The development of Tunisia’s green transition, actors’ interests, and policy coalitions’ power dynamics

Abstract

This paper examines the pathway of the green transition in Tunisia. It investigates it in terms of it’s a)- extractivity/inclusivity with regard to the typology of interested actors and b)- stability with the help of policy coalition analysis. It also examines the effect of an external shock represented in an authoritarian shift on Tunisia’s green transition pathway. A conceptual and theoretical framework is developed which accounts for three main variables: actors’ interests, comparative power, and coordination capabilities. Then the Tunisian case is analyzed accordingly based on qualitative data obtained from interviews that were conducted in 2022-2023, publicly available quantitative data, and the literature. The findings suggest that the green transition did not proceed in Tunisia as planned in its democratic decade (2011-2021) because of the relative weakness of the pro-transition policy coalition vis a vis the contra-coalition and generally the instability of an extractive pathway in a more democratic society with active societal actors. The external shock of the constitutional coup of 2021 reshuffled power dynamics, coordination, and policy coalitions’ comparative power. Although there is no evidence that it made the pathway more extractive, it relatively stabilized it.