During democratic transitions, newly elected governments face public demands to reform the institutions of the old regime, especially the security forces; yet, these reforms often fail. I argue that politicians define policy issues in ways that maximize popular support for their own positions through well-established processes of elite issue framing. Politicians can reduce popular demand for difficult and costly reforms of the security forces by framing them as trade-offs with other types of reform. The argument is tested with original survey data from Tunisia, an important contemporary case of democratic transition. An embedded vignette experiment primes existing issue frames by asking respondents to adjudicate between investments in security reform versus economic or political reform. I find that framing a trade-off with a more popular policy, economic development, reduces public demand for security reform. These findings have important implications for security sector reform and democratic consolidation in Tunisia and beyond.

在民主转型，新当选的政府面临改革旧体制，尤其是安全部队的机构公共需求; 然而，这些改革经常失败。我认为，政客通过完善的精英问题框架化流程，可以最大限度地提高民众对自己立场的支持，从而定义政策问题。政客可以通过将其视为与其他类型的改革之间的权衡取舍，来减少民众对安全部队进行艰难而昂贵的改革的需求。该论证用突尼斯的原始调查数据进行了检验，突尼斯是当代民主过渡的重要案例。嵌入式小插图实验通过要求受访者在安全改革投资与经济或政治改革之间做出裁定，从而为现有问题框架打下了基础。我发现，以更受欢迎的政策来取舍，经济发展，减少了公众对安全改革的需求。这些发现对突尼斯及其他地区的安全部门改革和民主巩固具有重要意义。