Local (r)evolutions in Tunisia, 2011-2014: reconstructing municipal political authority

Abstract

In postrevolutionary Tunisia, local politics have played an important role in the reconstruction of political authority in the wake of regime change. Continuities of governance between the old and new regimes, the local emergence of new social and political actors, and the competition between new and old local actors, as well as between them and the central state, have challenged the authority of national institutions and elected officials. As national actors attempted to rein in local experiments with “direct democracy,” local politics generated resistance toward the Islamist-led Ennahda coalition.