Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-wq484 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T06:57:25.454Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Makers of Our Own History

Upholding the Revolution and Unsettling Coloniality in the Drafting of Tunisia’s 2014 Constitution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2022

Tom Ginsburg
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Sumit Bisarya
Affiliation:
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance
Get access

Summary

The process of drafting Tunisia’s post revolution constitution began in February 2012 and endedtwo years later in February 2014, when the final vote by the Constituent Assembly took place. The two year process was characterized by multiple crises and interruptions.Despite this extremely difficult and rocky post-revolutionary context, in which the counterrevolutionary forces sought to destabilize the country, Tunisians were able to overcome the crisis. However, despite characterizations of the outside observers about the success of the process, counterrevolutionaries ended up derailing the country’s democratic and popular gains. This chapter provides a blow-by-blow account of the process.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ACET. “Yezzina Meddyoun – يزينا مالديون”. 2012, 23. YouTube, Uploaded by AcetTV2012, May. Available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXqaFGAa17M.Google Scholar
Al-Tayashin, Fadhel. “الأستاذ قيس سعيد: نعيش هذه الأيام حالة «انفلات دستوري» والحل في انتخاب مجلس تأسيسي.” Al Chourouk, February 18, 2011.Google Scholar
Amin, Samir. 1974. Accumulation on a World Scale: A Critique of the Theory of Underdevelopment. New York: Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
Amin, Samir. 1990. Delinking: Towards a Polycentric World. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Amin, Samir. 2007. “Political Islam in the Service of Imperialism.” Monthly Review 59( 7) (December): 119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ayeb, H. 2011. “Social and Political Geography of the Tunisian Revolution: The Alfa Grass Revolution.” Review of African Political Economy 38(129): 467479.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ayeb, Habib. 2014. Gabes Labess. 5/5 productions, Les Productions de l’Amaru, 46 min.Google Scholar
Ayeb, Habib, and Bush, Ray. 2014. “Small Farmer Uprisings and Rural Neglect in Egypt and Tunisia.” Middle East Report 272: 211.Google Scholar
Ayeb, Habib, and Bush, Ray. 2019. Food Insecurity and Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa: Agrarian Questions in Egypt and Tunisia. Anthem Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Azoulay, Ariella. 2013. “Revolution Is a Language/A lecture by Ariella Azoulay, summer 2012.” YouTube, uploaded by arriellaazo, May 8, 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKviAvT_5iQ.Google Scholar
Ben Achour, Yadh. 2015. “A force du droit ou La naissance d’une constitution en temps de révolution.” Le Blog de Yadh Ben Achour, January 25, 2015. Accessed September 10, 2018. Available at http://yadhba.blogspot.com/2015/01/la-force-du-droit-ou-la-naissance-dune_25.htmlGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Passeron, Jean-Claude. 1990. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. SAGE Publications.Google Scholar
Braudel, Fernand. 1958. “Histoire et Sciences sociales: La longue durée.” Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations. 13(4): 725753. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/ahess.1958.2781Google Scholar
Ben Rouine, Chafik. 2015. “All in the world bank, manipulation in the name of deregulation.” Observatoire Tunisien de l’Economie, November 30, 2015. Accessed September 10, 2018. Available at: www.economie-tunisie.org/sites/default/files/20151130_manipulations_au_nom_de_la_deregulation.pdfGoogle Scholar
Chandoul, J. 2016. “Le partenariat de Deauville, à l’origine des politiques économiques en Tunisie.” Observatoire Tunisien de l’Economie, January 16, 2016. Accessed September 10, 2018. Available at www.economie-tunisie.org/fr/observatoire/analysiseconomics/actes-conference-partenariat-deauville-politiques-economiques-tunisieGoogle Scholar
Dakhlia, Jocelyne. “Peut-on penser dans la transition?.” Unpublished Conference Paper. La transition dans l’économie politique de la Tunisie, Tabarka (Tunisia), April 27–28, 2016. Accessed September 10, 2018. Available on Nachaz Dissonance: http://nachaz.org/blog/peut-on-penser-dans-la-transition-jocelyne-dakhlia/Google Scholar
Elster, Jon. 1998. “Coming to Terms with the Past. A Framework for the Study of Justice in the Transition to Democracy.” European Journal of Sociology/Archives Européennes De Sociologie / Europäisches Archiv Für Soziologie 39(1): 748. www.jstor.org/stable/23997596Google Scholar
Rebhi, Hafawa. 2013. “Les activistes du collectif Magaloulnech s’insurgent contre l’accord de prêt du FMI,” L’Economiste Maghrébin, June 7, 2013. www.leconomistemaghrebin.com/2013/06/07/les-activistes-du-collectif-magaloulnech-sinsurgent-contre-laccord-de-pret-du-fmi/.Google Scholar
Hammami, Mohamed Dhia. 2014. “COTUSAL: Les derniers vestiges de la France colonialiste en Tunisie ?” Nawaat, February 4, 2014. Accessed September 10, 2018. Available at https://nawaat.org/2014/02/04/cotusal-les-derniers-vestiges-la-france-colonialiste-en-tunisie/Google Scholar
Hamouchene, Hamza, and Trigui, Nada. 2017. “A Trip to Southern Tunisia: The Struggle for Social Justice in North Africa Continues.” Middle East Eye, September 6, 2017. Accessed September 10, 2018. Available at http://middleeasteye.net/essays/struggling-social-justice-and-resistance-extractivism-north-africa-1031953489Google Scholar
Hanieh, Adam. 2013. Lineages of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East. Chicago: Haymarket Books.Google Scholar
Kaboub, Fadhel. 2013. “The End of Neoliberalism? An Institutional Analysis of the Arab Uprisings.” Journal of Economic Issues 47( 2) (June 1): 533–44. Accessed September 10, 2028. Available at https://doi.org/10.2753/JEI0021–3624470227Google Scholar
Krichen, Aziz. 2011. “Tunisie: Lettre ouverte à l’opposition et à la société civile.” Nawaat, 19 January 2011. Accessed September 10, 2028. Available at https://nawaat.org/2011/01/19/lettre-ouverte/Google Scholar
Lander, Edgardo. 2000. “La colonialidad del saber: eurocentrismo y ciencias sociales. Perspectivas latinoamericanas.” CLACSO, Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales.Google Scholar
Lang, Miriam, and M’barek, Mabrouka. 2018. “Nabón County: Building Living Well from the Bottom Up,” in Lang, Miriam, König, Claus-Dieter and Regelmann, Ada-Charlotte, eds. Alternatives in a World of Crises. Global Working Group Beyond Development. Brussels, April 2018.Google Scholar
Mandraud, Isabelle. 2012. “La Tunisie refuse les dettes héritées de la dictature.” Le Monde, July 17, 2012.Google Scholar
Marzouki, Nadia. 2013. “From Resistance to Governance: The Category of Civility in the Political Theory of Tunisian Islamists,” in Gana, Nouri, ed. The Making of the Tunisian Revolution: Context, Architects, Prospects. Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
M’Barek, Mabrouka. 2021a. “From revolutionary moment to revolutionary movement: contextualizing the Arab uprising in the longue durée” (unpublished manuscript, December 20, 2021).Google Scholar
M’Barek, Mabrouka. 2021b. “La femme africaine sous le prisme de la rente impérialiste: le cas de la Tunisie,” in , Lamko et al., eds. De Brazzaville à Montpellier: Regards Critiques sur le Néocolonialisme Français. Le Collectif pour le Renouveau Africain. October 23, 2021.Google Scholar
Mullin, Corinna. 2015. ‘‘Tunisia’s ‘Transition’: Between Revolution and Globalized National Security.” Pambazuka News.Google Scholar
Mullin, Corinna. 2018. “The 2008 Gafsa mining basin uprising: resistance, repression and divergent narratives.” The Center for the Humanities, November 26, 2018. Available at www.centerforthehumanities.org/blog/state-violence-and-labor-resistance-the-2008-gafsa-mining-basin-uprising-and-its-afterlivesGoogle Scholar
Mullin, Corinna, and Rouabah, Brahim. 2014. “Requiem for Tunisia’s Revolution?” Jadaliyya, December 22, 2014. Accessed September 10, 2018. Available at www.jadaliyya.com/Details/31596/Requiem-for-Tunisia%E2%80%99s-RevolutionGoogle Scholar
Ndikumana, Leonce, and Boyce, James K.. 2012. “Capital Flight from North African Countries.” Political Economy Research Institute. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, October 2012.Google Scholar
Pathak Broome, Neema. “Mendha-Lekha: Forest Rights and Self-empowerment,” in Lang, Miriam, König, Claus-Dieter and Regelmann, Ada-Charlotte, eds. Alternatives in a World of Crises. Global Working Group beyond Development. Brussels, April 2018.Google Scholar
Pickard, Duncan. 2014. “Al Nahda: Moderation and Compromise in Tunisia’s Constitutional Bargain,” pp. 432, in Frosini, Justin and Biagi, Francesco, eds. Political and Constitutional Transitions in North Africa: Actors and Factors. Routledge.Google Scholar
Quijano, A. 2000. Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism and Latin America. Nepantla, No. 3, Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Saied, Kais. 2011. “من أجل دستور جديد لتونس.” Al Chourouk, 02/07/2011.Google Scholar
Sanders, Douglas. 1991. “Collective Rights.” Human Rights Quarterly 13(3): 368386. JSTOR: www.jstor.org/stable/762620CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tripp, Charles. 2013. “Building Bridges: Towards Viable Democracies in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.” Fourth Annual Conference of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University, March 28–29, Tunis.Google Scholar
United Nations. 1952. “The Tunisian question,” A/2152, A/C.1/736, A/C.l/737 and A/C.1/L.8, item 60. New York: United Nations, Office of Public Information. Print.Google Scholar
Walia, Harsha. 2021. Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism. United States: Haymarket Books.Google Scholar
Wynter, Sylvia. 2003. “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation An Argument.” CR: The New Centennial Review 3(3): 257337. DOI: 10.1353/ncr.2004.0015Google Scholar
Yousfi, Hela. 2017. Trade Unions and Arab Revolutions: The Tunisian Case of UGTT. Routledge.Google Scholar
Zemni, Sami. 2015. “The Extraordinary Politics of the Tunisian Revolution: The Process of Constitution Making.Mediterranean Politics 20(1): 117.Google Scholar
Zouari, A. 1998. “European Capitalist Penetration in Tunisia, 1860–-1881: A Case Study of the Regency’s Debt Crisis and the Establishment of the International Financial Commission.” PhD dissertation. Washington, D.C. University of Washington.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×