Kate's Blog

As we heard in class yesterday, the Harper government has fallen but since a few people have already covered this piece of news, I chose to focus on the development of democracy in Tunisia.

The revolution that took place at the begining of this year in Tunisia has been the impetus for revolutions alike in the Middle East and North Africa. Since then Syria and Libya have also began protesting. Often when countries strive for democracies, they are preoccupied with the concept of attaining it. However, during this, people often forget to ask what happens post-revolution?

An article in The Washington Post suggests that for now “Tunisia is perched delicately between revolutionary exuberance and chaos” but steps are being taken towards the construction of a new democratic system. After 23 years under the authoritarian leadership of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisians are able to take power into their won hands, a concept they are not familiar with. However, Tunisians are ready to be an example for the rest of the Arab world that, to prove that Arab Islamic identities can go hand in hand with democracies. In July, Tunisians will have the opportunity to vote on a 200-member assembly that will elect temporary leaders and until then an interim government is in place, while coalitions of politicians, civil society representatives and lawyers write a new electoral code.

While Tunisia is still in a state of chaos, mainly because the economy has suffered, the country seems to be on the right track towards a democratic regime. Tunisians are well educated, have had a constitution, given women equal rights and banned polygamy unlike most other Islamic countries. Because the “nations wears its Islamic identity lightly” (The Washington Post), some suggest that Tunisia may have an easier time than other nations at assembling a democracy.

However, some Tunisians are still skeptical as former Ben-Ali supporters and associates have formed political parties. Mr.Chawki Tabib, a lawyer form one of the coalitions, has said that these associates of Ben Ali are “trying to create a void in security so as to say that this revolution is heading to chaos, so the Tunisian people will come and say, ‘We want security back and we want things back the way they were’”. Despite this, most Tunisians still see a bright future ahead and have taken steps to aid their neighbours and refugees from Libya during its revolution.

In an article on the protests in Egypt, the U.S. director of national intelligence stated that “specific triggers for how and when instability would lead to the collapse of various regimes cannot always be known or predicted”. And while there was not a specific trigger that caused the revolution in Egypt, the Jasmine Revolution which took place just before is said to have been an indirect trigger.

The New York Times article lists the “large unmet expectations of the people; the large numbers of youth, many of them well educated but jobless; and the dynamic role of the Internet” as pressures that were building in the region long before Tunisia’s revolution. The article lists “the regressive regimes, the economic and political instability, a stagnation, the lack of freedoms,[and] the need for political reforms” as evidence that has contributed to the pressures that were building. The Telegraph also lists similar factors that contributed to the popular protests such as hundreds of thousands protestors “fed up with high unemployment, a corrupt elite and police repression”.

While the role of the Internet lead to the mobilization of protesters that caused Mubarak to step down, it’s probably the most useful to attribute the unemployment of the Egyptian youth to the cause of protesting. Many political scientists acknowledge economic factors as causes for democratization and in class today, we discussed the dissatisfaction that arises from economic inequality. This is the dissatisfaction that was felt by the youth in Egypt that created the atmosphere of mistrust between the people and the government that was not doing enough to procure employment its qualified citizens.

While writing this post, I was thinking about what we covered in lecture today about the emphasis of political culture in democratization.

Indonesia, the world’s third largest democracy, despite having democratized 13 years ago is still dealing with corruption and violence. However, Indonesians are grateful for the revolution that brought down Suharto, because of the freedom they have gained that has lead their country to blossom into an open society.

The government encourages Islam groups to help build the country and make themselves electable to the people. The Prosperous Justice Party is a political Islamist party that now has four ministers in the government. The article on Al-Jazeera suggests that “as the world’s most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia offers an example of how Islam and democracy go hand-in-hand”.

Thinking back to the lecture, we talked about which religious factors (and cultural factors) might be more or less likely to lead to democratization? We also noted that these factors should not be regarded in isolation but this seems to be the case in many countries trying to make the transition towards democracy especially in the Middle East.