Despite an academic debate offering a rich conceptual framework for the influences of certain international players on the national scene, researchers faced methodological difficulties in studying qualitatively the impact of external influences in a transition to democracy. The issues are even more apparent when the research targets a country in the Arab-Moslem world. Identifying the players involved, access to informants, interaction bias during meetings and the position of the researcher in relation to a complex subject are a few of the obstacles encountered. How then should one study the international context of a transition to democracy in the Arab world? Based on the author’s experiences with field research, this article suggests various strategies likely to increase the chances for success of a qualitative study of the impact of outside influences on the process of introducing democracy to a country in the Arab world such as Tunisia.