From Mistrust to Understanding: Inclusive Constitution-Making Design and Agreement in Tunisia

• Published date: 01 December 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912920967106
• Date: 01 December 2021
• Author: Tereza Jermanová
• Subject Matter: Articles

2021, Vol. 74(4) 1111 –1124

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912920967106

Political Research Quarterly

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912920967106

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The popular uprisings that overwhelmed the Arab world

in 2010 and 2011 opened the door to genuine efforts at

the rewriting of authoritarian constitutions in Libya,

Yemen, Egypt, and Tunisia. Tunisia’s charter, adopted by

a near consensus in January 2014, was unique in the

region in that it created a widely accepted basis for

democracy. Even there, however, such broad approval

came unforeseen: “I saw that the Constituent Assembly

was divided into two [parts], with people living very dif-

ferent lives. We had two very different concepts of the

constitution. I wondered how we were going to come

closer together,” remarked a deputy of the National

Constituent Assembly (NCA), Tunisia’s main constitu-

tion-making body, five months after the vote.1 Using in-

depth analysis of the case of Tunisia’s 2011–2014

constitutional reform, and process tracing in particular,

this article explores the specific role of the design of the

constitution-making process in fostering constitutional

agreement against a backdrop of identity-based divisions

during democratization.

Political scientists have become increasingly invested

in processes whereby drafters convene, debate, and adopt

constitutions, examining their effect on democracy and

other outcomes (Eisenstadt, Levan, and Maboudi 2017;

Elkins, Ginsburg, and Melton 2009; Widner 2008). This

mirrors a wider trend in which international actors involved

in the promotion of democracy and peace-building today

focus on the processes of how constitutions are produced

to an extent that was not the norm twenty years ago when

their text was at the center of attention (Brandt et al. 2011).

International organizations such as the United Nations

Development Programme (UNDP) have since promoted

“best practices” in constitution making, recommending it

967106PRQXXX10.1177/1065912920967106Political Research QuarterlyJermanová

research-article2020

1Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

Corresponding Author:

Tereza Jermanová, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Faculty of

Arts, Charles University, Nám. Jana Palacha 2, 116 38 Prague 2, Czech

Republic.

Email: tereza.jermanova@ff.cuni.cz

From Mistrust to Understanding:

Inclusive Constitution-Making

Design and Agreement in Tunisia

Tereza Jermanová1

Abstract

In 2014, Tunisia’s National Constituent Assembly (NCA) almost unanimously approved the country’s first democratic

constitution despite significant identity-based divisions. Drawing on the Tunisian case, the article explores the role

of an inclusive constitution-making process in fostering constitutional agreement during democratization. Emerging

studies that link different process modalities to democracy have so far brought only limited illumination to how

inclusive processes matter, nor were these propositions systematically tested. Using process tracing, and building on

original interviews gathered in Tunisia between 2014 and 2020, this article traces a causal mechanism whereby an

inclusive constitution-making process allowed for a transformation of interpersonal relationships between political

rivals. It demonstrates that more than two years of regular interactions allowed NCA deputies to shatter some of

the prejudices that initially separated especially Islamist and non-Islamist partisans and develop cross-partisan ties,

thus facilitating constitutional negotiations. However, I argue that the way these transformations contributed to

constitutional settlement is more subtle than existing theories envisaged, and suggest alternative explanations. The

article contributes to the debate about constitution-making processes by unpacking the understudied concept of

partisan inclusion and applying it empirically to trace its effects on constitutional agreement, bringing precision and

nuance to current assumptions about its benefits.

Keywords

constitution making, democratization, process tracing, Tunisia, Arab uprisings

Article