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Steven Fish and Katherine E. Michel contend that despite some challenges, “Tunisia has made remarkable progress toward democracy.” Results from their empirical study indicated that “Tunisia's decision to create a system with a strong parliament and a constrained president is a recipe for robust democracy.”
Tunisians vested “formidable power” in their legislature by allowing the elected constitutional assembly to serve as the basis for establishing a new government and creating a parliamentary system. By focusing on institution building, rather than “on a strong wise ruler,” Tunisians are making a far sighted decision to tackle “the problem of overweening executive power head-on.”
In their study, Fish and Michel investigated “the effect of the power of the legislature vis-à-vis the executive on the fate of democratization around the world.” The study focused on two questions for each country. First, is the legislature free of executive appointees? And second, does the legislature alone make laws, or can the executive also make laws?
The results showed that “creating an all-elected legislature that will not have to share lawmaking power with the president transforms the picture,” and increases prospects for a full, “free” democracy. The drafting of Tunisia’s new constitution “indicates strongly that Tunisia is on track to adopt precisely such a strong-parliament model,” where “an all-elected legislature will not have to share lawmaking power.” Tunisia is “uprooting dictatorship, not merely expelling the dictator.”
Fish and Michel conclude that “the rules that define the power of the legislature are of greatest significance.” During the “routine business of constitution-writing,” the Arab world must create “vigorous representative assemblies, rather than indulge the temptation to seek salvation in dominant executives….”
