This chapter shows how power-sharing contributed to Tunisia’s democratic breakdown in 2021. The populism and polarization produced by the 2015–19 grand coalition paralyzed the country between 2019 and 2021. The new populist president, Kais Saied, clashed with the parties in parliament, while the extremist factions in the assembly clashed among themselves, inhibiting governance. When disaffection with the political class reached a fever pitch during COVID-19, Saied decided to strike, shuttering the parliament and cracking down on the political parties. In a nationally representative survey conducted in 2022, I find that a desire to dissolve all political parties (populism) and to dissolve Ennahda in particular (polarization) were by far the two strongest predictors of support for Saied’s takeover, more so than frustrations with the economy or fears over the COVID-19 pandemic. Experimentally, priming respondents that Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi was now on trial increased support for Saied’s moves by almost 15 percentage points. Rather than saving the transition, the continued pursuit of power-sharing produced precisely the populism and polarization that helped overturn it.

This chapter describes the 2010–11 revolution that kick-started Tunisia’s democratic transition and the initial transitional year that followed. It illustrates the two major axes of polarization that would define Tunisian democracy: one between the old regime and the revolutionaries, and the other between the secularists and the Islamists. It then describes the initial attempts to bridge these divides through compromise and consensus. Interim Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi initiated major compromises on the revolution’s demands of anti-corruption, security sector reform, and political lustration, finding consensus between the old regime and the revolutionaries. Meanwhile, the winning Islamist and secular parties in the 2011 elections likewise chose consensus, agreeing to govern in a grand coalition. These choices to share power and find common ground facilitated Tunisia’s early transitional years, allowing the political elite to rein in polarization and uncertainty and avoid spoilers that may otherwise have thwarted the transition to Tunisia’s first-ever democratically elected government in December 2011.

This chapter probes whether the theory travels beyond Tunisia by conducting a cross-national analysis of grand coalition governments across all democratic transitions between 1942 and 2020. It shows that grand coalitions are statistically associated with democratic collapse, even when controlling for the underlying structural challenges that lead to them. The correlation between grand coalitions and democratic breakdown likewise remains even when pursuing techniques to address potential confounding, such as propensity score matching, inverse probability weighting, and an instrumental variable. The data also lend support for both mechanisms, showing that grand coalitions lead to a higher vote share for populists in the next elections and lead to increased mass polarization as well. While grand coalitions in the first few years of a transition have only mixed effects on democratic breakdown, continuing a coalition beyond that point makes breakdown far more likely. After establishing the rules of the game, new democracies must transition to the politics of competition, rather than continued consensus.

This chapter illustrates the dark sides of continuing to pursue power-sharing after establishing the rules of the game. It outlines why the major political parties in Tunisia decided to keep governing together through another grand coalition government between 2015 and 2019, and how these efforts both worsened polarization and sparked the rise of populism. It first shows that the decision of Nidaa Tounes and Ennahda to enter into a grand coalition ceded space for the emergence of hardline parties on either end of the spectrum, worsening polarization. Second, the extended power-sharing inadvertently sparked populism as well, by tainting all of the mainstream parties as part of the establishment and fueling the rise of populist outsider Kais Saied. Drawing on interviews and original election surveys conducted in 2019 and 2020, I show that the grand coalition led the party system to collapse, with frustrated voters shifting to populist and extremist forces instead. Had the political parties not entered into a grand coalition, they may have kept Tunisians invested in the two major, moderate parties and staved off the rise of these populists and extremists.

This introductory chapter outlines the core argument of the book: that power-sharing can be useful at the start of a democratic transition in order to generate consensus over the rules of the game, but extending power-sharing beyond that point can lead democracy to unravel. Power-sharing frustrates the voters of each party and risks the party system collapsing in favor of populists and extremists. By worsening polarization and populism, power-sharing thus makes democratic breakdown more likely. The chapter outlines the contributions of this theory to the existing literature on democratization, polarization, and populism, showing that democratic transitions require a balance between competition and consensus. The chapter illustrates the core argument in Tunisia and draws parallels to other cases in the Middle East, in Europe, and in Latin America. It ends by previewing each chapter of the book and defining the key terms.

This final chapter concludes by tracing out the book’s contributions to our understanding of democratization. It highlights that while inclusion, consensus, and power-sharing are useful in the transition to democracy, it is differentiation, competition, and polarization that help to consolidate democracy. It highlights how the more successful cases of democratization, like South Africa, pursued grand coalitions only at the very start of the transition, before shifting to normal competition once the constitution was established. The chapter also provides some initial theorization as to what a healthy degree of polarization might look like, introducing the notion of “polarization within bounds,” where parties seek consensus only when adjusting the rules of the game, but seek competition within those bounds. Finally, it offers some brief reflections on the state of democracy in the United States and Europe. It argues that the initial strategies of mainstream parties toward populist threats have been self-defeating and provides some recommendations building on the insights of this book for alternative strategies to deflate populist threats.

This chapter describes how the 2011–14 grand coalition government in Tunisia navigated growing polarization in 2012 and especially 2013. That year, two major political assassinations and dueling protests led to fears of a coup or a descent into civil war. But the political elite’s norms of power-sharing, compromise, and consensus helped to bring them back from the brink and strike a grand bargain that put the transition back on track. Through an inclusive national dialogue mediated by civil society, Tunisia’s Islamist and secularist forces found common ground over a new, progressive constitution that was approved by near unanimity. Meanwhile, the revolutionary and old regime forces likewise compromised to include the old regime in elections but allow a transitional justice mechanism to hold the worst abusers accountable. Power-sharing thus enabled Tunisia’s transition in 2014 to establish a new constitution and electoral law – the rules of the game that would govern its new democracy.

This chapter investigates the implications of a power-sharing deal for the memory regime, looking at the case study of Burundi. In Burundi, we witness a ‘clash of paradigms’ whereby power-sharing undermines meaningful attempts at transitional justice. The chapter shows that this translates to the realm of memory, producing a coalition of oblivion, and that this results in variegated forms of memory displacement and erasure. The chapter looks at three sites of violence in Burundi to explore the everyday struggles with rectification, the undignified treatment of remains, and threatened memory erasure. It also demonstrates that the memory regime changes alongside and in line with the changing political regime, and shows how an increase in the power of the dominant political party shifted the memory regime towards selective recognition.

This chapter argues that the literature on legislatures in authoritarian regimes has hitherto explained their origins, described their effects on regime duration, analyzed how they fulfill the roles of oversight and legitimation of autocratic regimes, and accounted for their influence on policy outcomes under highly specific conditions, but have not adequately explained another main function that legislatures are supposed to perform: lawmaking. The few works on this topic have highly specific scope conditions, present theories unrelated to the political dynamics of authoritarianism, and cannot explain variation of legislative outcomes across different types of dictatorship. We argue that these limitations can be overcome by extending the power-sharing theory of authoritarian government to account for lawmaking institutions and outcomes.

This chapter marks the starting point of our investigation of actual policy solutions to tackle armed conflict. When a doctor has reached her diagnosis, she must then decide on the right medication to administer. Similarly, while economists started by studying the drivers of political violence, in recent years increasing efforts have been made to understand how to cut the Gordian knot of conflict. As argued in this chapter, a first-order factor is the institutional environment, and in particular the need to give a voice to all citizens and groups in society. Democracy is desirable, but without proper safeguards it can have a dark side and result in blood being spilt. Furthermore, the type of democracy and the provisions of sharing power between groups matter. Closer inspection of local-level power-sharing in Northern Ireland, the building of modern Switzerland after its civil war in 1847, the difficulties for current democratization in Iraq and the franchise extension during the British Age of Reform drive this discussion forward.

The concluding chapter wraps up the various arguments and pieces of evidence presented in this book in favor of our peace formula. Overall, the first take-home message to be highlighted is the need for smart idealism – as neither the cold-hearted egotist nor the naïve idealist will be able to curb conflict. Secondly, it is again stressed which concrete policies are key to making a difference, creating a synthesis of the various points of the previous chapters. In particular, we emphasize the key role of a democratic voice, security warranties, promoting productive work, fostering trust and reconciliation, accelerating a well-managed green energy transition and stepping up international coordination across a variety of issues. The final point is that since we are all affected by conflict, we should all be part of the solution. It turns out that several studies have found that pressure from the public opinion matters, both in the implementation of policies and in preventing atrocities. There is a job to be done, so let us work together to make a change.

This chapter starts off by explaining that we are in the midst of a critical historical juncture with a record number of wars and conflicts around the world, calling for urgent action. Next, we discuss in depth three common but disastrous misconceptions, namely that shady deals leaving autocrats in power can bring peace, that “buying” peace through simple cash transfers works, and that charm offensives and communication efforts suffice to do the job. Drawing on a number of examples, the book highlights the pitfalls of these common misconceptions before turning to success stories. Illustrated by examples of the successful postwar reconstruction of Germany and Japan, the fall of apartheid in South Africa and democratization of Uruguay, Chile and Peru, the chapter then formulates the key components of what is called the peace formula – a set of key policies that constitute crucial ingredients for a successful and lasting pacification process. Finally, it is stressed that to counter distorted incentives for peace we need smart idealism – pairing good intentions with evidence-based policy knowledge.

The advantages of power-sharing arrangements as a tool of peacemaking are gradually being substantiated in practice and research, but have not yet gained normative legitimacy, nor have they been properly incorporated into either the human rights framework or international and regional law. When power-sharing arrangements utilize predefined ethno-national groups as a central feature of the constitutional structure, they are widely seen as illiberal (and unjust) and as violating individual rights to equality and nondiscrimination. This conflict between power-sharing and human rights is generally viewed as a dilemma between peace and justice, and the main justification given to support the maintenance of the arrangements is that they are an indispensable political compromise to overcome violent conflict and are preferable to the continuation of bloodshed. However, this justification is not always enough, as the European Court of Human Rights ruling in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s constitution illustrates. But is this “peace versus justice” framing of the tensions between power-sharing and human rights accurate? Does it properly account for the meaning and requirements of justice in loci of deeply divided places?