Feedback Loops and Bridging Democratic Resilience From Above and From Below: The Case of Tunisia, 2011-2021

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The paper begins with a discussion of the scholarship on democratic resilience and on transformative collective resilience, building up to a conceptualization of ‘democratic resilience from below’. It then turns to the empirical analysis of the Tunisian case, briefly setting the scene with an overview of the political turbulence in Tunisia since July 2021. To illustrate the argument, the paper draws on extensive fieldwork in Tunisia since summer 2021,showcasing two (sometimes overlapping) sets of examples from civil society: street protests, on issues ranging from Palestine to pollution to Gen Z.; and defiant, pro-democracy and rights-based activism by organized civil society organizations in the face of state crackdowns. In this vein, the paper explores the nexus between state-led (‘from above’) and community-based (‘from below’) resilience, mapping the feedback dynamics that tie them together.