The Foreign Policy Consequences of the Liberalization Process in Tunisia and Egypt: Uncovering their Social Character.

Abstract

This paper identifies some of the consequences of the first phase of political transition for the repositioning of social actors and forces in the foreign policies of Tunisia and Egypt. The Palestinian and Syrian files and the economic crisis serve to explain differences in how the political change has conditioned the foreign behavior of the respective transition governments. These three issues link the political transition to questions of the power balance in the regional and international spheres. The paper shows that even if social forces (both national and international) did not directly influence the decisions of the post-revolutionary governments, they were active and influential in the debate over the redefinition of national interests.