Framing paper for a cumulative habilitation project.

Article published in January 2011 to uncover the assumptions underlying calling Tunisia' revolution a Jasmine Revolution and lay out the root causes and implications of what happened between 17 December and 14 January, 2011. http://www.tni.org/article/tunisia-revolution-dignity-and-freedom-can-not-be-colour-coded

On Saturday December 17, 2016, Tunisia celebrated the six year anniversary of the Jasmine Revolution which was sparked off by the self-immolation of Bouazizi that started in Sidi Bouzid, a small town in the center of the country. The revo¬lution in Tunisia led to a regional wave of uprisings spreading rapidly to Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Yemen, Jordan and Syria. For over half a century, Tunisia lived under a dictatorial re¬gime with a single powerful political party. The other par¬ties, allowed in-between, had no power, being restricted in their movements and actions and only served to make the world believe that Tunisia was indeed democratic, as daily reported by Ben Ali’s media. Since the independence of their country from colonial rule in 1956 Tunisia sustained major progress in relation to women’s access to health and education services and the labor market; maternal mortality and fertility rates were halved, girls’ enrolment in secondary school more than doubled and women were increasingly in paid employment. Moreover, despite the limited democratic space, the number of women in government grew significantly and women’s organizations began to play a role in shaping social and political transformation. This paper argues that women’s empowerment in Tunisia is largely rooted in the particular features of the elite post-independence bargain, early political choices regarding state–society relations and the associated policies in the areas of education, health and labor, which increased women’s access to resources. It also highlights the interaction between changes in law, policies promoting gender equality and women’s capacity to mobilize. Women’s increasing individual and collective agency in both the public and private spheres explains the existence of opportunities to consolidate women’s empowerment in contemporary Tunisia. Cumulative change in different spheres has been mutually reinforcing, and may also have created resilience regarding potential reversals associated with the political changes brought about by the ‘Arab Spring’. Tunisia’s progress in women’s empowerment provides valuable lessons on how women can obtain access to new resources and the way in which politics and power, and the struggles, dynamics and contestation that these generate can be used to challenge gender and social power relations. It demonstrates the importance of locating political paths of change – such as processes of women’s empowerment – in the context of wider political settlements.

This article discusses the uprisings in Tunisia by examining the country’s historical transition from Ottoman Empire rule to the recent events of today. The main focus of the article is to demonstrate how Tunisia has evolved historically by focusing on the Ottoman Era, French protectorate, early independence years, the transition from one party system to a multiparty system, and opposition movements. In this respect, the article aims to serve for a more effective analysis of recent uprisings and the democratic transition of the country. Key words: Tunisia, Ottoman Empire, France, Economy, Foreign Policy, Uprisings.

This article reviews the events of 2010-2011 Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions with specific attention to the background of uprisings, timeline of events and causes of the revolutions. The focus of this study is to look into the factors that ignited the revolutions, both in Tunisia and Egypt. By examining secondary sources mainly through published reports dan journal articles, it will highlight how the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt evolved besides shedding light on the 2011 Arab Spring event. A number of factors have been selected under five main themes namely economics development, political legitimacy, social demography, Islamism and the advance of new social media. All these factors, to large extent have contributed to the causes of this popular uprisings which led to the collapse of the previous regime of Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak. Among these factors, the role of new social media was identified as the main factor which secure the successful of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and considered as a new platform of political protest in the Middle East and North Africa.

The Arab uprising in Tunisia, dubbed the Jasmine Revolution began in 2010, protesting against unemployment, corruption, injustice and the absence of basic freedoms. The Jasmine Revolution ousted Ben Ali, the then president who was in power for more than three decades in 2011. Post Jasmine Revolution saw Tunisia making commendable strides in its transition towards a new all-inclusive democratic political order. However, the transition process has not been without obstacles which could have had the effect of derailing the transition process, such as the assassination of activists Chokri Belaïd and Mohamed Brami, the role and place of Islam, the inclusion of women in the political transition and the most popular Islamic party Ennahda with its rumours of transforming Tunisia into an Islamic state were cause for great concern for all. However, despite these concerns, Tunisia’s new constitutional text is considered to be a radical departure from its previous constitutional texts. After the drafting of various drafts, the 2014 constitutional text has attained the status in the Middle Eastern And North African Region MENA Region as being the most liberal compared to other countries in the Mena Region. The 2014 constitutional provisions protect civil liberties, separates legislative, executive and judicial powers, guaranteeing women parity in political institutions, and declares that Islam is the country’s official religion while at the same time protecting religious freedom for all. An important facet is the homogeneity of Tunisian society – which although has some divisions, did not suffer fragmentation along religious, political, cultural or ethnic lines, as is the case in other Muslim states. This was accomplished by including all actors not only political parties, women’s groups and activists, religious activists, but also the various unions which represented the working class in Tunisia. The outcome was nothing short of being miraculous, bearing in mind the chaos that engulfed Tunisia during this period. One could argue that Tunisian listened to its people and advice of all, thereby minimising a terrible outcome.

The recent and dramatic changes in Tunisia since the Jasmine Revolution have brought new challenges for its citizens and for its women in particular. Tunisian women, long considered the most liberated in the Arab-Muslim world, are now seeing a growing conservative mind-set spreading across the country. The more frequent appearance of women wearing headscarves and men sporting beards in public,