A comparison of democratic transformations of Tunisia and Indonesia

Abstract

The question this paper tries to provide an answer to is, why democratic transformation‎ was successful in Tunisia and Indonesia? The theoretical approach‎ is primarily rooted in descriptive-empirical actor theories, although cultural‎ theories were used as well, as to better understand the political ideas and‎ stances of Islamist actors. The research strategy is a binary comparative study‎ with the same outcome on the dependent variable. Furthermore, the paper‎ utilizes the Most Different Systems Design (MDSD) since both countries are‎ quite different, but the dependent variable is the same – democratic transformation‎ was successful. The aim of the paper is to isolate the independent‎ variables which should be considered as the necessary prerequisites for the‎ democratic transformation in both cases. However, the paper emphasises that‎ further testing and more cases are needed.‎