Prior to 2011 my professional and personal interests were narrowly focused on a small number of issues, including Iraq. Countries such as Tunisia were relatively unknown to me. While I had many opportunities to visit, I reasoned that my family had not fled one dictatorship for me to go holidaying in another. My first visit to the country therefore took place in May 2011 while the transitional authorities were still considering how the new constitution should be drafted. I met with a large number of individuals who generously shared their views on the options that were in consideration at the time. A prominent human rights activist who was a member of the High Commission to Achieve the Goals of the Revolution, on Political Reforms and Democratic Transition said to me that he did not expect the drafting of a new constitution to be difficult. “Tunisia is one of the world’s most homogeneous countries,” he said. “We do not have any important ethnic or religious minorities and we hardly have any disagreements. 95% of our population is Arab, Muslim, Sunni and of the Maliki school.”1 He ended with a comment that struck me as curious: “In my view, the new constitution should be around ninety articles long.” The comment seemed futile given that a single article could range from just a few words in length to several pages but I did not question him on that point considering the amount of other issues that were on the table. None of my other interlocutors during that short visit mentioned the length of the future constitution, and so I did not make anything of it at the time.