Tunisia’s migration politics throughout the 2011 revolution: revisiting the democratisation–migrant rights nexus

How does democratisation affect the politics of migration? This paper analyses Tunisian immigration and emigration in decade before after 2011 revolution, drawing on 57 interviews with high-level civil servants, as well representatives society international organisations. It shows that policy processes expansion citizens’ political freedoms did not result pro-migrant rights reforms, but instead led to continuation restrictive migration policies inherited from Tunisia’s authoritarian past. The explains this by dissecting ambiguous effects legitimisation, inter-institutional transnational dynamics policymaking. demonstrates despite unprecedented dynamism efforts various institutional actors reform security-driven policy, there were both domestic forces put brakes reform. By focussing intricacies policymaking, analysis allows advance theory-building link between regimes politics, revisit regime transformations inside overcome still-dominant Eurocentrism scholarly debates North African policies.