In the last week of October I went to Tunis in order to experience the second elections after the ousting of the dictator Ben-Ali in 2011. The most important thing first: According to international and domestic observers the parliamentary elections met domestic and international standards and can be considered free, fair and meaningfully democratic. 

During my days in Tunis I spoke to different stakeholders and observers in Tunis from civil society activists to diplomats and election observers. Despite the different perspectives their take on the elections was mainly positive, not least due to the fact that the electoral process went so smoothly and the much feared political violence or contestation of the results did not occur.

However turing away from the elections itself to the broader developments in Tunisia since the fall of Ben-Ali the views widely varied with regards to the evaluation of hitherto accomplishments and future propects of the transition process. Whereas some actors I talked to highlighted the inclusive and consesus-seeking nature of the process and mentioned the crucial role of civil society, others critically noted the polarization of political discourse, the predominance of backdoor politics and the return of ancient regime personel on the political stage.

In the running up towards the elections I have written two pieces trying to analyze the unique tunisian trajectories during the last four years. The first one for the Blog Al-Qantara has been dedicated to analyze the process up until the elections and sketch out some of the problematic areas that still remained untouched. A second, more policy oriented piece for the political IPG journal -run by the Friedrich Ebert foundation- has focussed on the challenges ahead for any new tunisian government in place and identified how Europe may help Tunisia in its transition and contribute to consolidate democracy in Tunisia.

• Der Tunesische Sonderweg – Oped on IPG Internationale politik und Gesellschaft (October 2014) available online (german only)

• The model student faces difficult tasks – Oped on Al Qantara (October 2014) available online (in german, english and arabic)

Unfortunately the first piece is only vailable in german. The Second one has been translated into english and arabic. However I have decided to shift away from publishing non-academic opeds and blog contributions exclusively within the german media outleds. Consequently on the bucket-list for next year are contributions in english newspapers or blogs.

In the beginning of November I was very happy to be invited to present my thoughts on the Moroccan political system at the workshop "What Makes New Forms of Authoritarianism so Attractive? - Rethinking the Shades between Authoritarian and Democratic Rule" in Berlin organized by the Center for Advanced Studies South East Europe (CAS), my home institution the Social Science Center Berlin (WZB) with support of the Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin - Center for Advanced Studies Berlin (WiKo).

Here the official abstract by the organizers:
The famous slogan “the end of history” proved to be a historical misjudgment. Instead of linear progress towards liberal democracies we are confronted with new setbacks of democratization, emergence of grey-zone regimes between democracy and authoritarianism and new and supposedly attractive forms of authoritarianism. Classical authoritarianism seeks for absolute obedience, is directed against individual freedom and liberties and is always ready to use hard repression against opponents. New authoritarian or grey-zone regimes are chameleon-like – they are able to adjust to new circumstances, they have institutionalized representation of a variety of agents and they even incorporate some democratic procedures like elections and thus create a structure resistant to change. Moreover, they rely mostly only on soft repression and seem to enjoy the support of considerable parts of the people. In Eastern and South Eastern Europe, in the Caucasus, in Asia we are witnessing new semi-democratic or electoral authoritarian regimes, which – under the guise of formal democratic procedures – limit individual freedom and reduce liberties. New forms of authoritarian rule seem to be attractive, flexible and adaptable, and functional alternatives to the regime in some regions such as Asia, Eastern Europe and the Caucasian rim. Regimes able to reconcile competitive elections, multi-party systems, parliaments, constitutions and other elements of rule usually associated with liberal democracies on the one hand side with the functional logic of authoritarianism on the other. They pose new questions and call for deeper rethinking of concepts of authoritarianism and hybrid regimes. 
The guiding questions are: Why are they resilient, endurable, and why do they enjoy a considerable consent of the people?

The Workshop
The workshop was split between conceptual and case-study contributions. I found the question of attractively of authoritarian types of governance an extremely interesting one. My presentation on the techniques of authoritarian governance in Morocco  was closely linked to my interest in investigating legitimacy in authoritarian contexts. More generally, I am particularly interested in legitimacy of authoritarian regimes in during episodes of contentious politics. Questions I deal with concern regime responses’ to protest that aim to bolster or re-establish the legitimacy of the regime. How can regimes successfully overcome moments of crisis and what role does the claimed and perceived legitimacy play in such episodes?

I will continue to deal with these questions, as there are plans for a follow-up workshop, which will be aimed towards as publication. Furthermore I am presenting a paper titled: "Legitimacy through Reform? Institutional Reforms in Morocco 2011 & the Procedural Legitimacy of Contested Regimes." which touches upon many points related to the workshop in Berlin.

All in all the group of scholars brought together for this workshop and the presentations and discussions were very interesting and inspiring. Especially the country studies were very interesting as we covered a wide range of countries which were presented by excellent country experts and the workshop gave an impressions of particularities and similarities between different authoritarian regimes in varying regions of the world. Concluding, I hope this workshop will be followed up upon and there will be an opportunity to present a more nuanced argument with a narrower theoretical approach and a common research question to improve the compatibility of the papers towards a joint output.