Managing Transition: The First Post-Uprising Phase in Tunisia and Libya by Sabina Henneberg (review)

Sabina Henneberg's Managing Transition explores Tunisia and Libya's "first interim governments"—the governments that shepherded each country from the toppling of their dictators in 2011 to their first democratic elections in 2011 and 2012. Interim governments like these, Henneberg tells us, are unique in that they enjoy neither democratic legitimacy nor an authoritarian social contract. And yet, despite their relative lack of support, the decisions they make in their short time in office can have profound consequences for the course of their subsequent political transitions.

Henneberg's core argument is that the choices made by the first interim governments in Tunisia and Libya shaped why Tunisia's subsequent transition emphasized consensus and compromise while Libya's did not, ultimately descending into civil war. While structural conditions, such as Libya's regional and tribal divisions and the nature of Tunisia's military, also played a role, Henneberg argues that "too often overlooked are the actors' choices" (p. 4). She thus explores how agency and structure interact in producing the behavior and decisions of each country's first interim governments, and how those choices in turn shaped each transition.

In Tunisia, what she terms the "Tunisian Provisional Administration (TPA)," made up of both the formal government and the various commissions and higher authorities, "played a 'bridging' role between the revolutionaries and the old regime" (p. 210). The TPA operated through a "spirit of consensus," emphasizing "cooperation, negotiation, and compromise over competition" (p. 52). This approach stemmed in part from Tunisia's political culture, its strong civil society, and authoritarian legacies, but it also reflected the personal values of its leaders (p. 43). Although the TPA did not manage to resolve every disagreement, "it set a precedent through its use of consensus" (p. 212) that would in turn help Tunisia bring its transition back from the precipice of collapse in the fall of 2013 (Chapter 3). At the same time, consensus politics would also constrain later phases of Tunisia's transition, contributing to gridlock and stalemate between 2014 and 2019 (Chapter 6).

In Libya, by contrast, the National Transitional Council (NTC) was less successful in finding consensus. Structural factors, including "Libya's fragmented society and history of a weak central state" (p. 213) partly explain why. But the NTC's strategies—trying to incorporate representatives of every social and political group, while also relying on toppled Libyan leader Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi's "leaderless" institutional structures—made collective decision-making even more difficult (pp. 118–19). The NTC's inability to control various local councils and armed groups then further undermined its cohesion (pp. 120–26). And its leaders' statements and actions, such as warning of "fifth columns" and moving the NTC's seat to Tripoli, only poured fuel on the fire (p. 127–28). The lack of unity within Libya's first interim government, in turn, had detrimental legacies for the subsequent phases of its transition and its descent into civil war (Chapters 5–6).

In short, Henneberg offers a detailed and fairly exhaustive account of Tunisia and Libya's interim governments and the transitions they led. In Tunisia, she moves beyond the well-traversed topics of elections and transitional justice to focus also on judicial and media reforms (or lack thereof). In Libya, she sheds light on internal conflicts within the interim government, including with then-general Khalifa Haftar as early as 2011, noting that he would not even shake the hand of Major General 'Abd al-Fattah Yunus (p. 126). Through her painstaking narration of events in these critical years, Henneberg has produced an impressive contribution to understanding what happened in these two transitions.

While heavy on description, the text is intentionally light on theory. Henneberg explicitly eschews generating any formula or lessons for future interim governments to follow, shying away even from proposing consensus as necessarily the correct approach (p. 220). Instead, she concludes by proposing a...