Thread by @shadihamid

Excited to announce the release of the new Brookings report I co-wrote with @sh_grewal:

"The Dark Side of Consensus in Tunisia"

Tunisia's embrace of consensus has been hailed as a bright spot. But we argue that consensus reflects a deeper weakness

brookings.edu/research/the-d…

A secular-Islamist unity government sounds like a good thing. This consensus was meant to resolve or supersede religious divides. But it merely postponed them. Papering over very real divides contributed to the rise of new, more dogmatically secular and Islamist parties

The decision of Ennahda, #Tunisia's main Islamist party, to join a unity government rather than lead the opposition stemmed from a fear it would be repressed. If parties don't feel comfortable being in opposition out of fear, then this by itself means democracy is on shaky ground