Building Citizenship in a Transitional Context to Democracy: The Tunisian Example

Almost four years after the beginning of the Arab Spring –that was born in Tunisia– we can analyse the evolution of the formation and transformation of the concept of citizenship in a transitional scenario. Young people have an important role in this process and are constructing a new way of becoming an actor in the socio-political sphere. In a country were the percentage of youths is relatively high in comparison with the European standards, demographics must be taken into account and have a crucial effect. Classical ways of participation within the structures of parties and unions are not the main tools to act in society. These new citizens focus their preferences on the associative activism and the web, new bulwark of the youth reclaims of any ideology. Communication has had a key role in fostering this situation and the mass media contributed to the uprising much before its break out. Beyond the role of the social networks and mobile phone technologies to catalyse the reaction, satellite TV, internet press and radios have helped to create the conditions to the change in the perception the Tunisian society has of their capacities as citizens. The direct prominence young people had in the process of the uprisings is been transformed into an indirect importance in the subsequent political process through groundswells of opinions and demands to lobby the power (the branches of government and the fourth Estate) to force an evolution according to their proposals. The so-called ‘jasmine revolution’ enters a period of stabilization and definition with the recent approval of the new constitution, showing a promising possibility for democracy in the Arab world. The results could be young-friendly or hostile, but the new Arab citizen is and will be present in the process.