Int. J. Middle East Stud. 47 (2015), 65–87 doi:10.1017/S0020743814001457 Hicham Bou Nassif A MILITARY BESIEGED: THE ARMED FORCES, THE POLICE, AND THE PARTY IN BIN ALI’S TUNISIA, 1987–2011 Abstract This article draws on extensive fieldwork and original data to trace the transformation of civil– military relations in Tunisia during the tenure of the former president Zayn al-Abidin bin Ali (1987–2011). The republican ethos of the Tunisian Armed Forces (al-Quwwat al-Musallaha al- Tunusiyya) is often stressed to explain its traditional political quiescence. However, I maintain that it was the active hostility of the military’s rivals within the Bin Ali regime that prevented Tunisian generals from playing a greater role in their country’s public life. I disaggregate Bin Ali’s regime into its fundamental institutional components—namely, the presidency, the party, the police, and the military—and investigate rivalries and alliances that structured the struggle for influence and power between Bin Ali’s rise to the presidency and his downfall. I argue that there is a direct and causal relationship between the 2010–11 uprising and inter- and intrainstitutional dynamics within the regime. In other words, the study of contemporary Tunisian civil–military relations is critical to understanding the breakdown of the Bin Ali regime. The subfield of civil–military relations in the Arab world is attracting renewed schol- arly interest after decades of neglect. 1 However, although scholars agree that events in Tunisia were a catalyst for the Arab upheavals and that armies heavily shape the outcomes of popular uprisings, they have given little attention to Tunisian civil–military relations. 2 This article is intended to fill this gap. Its contribution is threefold. First, while observers of the Arab Spring have correctly maintained that the Tunisian Armed Forces (al-Quwwat al-Musallaha al-Tunusiyya) were unenthusiastic about the Bin Ali regime, this is the first study to examine the origins of their discontent and its evolve- ment during Bin Ali’s tenure. Second, the article challenges the conventional wisdom among observers of Tunisian politics that Bin Ali ordered the armed forces to shoot on demonstrators at the beginning of the uprising, an order the army’s chief of staff, Rashid Ammar, supposedly refused to obey, thereby “saving the revolution.” 3 Bin Ali certainly ordered the armed forces to deploy in the streets of Tunis, but little evidence exists to suggest that he instructed the military to open fire on civilians. Third, I qual- ify the emphasis that journalists and others have put on Ammar’s agency—his refusal Hicham Bou Nassif is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, Carleton College, Northfield, Minn.; e-mail: hnassif@carleton.edu © Cambridge University Press 2015 0020-7438/15