Événement en présentiel

 Lieu : Salle S1, 2e étage, 28 rue des Saints-Pères, 75007 Paris

Organised in the framework of the IRN RADEX

When Tunisians overthrew longtime dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011, fears of radicalism both domestically and internationally centred primarily on the spectre of an "Islamist winter" overtaking the so-called Arab Spring. A decade later, however, Tunisia's flawed-but-still-floating democratic transition was abruptly torpedoed when Kais Saied, the democratically elected president, seized all three branches of power. Was the collapse of Tunisia's transition primarily the fault of Islamists, whom many had pegged as anti-democratic spoilers in 2011? Or was it mainly to blame on Saied himself, an ideologically esoteric populist, or on those who most vigorously cheered his power grab, prominent among whom were leftists? Was "radicalism" in Tunisia's transition located where scholars have typically assumed, or should Tunisia's decade-long experiment with democracy, and its potential demise, force observers to rethink typical definitions of "radicalism" and what drives "radicalisation"? This talk explores these questions, and will provide ample time for question and answer. 

Intervenante :  

Dr. Monica Marks is a leading scholar of Tunisian politics and an Assistant Professor of Middle East Politics at New York University, Abu Dhabi. Her research focuses on pluralism, religion-state relations, and processes of democratisation and de-democratisation in the Middle East and North Africa, especially in those areas where she has lived longest: Tunisia, Turkey, and the Gulf. Marks has lived in Tunisia for over five years, and has conducted over 1,500 interviews there, since the 2011 revolution. She completed her PhD at St. Antony's College, Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, in 2018. Her dissertation--a political ethnography of Tunisia's Ennahda Party--parsed the dominant cleavages within and challenges related to Islamist politics in Tunisia's democratic transition. Marks has published widely on Tunisia for over eleven years. Her work has appeared in academic publications, leading European and American think tanks, and top news outlets such as Foreign Policy, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, where she was moonlit as a freelance journalist in Tunisia from 2012-2013. Before joining NYU Abu Dhabi in 2019, Dr. Marks was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. She has been interviewed at length on Tunisia's politics since President Kais Saied's 2021 power grab for podcasts on Jadaliyya, Al-Monitor, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). She shares her analysis via Twitter @MonicaLMarks. 

Discutant :
Stéphane Lacroix, Associate Professor Sciences Po, Researcher CERI Sciences po

Responsable scientifique : Nadia Marzouki, chargée de recherche CNRS CERI Sciences po