Democratization, Islam, and the 2014 Tunisian Elections

• In Event: 261 - Section on Political Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 07. Dynamics of Democratization

Abstract

Following the 2011 overthrow of Ben Ali, highly publicized conflicts involving the role of Islam in public life dominated the Tunisian landscape and threatened to disrupt the democratic transition. This paper illustrates how Islam in Tunisia, especially in political life, has been affected by the democratization process, focusing on the 2014 Presidential and Legislative Elections. In particular, it focuses not on macro-level changes in laws and institutions, but on cultural processes of meaning making to illustrate how religion is understood by actors through a focus on discourse, interpretation of key events, and the use of symbols in a dynamic and contested process. Drawing on data collected from participant observation and electoral documents, this paper examines how a variety of political actors utilized Islam and (anti-) Islamist discourses during the 2014 campaigns. It finds that there was an inversion in how “secular” and “Islamist” labels mapped onto the actual discourse in the elections between Ennahda and Nidaa Tounes, the purported “Islamist” and “secular” parties, with the later making concerted efforts to highlight its religious credentials during the electoral campaigns and the former deemphasizing its Islamist character when compared to the 2011 elections. I argue that this shift in rhetoric points to the normalization of a particular type of religious discourse in Tunisia and a narrowing of opportunities for religious pluralism that seemed present immediately following the revolution.

Author

• Elizabeth Lynn Young, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor