Tunisia and the Arab Spring

While Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring, is often considered the only hope, it is also the biggest exporter of Jihadists. Why?  What can we learn from Tunisia’s first post revolution transition that can best help us to evaluate the Arab Spring and understand the certain return of the old regime?  In this course students will investigate Tunisia’s post revolution transition of 2011-2014.  Using academic articles, transcripts of constitutional committee meetings (should they become officially available to the public), and materials drawn from traditional media sources and social media, students will examine what makes the Tunisian transition unique. More specifically they will examine how the final draft language of the new constitution emerged from consensus-based decisions on three social and political topics: the distribution of political power, the role of religion in the state, and the equality of citizens’ rights.  What was the exact role of the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, in this process?  Alongside an intimate look at the partisan and personal factors that influenced debate on these topics in Tunisia, students will learn about the transitional justice process, as well as related economic and security challenges, by engaging in comparative analysis of the Tunisian transition with other countries of the Arab Spring and beyond. (Comparative Politics)