In April, Columbia political scientist Alfred Stepan came out with an article in the Journal of Democracy on “Tunisia’s Transition and the Twin Tolerations.” If the article is right, Tunisia’s secularists and Islamists are participating in an encouraging pattern of political cooperation that bodes well for the country’s democratic development. There is good reason to be hopeful about the relevance of an emerging “Tunisian model” of secular-Islamist negotiation, not only for Tunisia’s future but for all those countries affected by the Arab Spring. Yet there is also reason for caution.
The “twin tolerations” are two simple political conditions governing the relationship between religious actors and political institutions, which Stepan first described in the Journal of Democracy in 2000 and in an updated version in the recently published volume, Rethinking Religion and World Affairs, which Stepan edited with Timothy Shah and Monica Toft.
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