Legislators’ Need for Civil Society Expertise: Tunisian Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Opportunity

Abdel-Samad Mounah ()
Additional contact information
Abdel-Samad Mounah: San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182, USA

Nonprofit Policy Forum, 2017, vol. 8, issue 3, 299-319

Abstract: The primacy of the Tunisian revolution and the country’s successful democratic transition (Stepan 2012, “Tunisia’s Transition and the Twin Tolerations.” Journal of Democracy 23:89–103) make Tunisia an exemplar for analyzing legislators’ demand for advocacy by civil society organizations or CSOs. Several researchers (Cavatorta 2012, “Arab Spring: The Awakening of Civil Society. A General Overview.” http://www.iemed.org/observatori-es/arees-danalisi/arxius-adjunts/anuari/med.2012/Cavatorta_en.pdf, Benoit 2011, “The Counter-Power of Civil Society and the Emergence of a New Political Imaginary in the Arab World.” Constellations: an International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory 18:271–283. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8675.2011.00650.x, Kubba 2000, “Arabs and Democracy: The Awakening of Civil Society.” Journal of Democracy 11:84–90) have explored the role of Tunisian civil society in the democratic transition; however, no study examined legislators’ demand for CSOs’ legislative advocacy in Tunisia. By exploring factors influencing legislators and their demand and need for legislative advocacy, this study sheds light on the inner works of policy makers and ways to influence them. This study finds that, contrary to the idea that governments in developing countries do not want civil society participation in politics, Tunisian legislators are open to and eager for legislative advocacy. Based on 40 survey conducted face to face with Tunisian legislators in the National Constituent Assembly, and archival analysis of the National Constituents Assembly sessions’ minutes from 2011 until 2014, this study finds that Tunisian legislators have a high level of trust in CSOs, want their expertise, and are influenced by them when voting in parliament. These results have several potential impacts on understanding of the relationship between CSOs and government and more specifically legislature.

Keywords: Tunisia; civil society; legislature; advocacy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/npf-2016-0027 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:nonpfo:v:8:y:2017:i:3:p:299-319:n:2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/npf/html

DOI: 10.1515/npf-2016-0027

Access Statistics for this article

Nonprofit Policy Forum is currently edited by Dennis Young

More articles in Nonprofit Policy Forum from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().