Chapter 1 introduces the theoretical and empirical background to the study of long-distance Tunisian activism as well as the guiding questions on which the book rests: What were the conditions that enabled Tunisian politics in France? How do we explain what it meant to oppose or support an authoritarian regime from afar in terms of reconfiguring this activism in a migratory context? The chapter begins by discussing the choice to examine the Tunisian case in France and situates the study as part of the broader political, economic and migratory relationships between the two countries. The chapter then presents the theoretical framework underlying that universe of political practice, namely ‘the trans-state space of mobilisation’, which I locate at the intersection of scholarship on North African politics, social movements and diaspora politics. It concludes by outlining the issues involved in undertaking fieldwork in the wake of the 2011 Revolution and introduces the material on which this book draws.

Chapter 1 introduces the problems to which this book responds and proposes alternative pathways for understanding the archaeology of the Roman Empire. It shows how particular colonial ways-of-knowing continue to shape the stories told of North Africa’s people and their traditions of worship under the Roman Empire, setting these within the binary of “Romanization” or “resistance.” While approaches to the archaeology of other parts of the Roman Empire have begun to embrace New Materialism as a way of moving beyond “Romanization,” this chapter argues that semiotic approaches offer a more productive means of engaging with and explaining the material dimensions of imperial hegemony.

The threat of Nasserism shaped the shah’s regional strategy in the 1950s and 1960s. This chapter explores the development of the shah’s policy of building relations with moderate allies in the Arab world who could help to contain and balance the radicalism of Nasser. The shah found two allies in North Africa: Tunisia under President Habib Bourguiba and Morocco under King Hassan II. Bourguiba and King Hassan were, like the shah, moderate rulers, with strong ties to the West, who shared the same concerns over Egyptian ambitions and the threat that Nasserism posed to regional stability. One of the strategies the shah developed, for which he sought the support of King Hassan in particular, was to challenge Nasser’s claims to leadership in the Islamic world, by attempting to form a separate grouping of Islamic countries. The ultimate manifestation of this was the Islamic Summit Conference, held in Rabat in 1969, in which King Hassan and the shah played leading roles.

The Allied bet that they could reach Tunis ahead of Axis forces fell victim to hesitancy, delay, and confusion at the top of the French command, that communicated downward to subordinates. In a situation that combined uncertainty with pusillanimity in the French leadership, Axis forces flowed into Tunisia. The Allies viewed the resulting campaign as both costly and unnecessary. That said, the decision by the Axis leaders to defend Europe from Tunisia arguably made “Tunisgrad” more consequential than Stalingrad. It also marked an ambiguous entry of the hitherto Vichy French forces into an Allied coalition, that, in the view of French commander in chief Alphonse Juin, “erased the memory of Dunkirk.” Nevertheless, quickly exasperated by infighting between Gaullists and “Giraudists,” the Allies continued to suspect both the loyalty and the military potential of poorly armed French forces.

This chapter examines the last phase of the Buffalo Agency’s existence from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. It refracts this institution’s history through an existing body of historical literature that explores the intersections among print technology, Islamic reform and ecumenicalism, and political life in the history of Ibadi and other Muslims communities in Egypt in the context of colonialism. The chapter examines these themes by telling the stories of two people whose lives are largely unknown. The first figure, Saʿīd al-Shammākhī, served as the director of the Buffalo Agency in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1871, however, he was appointed agent (wakīl) for the Husaynid bey of Tunisia in Egypt and served as a line of communication between the governments of the two Ottoman provinces. The second figure is Muḥammad al-Bārūnī, owner of the first Ibadi printing house in Cairo. In terms of its operation, its financing, and its choice of titles, this Ibadi press functioned in much the same way as other late Ottoman presses in Egypt. Through the stories of these two men, the chapter situates Ibadis in the changing technologies and politics of late nineteenth century Ottoman Egypt.

This final chapter follows the journey of Jerban student Sālim Bin Yaʿqūb (d. 1991) from Tunisia to Egypt, where he lived at the Buffalo Agency in the twilight years of its existence in the 1930s. The chapter draws on a diverse body of materials including manuscripts from his private library, his research notes, and a recorded interview from the 1980s with him about his time in Cairo. He spent much of his life in the decades following his return from Egypt to Tunisia preparing materials for a book just like this one. Bin Yaʿqūb’s story is thus at once that of the gradual disintegration of the Agency and its library and the earliest attempt to preserve the memory of the Ibadi community in Cairo and the Buffalo Agency before it disappeared. Although he died before writing it, the idea for his book both inspired and laid the foundation for this one.

This chapter explores how autocrats use propaganda to explicitly threaten repression, which often occurs via codewords. Threats of repression remind citizens of the consequences of dissent, but they are costly. When propaganda apparatuses seek credibility, threatening repression makes persuading citizens of regime merits more difficult. Threats of repression also endow sensitive moments with even more significance to citizens. We show that propaganda-based threats of repression are more common where electoral constraints are non-binding. Even as Ben Ali was losing power in Tunisia, for instance, his propaganda apparatus chose to concede citizen frustrations and emphasize the government’s determination to do better, rather than advertise the military’s loyalty and training, both routinely cited during the succession crisis in Uzbekistan. We find that Cameroon’s Paul Biya issues threats in English, but not in French; his political in-group is francophone, his out-group anglophone. We find that the CCP is far more likely to explicitly threaten repression in the Xinjiang Daily, which targets the ethnic Uyghur out-group, and on the anniversaries of ethnic separatist movements.

The second chapter provides a brief description of the Sunni political Islam as an ideology with a focus on its historical provenances of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and its diffusion to the broader MENA region. This chapter gives an overview of the psycho-biographies of individual Muslim Brotherhood leaders: Mohamed Morsi, Rashid Ghannouchi, and Khaled Mashal. The authors discuss the operational code analysis results and deliberate on what kind of generic foreign policy behavior and strategies we should expect from the Sunni political Islamist leaders. The chapter also sheds light on what these results and strategies mean for MENA politics. The chapter concludes that despite the conventional portrayal of Muslim Brotherhood leadership, these leaders resort to negotiation and cooperation to settle their differences, hence the best way to approach them is to engage in a Rousseauvian assurance game that emphasizes international social cooperation.

This chapter explores Tunisia's history as an authoritarian country that struggled with economic developing, ultimately resulting in a parasitic crony capitalist class closely allied with the regime. While the Arab Uprisings ushered in democracy, they failed to replace these crony networks as business engaged with parties in the new democracy. Unlike Egypt, Tunisia remained a democracy, but the presence of crony capitalists as party funders undermined reform efforts and the ultimate success of the democratic project.

Corruption in the Middle East and North Africa is both widely prevalent and a puzzle because it is so resistant to reform. This book will engage with democratic transitions in Egypt and Tunisia to better understand why these countries saw so little change in terms of cronyist relations between businesses and the state.

This chapter presents original survey evidence of corporate political action in Egypt and Tunisia. Employing multiple surveys between 2017 and 2020, the chapter shows that Egyptian business were more active politically and more willing to take strong measures such as telling their employees who to vote for. These differences in engagement are a reflection of the presence of the military in Egypt and its strong economic linkages with businesspeople.

This chapter examines the 2004 Moroccan Family Code governing marriage, divorce, marital property, child custody guardianship, and parentage. The enactment process, which included a multi-stakeholder Royal Commission and Parliamentary debate, and was marked by unprecedented public mobilization for and against reforms, marked a break with the previous Personal Status Code. Multiple references in the law to international human rights standards, positive law, and religious precepts create a certain legal schizophrenia and inconsistent decisions across jurisdictions. While substantial reforms were made on the face of the law, in particular to provisions regarding marriage, substantial inequality and discrimination persist, particularly in unequal access to divorce for women, financial relationships between spouses, and child custody and guardianship. International human rights bodies and local activists alike have highlighted the need for further revisions to the Family Code to abolish remaining inequality. Since 2011, Morocco has been led by an Islamist-majority governmental coalition opposed to further Family Code reform, raising questions about the relationship between democracy and women’s rights.