This chapter examines Tunisia’s decentralization process from the start of the constitutional drafting process in 2011 to adoption of the Local Authorities Code in 2018. Tunisia’s decentralization process reveals the existence of historical territorial cleavages that are often obscured by the usual ideological cleavages highlighted in the literature, particularly the secularist–Islamist binary. The chapter begins with a brief historical overview of regional inequalities, which played a prominent role in the 2011 uprising and led to the adoption of decentralization in the new Constitution. The chapter analyzes how two key factors – institutional venue and party system coherence – shape the incentives and capacities of political and bureaucratic officials to shape decentralization. It draws on the literature on decentralization in other transitioning and developing countries and analyzes the role of political parties in a post-authoritarian transitional context, the balance of power between political and administrative actors, and how choices regarding process design and institutional venue at the outset of decentralization reforms shape subsequent outcomes. The chapter sheds light on how actors’ strategies are shaped by not only their own interests and ideas, but by the wider institutional arrangements that shape the incentives and capacities of individual and collective actors.

The introduction discusses the development and substance of transitional justice theory. It shows the main assumptions embedded in this theory, which posits a direct and necessary link between criminal trials for past atrocities and post-authoritarian transitions to democracy. In a nutshell, the theory assumes that better trials lead to better democracy. Transitional justice theory has three main presuppositions. First, the theory assumes that criminal trials have a deterrent effect that prevents new authoritarian atrocities. Second, it asserts that trials offer democratizing lessons in history. Finally, it assumes that trials for past atrocities are necessarily and inherently democratizing because they promote liberal due process rights. The German case calls into question all three of these assumptions. In western Germany, liberalization occurred, but mainly as a way to avoid justice for Nazi crimes. And in the east, fair trials led not to democracy, but to a new authoritarianism.

Chapter 9 focuses on succession, asking why some polities have institutionalized the process of leadership succession, while others have not. We argue that leadership succession is conditioned by (among other things) the size of a polity, with larger communities experiencing more frequent, and more regular, succession. As we discuss in the theoretical section, this is because larger polities are less cohesive, generating a greater number of veto holders. With more veto holders, the ruler will find it more difficult to hold on to power indefinitely and to pass on power to heirs. Since no extant work – at least, no work that we are aware of – is devoted to the influence of scale on leadership succession in a polity’s top office, we exclusively draw on our own analyses. We examine the question empirically using three measures of succession to the top political office: tenure in office, monarchy, and a composite index of institutionalized leadership succession. We find that tenure is shorter among leaders of larger countries, monarchs are much more likely to rule over smaller countries, and institutionalized leadership succession is inversely correlated with the size of a country.