ROLE OF POLITICAL pacts and pact-making in developing democracy is based on transitions from exclusionary authoritarian regimes in Europe and Latin American. This is not surprising; most political pacts have been concluded in Europe and Latin America, as political and economic elites have attempted to extricate themselves from the ruins of war or the reigns of tyrants. Increasingly, however, pacts have been used elsewhere as devices to mark political transitions of other kinds. In the Arab world, for example, the ultimately unhappy fate of Lebanon's 1943 National Pact, which provided the framework of a transition to independence, did not deter pact-makers in Tunisia in 1988 from using the device in what they hoped would be a transition from a single-party regime to a more pluralist democracy.

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Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1991 , pp. 244 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1991

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References

1 An earlier version of this essay was delivered at the Country Day Program on Tunisia, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC, 14 April 1989. I gratefully acknowledge the comments of the participants, as well as those of F. Gregory Gause.

2 As will become apparent, I distinguish political pacts from ‘national charters’ which were designed to consolidate single-party regimes such as those in Egypt in the early 1960s and Algeria in the 1970s. The Yemeni National Pact of 1982, which was largely an effort by the military regime at national reconciliation after twenty years of civil conflict, also appears to have been designed as a prelude to installation of a single-party regime, although the party has yet to be established. During 1989, however, a national pact was debated in Jordan which may bear a greater resemblance to the Lebanese or Tunisian variety, as an effort to preserve or establish pluralist politics.

3 Karl, Terry, ‘Petroleum and Political Pacts: The Transition to Democracy in Venezuela’, in O’Donnell, Guillermo, Schmitter, Philippe and Whitehead, Laurence (eds) Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Latin America, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986, p. 198 Google Scholar.

4 O’Donnell, Guillermo and Schmitter, Philippe, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986, p. 38 Google Scholar.

5 The best description of Tunisia’s single party in its heyday is Henry Moore, Clement, Tunisia Since Independence: The Dynamics of One-Party Government, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1965 Google Scholar.

6 Karl, ‘Petroleum and Political Pacts’, p. 198.

7 Bourguiba founded the Neo-Destour in the 1930s and he and it led the nationalist struggle against French rule, ultimately winning independence in 1956. This treatment of the political circumstances on the eve of Ben Ali’s accession draws upon my more detailed discussion in ‘Democracy Frustrated: the M’zali Years in Tunisia’ in Simon, Reeva (ed.) The Middle East and North Africa: Essays in honor of J. C. Hurewitz, The Middle East Institute of Columbia University, 1989 Google Scholar.

8 Dimassi, Hassine, ‘La crise economique en Tunisie: un crise de regulation’, Maghreb-Machrek, 103, 1984 Google Scholar; Financial Times, January 5–9, 1984.

9 Waltz, Susan, ‘Islamist Appeal in Tunisia’, Middle East Journal, Vol. 40, No. 4, Autumn 1986 Google Scholar.

10 Quoted in Poli, Francois, ‘L’engrenage democratique’, Jeune Afrique, 1088, 11 11 1981 Google Scholar.

11 See Ware, L. B., ‘Ben Ali’s Constitutional Coup in Tunisia’, and Dirk Vanderwalle, ‘From the New State to the New Era: Toward a Second Republic in Tunisia’, in Middle East Journal, Vol. 42, No. 2, Autumn 1988 Google Scholar.

12 José Maria Maravall and Julian Santamaria, ‘Political Change in Spain and the Prospects for Democracy’, in Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe Schmitter and Laurence Whitehead (eds), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Southern Europe, op. cit., p. 80.

13 On the reforms of Ben Ali’s first year, see the special issue of Le Maghreb, ‘Bilan et Perspecties’, No. 125, 4 November 1988; and Soudan, François, ‘Ben Ali; la democratie, c’est lui’, Jeune Afrique, No. 1454, 16 11 1988 Google Scholar.

14 Personal interview with RCD Secretary-General Abderrahim Zouari, Tunis, 5 November 1988.

15 Personal interview with Moncer Rouissi, Tunis, 6 November 1988.

16 See, for example, the remarks of the Secretary General of the Tunisian Communist Party, Mohammed Harmel – eventually a signatory of the Pact-in ‘La Tunisie a besoin d’une nouvelle forme de solitarité national’, Realités, No. 164, 24–30 September 1988; and Zghidi, Salah, ‘Première lecture du project du pacte national’, Le Maghreb, No. 124, 28 10 1988 Google Scholar.

17 These were a socialist party and a liberal free enterprise party. See ‘Les nouveaux parties: l’echiquier politique s’elargit’, Realités, No. 162, 22 September 1988.

18 All quotations from the National Pact are my translations from the French text distributed at the signing ceremony on 7 November 1988.

19 Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, p. 37.

20 ibid., p. 38.

21 Belhassan, Souharyr, ‘Tunisie: Les “nouveaux” a pied d’oeuvre’, Jeune Afrique, No. 1481, 24 05 1989 Google Scholar.

22 Dahl, Robert, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1971 Google Scholar.

23 Camau, Michel, La Nation de Démocratie dans la pensée des dirigeants maghrebins, Paris, Editions du Centre de la Recherche Scientifique, 1971, p. 18 Google Scholar.