The main question this thesis tries to provide an answer to is why democratic transformation was successful in Tunisia, but not in Egypt and Algeria. The research approach is primarily rooted in descriptive-empirical actor theories, although culturalist theories were used as well, as to better understand the political ideas and stances of Islamist actors. The research strategy is a focused comparative three-case-study – comprising Tunisia, Egypt, and Algeria – i.e. an intra-regional comparative study since these countries belong to the subregion of North Africa, which is a subsystem of the Middle Eastern region. The comparative study has different outcomes on the dependent variable, in order to avoid unnatural selection bias and achieve a quasi-experimental effect. The proposed hypothesis claims that Tunisia had a softer civilian authoritarian regime which permitted interaction and cooperation of opposition and regime elites, which resulted in a political agreement and, subsequently, a successful democratic transition. In the cases of Egypt and Algeria, the interaction of opposition and regime elites primarily took the form of conflict, with a lack of a political agreement, and thus democratic transition. The independent variables which were isolated in the theoretical discussion were the following: the character of the previous authoritarian regime, the role of the army, opposition and government type, patterns of opposition-government interaction, patterns of transition to democracy. In addition, the analysis encompasses the colonial period as well, which is important because it demonstrates whether these countries had the previous democratic experience, whether it had some influence on later democratization, what kinds of political elites emerged in that period and, consequently, what form of an authoritarian regime they later established. The analysis provides the conclusion that the main hypothesis was confirmed. Tunisia was a “softer” authoritarian regime, which had enabled the cooperation of old and new elites, which resulted in a political agreement, and thus a successful democratic transition. In Egypt and Algeria, the conflict of old and new elites prevented successful democratization.