Tunisia's National Dialogue Quartet
In Tunisia's 2013 political crisis, four civil-society organizations with different constituencies—labor, employers, lawyers, and human-rights advocates—used a common roadmap to broker resignation of the governing coalition, completion of a constitution, and elections. The bargain interrupted escalation, but its elite and temporary design could not by itself resolve economic exclusion or make Tunisia's later democratic institutions self-enforcing.
How can institutions outside government stop a constitutional transition from collapsing when elected rivals no longer trust one another enough to sequence resignation, constitution-making, and elections?