International expert assistance in transitional contexts
EU democracy promotion in post-revolution Tunisia: a transition between discourses, practices and perception
1
Name: Zainab Akariou Student number: 5934192
Research Project: Power and Resistance in the Middle East Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Anne De Jong
Second Thesis Reader: Dr. Vivienne Matthies-Boon Word count:27.463
Submitted on: 27 June 2014
Master Political Science: International Relations. Graduate School of Social Sciences Universiteit van Amsterdam
Abstract
This research examines the role of international expert assistance in transitional contexts. This study focuses in particular on the role of the EU and its policy of democracy promotion in Tunisia after the fall of the Ben Ali regime in 2011 and the interplay between the EU and civil society organizations in Tunisia. An examination of the policy texts on democracy promotion reveal that the policy has been rather characterized by a discursive shift in which themes like democracy, development and delivery are not conceptualized in a significant different fashion. As such, local
Tunisian civil society organizations see more continuity than a break with the past policy of the EU in the field of democracy promotion.
Abbreviations
AA AP ATFD CDA CNLT CEU CPR CSO EC EED EIB EIDHR EMP ENP ENPI EP IFIT ISIE LTDH NRCN NGOs PfDSP UGTT UTICA MEDA MENA MTI NCSF NIMD ONAT PASC RCD UfM Association Agreement Action PlanAssociation Tunisienne des Femmes Democrates
Critical Discourse Analysis
Conseil National des Libertes en Tunisie Council of the European Union
Congres pour la Republique Civil Society Organization European Commission
European Endowment for Democracy European Investment Bank
European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights
Euro-Mediterranean Partnership European Neighbourhood Policy
European Neighbourd Policy Instrument European Parliament
Institute for Integrated Transitions Instance Superieure Independante d’Elections
Ligue Tunisienne des Droits de l’Homme A New Response to a Changing
Neighbourhood
Non-governmental organizations
A Partnership for Democracy and Stability Partnership
Union Generale du Travail Tunisienne Union Tunisienne de l’Industrie, du Commerce et de l’Artisanat
Mediterranean Programme Middle East and North Africa
Mouvement de Tendance Islamique Neighbourhood Civil Society Facility Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracies
Ordre National des Avocats
Programme d’Appui a la Societe Civile en Tunisie
Rassemblement Constitutionnel Democratique
Table of content
Introduction ... 3
1. Theoretical framework ... 13
2. Tunisian political context ... 27
3. EU-Tunisia relations throughout the years: an institutional framework ... 39
4. EU discourse after 2011: lessons learned ... 51
5. Tunisia after 2011: a civil society in transition. ... 61
6. International expert assistance in Tunisia: the EU and Tunisian civil society ... 69
Introduction
In the twentieth century, different regions in the world were faced with important political changes varying from the fall of (right-wing) authoritarian and military dictatorships in Southern Europe and Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s to the collapse of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989. What these events had in common, was that at least several countries in each region were marked by a shift from authoritarian rule to a more liberal, and sometimes even democratic, political regime (Carothers, 2002: 5). These trends were soon baptized by Samuel Huntington as the ’third wave’ of democratization following the two democratization waves that Western Europe and the US were confronted with before (Huntington 1991).
As was the case in the previous century, the fall of an (authoritarian) regime by either a popular revolt or (civil) war is tended to be seen as a historical moment that can be the prelude for ’something new in the making’. The academic world, on the one hand, rushes to find an analytical framework to analyze and explain these kinds of events. International actors, on the other hand, do not seem to differ a lot in this regard. Both state and non-state actors that are engaged in promoting political reform look for a new window of opportunity to implement their policies.
International expert assistance in the field of political reform usually covers a vast array of activities such as supporting and fostering electoral and other political processes, public service delivery, rule of law, state-society relations, democratic culture and education. Funding of ‘’pro-democracy’’ actors with financial means is not necessarily the greater part of this assistance; this support can also include diplomatic initiatives and technical assistance (Burnell, 2012: 838). Whatever the outcome of regime change is -which is not always necessarily a liberal democracy as some may hope- these events are often seen by the international community as an invitation to get involved (Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT), 2013: 5).
The popular uprisings that erupted in the Middle East and North Africa in 2010-2011 after the self-immolation of Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi in the Tunisian provincial town of Sidi Bouzid, and which swept several autocrats was probably an invitation to act but first and foremost an invitation to reflect. The
popular revolts in Tunisia and the region undoubtedly came to some scholars and policy makers as a surprise due to the suddenness of the events. Some responded swiftly by referring to the ’velvet’ revolutions of Eastern Europe in 1989 and by seeing the events as the rise of new Arab democracies or rather by describing the events as ’a sort of delayed footnote to the ‘third wave’ of democratisation’.2 Others also reminded us of the role that international actors claimed to play in promoting democracy, human rights and the rule of law in the region. The EU and the US were heavily criticized and accused of applying double standards, being inefficient, rhetorical and even showing behavior reminiscent of imperialism in their democratization policies in the region (Huber, 2013: 98).
In Tunisia, the EU has traditionally been one of the largest international actors active in the field of international expert assistance due to the geographical proximity and its historical and economic ties with the country. The events of 2011 –and the accusations of policy failure- have further challenged the alleged ‘transformative potential’ of the EU to yield political reform and have forced the EU ‘to look afresh at the EU’s relationship’ with its neighbours as the EU itself claims. 3 One of the main issues in the reassessment of the democracy promotion policy is the desire of responsiveness towards local demands -in particular from civil society-, which is something that the EU allegedly fell short in. Consequently, a number of policy
reassessments should constitute a break with the past policy. In order to examine the claim that the new policy is a break with the past, the question that this thesis poses is:
How has the EU changed its policy of democracy promotion towards Tunisia after 2011, and how do local CSOs perceive this change?
Regarding democracy promotion, the EU has been traditionally employing a strategy of democracy promotion in the context of EU enlargement. This proved to be
2
Institute for Integrated Transitions, Supporting Countries in Transition. A Framework for Transitional
Grantmaking, p. 5.
3
European Commission, ’A new response to a changing Neighbourhood’. Brussels, 25 May 2011, COM(2011) 303 final.
successful to a certain degree in Southern Europe in the 1980s and in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s, with the conditional use of strong incentives such as membership and the benefits that accompanied this membership. As a result, it has been hailed as the most successful foreign policy tool of the EU. The EU sought to replicate this success story in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, especially in the Southern Mediterranean. However, until now this has proven to be much more difficult than in the 1980s and the 1990s, among others because of the absence of a membership prospect for these countries which was a strong incentive for candidates to pursue reform (Pace, 2009: 39).
The announced post-Arab Spring policy reassessment has been mainly embodied by two documents; ‘A Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity’ (PfDSP)4, which outlines a renewed framework of EU democracy assistance and ‘A new response to a changing Neighbourhood (NRCN)’, aiming at revising the
European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) as a whole. This went along with the creation of new instruments such as the Neighbourhood Civil Society Facility (NCSF) and the establishment of the European Endowment for Democracy (EED) that strives to support local actors of democratic change.5 At first glance this implies a bigger role for local civil society as partner in order to realize the stated policy goals, rather than working solely with state actors or those closely linked to the state.
This last point is of great importance, because it reflects the accusations towards the EU of excluding civil society organizations (CSOs) from negotiations with neighbouring countries. Although the EU has always claimed that the principle of ‘local ownership’ is usually taken into account during negotiations, it is often stated that it eventually was the government that was the one that defined the priorities in the field of political reform and human rights (Del Sarto & Schumacher, 2011: 946). Furthermore, the European Parliament has stated in one of its own reports that CSOs are not sufficiently involved in the policy for democracy assistance and that they have limited access to EU funding under the existing EU assistance programmes
4
European Commission, A Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity with the Southern
Mediterranean, (COM (2011) 200). http://eeas.europa.eu/euromed/docs/com2011_200_en.pdf, accessed on 10 March 2014.
(European Parliament, 2012: 5). This has been one of the reasons why the
aforementioned policy reassessments came to stress the role of CSOs in the policy framework of the EU towards Tunisia and the Southern neighbourhood in general. Therefore, the research question will not only focus on the EU as democracy
promoter but also on the role of civil society in this policy in order to assess possible changes in this policy and how (possible) changes are perceived by those that are (among others) targeted by this policy.
Social and theoretical relevance
With the announced policy reassessments one can ask how the EU learned from lessons in the past now the EU engages itself to approach its neighbours differently. The case of Tunisia can reveal possible changes or continuities since the EU has been present in the country for a long time and it is the country where the EU has
committed itself to support the transition process. 6 Moreover, the Tunisian (transitional) authorities have showed themselves willing to receive contributions from abroad to construct its new order –contrary to Egypt where international actors are faced with suspicions from the authorities and where they are accused of destabilizing the country (Kausch, 2013: 2). Thus, at first glance, one would suggest that with, on the one hand, an EU that seems to acknowledge its mistakes from the past and that claims to follow a new and fresh approach and, on the other hand, a Tunisian regime that shows itself more open to political assistance from outside, the conditions for international expert assistance will be significantly better. However, the new role of CSOs –that played a pivotal role in the revolution- remains largely unknown, due to the alleged focus on state actors. Thus, with these claimed changes on both sides of the Mediterranean, one can ask how the EU changed its approach towards CSOs and, in particular, in post-revolution Tunisia and how they perceive the assistance from the EU.
Although the EU does not have an official policy of democracy promotion for
6
European Neighbourhood Info Centre, Tunisia: EU reaffirms its support to transition process and readiness to strengthen it. http://www.enpi-info.eu/medportal/news/latest/35158/Tunisia:-EU-reaffirms-its-support-to-transition-process-and-readiness-to-strengthen-it, accessed on March 12, 2014.
Tunisia exclusively, but rather regional policies, this case study may tell us more about the dynamics of its democracy promotion policy in the Tunisian context which is now characterized by its transitional phase. On a broader and theoretical level, it may also tell us more about the involvement of international actors in Tunisia and in general in political transitions. Earlier literature in the field of ‘transitology’ was based on a certain set of assumptions, which perceived political transitions as linear, technocratic processes leading to democracy following a fixed pattern. The lessons learned from previous transition waves led to a debate between academics and practitioners that started with Thomas Carothers’ article ‘’The End of the Transition Paradigm’’ in 2002. 7 Political transitions are no longer, exclusively, seen as brief, singular, predictable processes that automatically occur after regime change, but rather as deeply political processes marked by critical junctures through which countries in transition can reform. Furthermore, the role of economic, political, social and cultural factors is increasingly seen as decisive for the path a country follows in its transition. Concretely, this requires the inclusion of local contexts in the study of transition in a particular country (Carothers, 2002: 5).
With these new insights, the case of Tunisia as the ‘Arab Spring country’ where the transition process seems to have more chance of success until now, may offer more insight in the role of international expert assistance in transitional contexts and the challenges that go along with this process. The relevance of this study lies mainly in the fact that it aims to go beyond the ‘’post-Arab Spring’’ literature that until now has been mainly concerned by explaining the events, underscoring their suddenness and reiterating that no one saw these events coming (Valbjørn, 2014: 157). It may be of importance to revise certain assumptions that may have led to a lack of understanding of the dynamics in the region, but sudden events also demand swift responses. Therefore, it is important to look at the responses that these events generated in order to gain a better understanding of both the events and of its implications.
7
Methodology
The focus in this thesis will be on EU-Tunisia relations since –as has been stated before- the EU already had an important presence in Tunisia even well before the revolution.8 The objective is to get insight in the way the EU describes its policy of democracy promotion towards Tunisia in its official documents, how local actors such as CSOs perceive this discourse and what their experiences are with the EU in practice. The timeframe will cover, on the one hand, the period from the signing of the Barcelona declaration9 on 28 November 1995, which marked the beginning of EU-Tunisia relations in the field of democracy promotion, until the depart of Ben Ali on 14 January 2011. On the other hand, the focus will be on the period after 14 January 2011 until 26 January 2014, the day the first Tunisian post-revolution constitution was adopted and which was an important milestone in the transition process. By focusing on these periods, one may gain insight in the (preliminary) implications of the changed discourse of the EU concerning democracy promotion in Tunisia. In particular the first years after the revolution are of great importance because the earliest periods of transitions tend to offer more options to achieve important structural advances in democratic participation, economic reform, rule of law and human security (IFIT, 2013: 10).
In general, the central themes in the EU policy texts on democracy assistance can be roughly distinguished in three central themes, or what Andrea Teti describes as the ‘’Three D’s’’, namely: democracy, development and delivery.10 ‘’Democracy’’ concerns the definition that is provided by the texts of democracy as such, its relation with definitions of political and socio-economic rights (inclusion/exclusion, foregrounding/marginalization). ‘’Development’’ is linked to the role of ‘’sustainable
8
As for the term ‘’revolution’’, one can argue that what took place in the running to and after the events of January 14, 2011, may not be a revolution or that the revolution is still ungoing. Since the term ‘’revolution’’ is widespread used to describe the events around January 14, 2011 (thawrat 14
janvier) the term ‘’revolution’’ will be used throughout this thesis. By the same token, the term Arab
‘Spring’’ will be used interchangeably with ‘’uprising’’, ‘’revolts’’ and ‘’awakening’’. 9
Barcelona declaration adopted at the Euro-Mediterranean Conference - 27-28/11/95, http://www.eeas.europa.eu/euromed/docs/bd_en.pdf, accessed on 12 May 2014. 10
Andrea Teti (2012) The EU’s first Response to the ‘Arab Spring’: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity. Mediterranean Politics. 17 (3) pp. 268; Andrea Teti, Thompson, D., & Noble, C. (2013). EU democracy assistance discourse in its New Response to a Changing Neighborhood. Democracy and Security, 9 (1-2), p. 62.
and inclusive economic growth’’ and the mechanisms through which this should be achieved. ‘’Delivery’’ focuses on the instruments that are provided for the
implementation of this policy (Teti, 2013: 62). This distinction is helpful in the analysis of the policy documents on Tunisia but also in the analysis of its local reception since these cover the several academic debates on democracy and democracy promotion as they will be described in the next chapter. They cover for instance the debate in the literature on democracy and transitions, which can be roughly distinguished in a mainstream procedural approach that focuses on the importance of elections (the transition paradigm) and a more thick approach that also takes into account other economic, social and cultural factors. Moreover, because the EU claims to have changed its policy and to be more responsive to the demands of the uprising – which mainly concerned socio-economic issues11, the inclusion of socio-economic issues in the form of development will be also analyzed. Furthermore, it looks at the instruments that are employed in the broader strategies of EU democracy promotion and the implications for the design and implementation of the democracy promotion programmes. It is therefore that the analysis in this thesis will be done along these three axes.
The EU uses the instrument of declarations and public statements quite actively. Officially, these texts aim to reflect the situation in the target countries (European Parliament, 2012: 10). Furthermore, according to Teti et al. "EU documentation falls into a category of particularly complex documents, in which there are multiple directly and indirectly contributing authors, multiple audiences, and a vigorous contest between different agents with different institutional cultures (e.g. Commission, EEAS, Member States' governments, etc.) and different political priorities’’ (Teti et al., 2013: 62-63). Thus, EU documentation can provide interesting insights in the dynamics of the EU itself and how it presents itself to the outside world. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) enables one to analyze discourses or ‘’ways of representing’’; practices that give significance to a certain domain of knowledge or experience from a particular point of view. Consequently, discourses are to be
11
Mogahed, D. ‘Opinion Briefing: Arab Nations Differ on Uprisings Upside’, Gallup, 12 September 2012, http://www.gallup.com/poll/157400/opinion-briefing-arabs-doubt-benefits-uprisings.aspx, accessed on 19 March 2014.
seen as selective representations of complex political, social, economic and cultural phenomena that are multi-interpretable due to their political, partial and selective character (Fairclough, 2003: 26). The reiteration of these representations leads to the creation of a set of practices and statements that become institutionalized and normalized through the use of language (Neumann, 2008: 61). Until now, there has not been a lot of attention given to analyses of certain categories and their
articulation in EU policy documents. In particular ‘’the way of representing’’ or discourses in general are usually more or less neglected. Instead, the focus is much more on the substantive aspects of this policy and the use of very specific
instruments (Teti, 2012: 267). Since this research will aim to combine the three aforementioned aspects – the 3 D’s- in the examination of the documents, a qualitative research strategy will be employed whereby CDA will be used and semi-structured interviews will be conducted. A qualitative research strategy makes it possible to go more in-depth since the focus in this thesis will be on discourses, practices and perceptions of the actors.
One can see the relation between the EU and CSOs in Tunisia as a one-way street. However, it is probably more fruitful to see these relations as bidirectional. Due to the limited leverage of the policies of democracy promotion, it is less plausible to see democracy promotion as an independent external variable that influences domestic dependent variables (Cardwell, 2013: 839). Instead, it is more relevant to look at the promotion of norms which takes place through socialization by involving other actors in the policy framework. This leads to an interactive process where partners are mutually constitutive. At the same time, the process of defining the ‘’self’’ goes along with the representation of a ‘’sovereign domestic’’ with peace and security, and the ‘’others’’ in the outside world who are seen as anarchic and dangerous – thereby threatening the ‘’self’’ (Diez, 2005: 627). Linked to the issue of the ‘’self’’ and the ‘’other’’, Federica Bicchi stresses that although
normative power may be employed to promote the self, it is also of great
importance that this normative power gives a voice to people outside the EU, often described or constructed as the ‘’other’’ (Bicchi, 2006). Consequently, in the debate on EU democracy promotion there has been a greater call for more reflexivity. This notion that stems from the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Loic J.D. Wacquant implies
the need to reflect and examine one’s role as actor in a particular field rather than solely examining the subjects that are targeted. In the case of EU-Tunisian relations this would imply a mutually constitutive relationship in which not only the EU affects the Tunisian state and society but where also the EU is affected by what happens in Tunisia (Bicchi, 2011: 805). Since the focus will be on the interplay between the EU and Tunisian CSOs, it is of great importance to examine the nature of this relations and how it is expressed through language and practices with a case study on the relations between the EU and Tunisian CSOs.
Data collection
The data for this research consists mainly of primary sources and secondary
literature review. Concerning data on the EU, wherever possible, primary data such as EU reports, statements and other official EU documents are used. Indeed, primary sources in the form of policy texts can offer great insights; however, secondary sources are also of great importance. Secondary sources can recreate and evaluate the research object and sketch a broader view of the role of the actors that are analyzed in this research.
For the period prior to 2011, EU key documents related to democracy
promotion will be analyzed. For the period after 2011, the documents that are going to be analyzed, as has been mentioned before, are the two main documents -
Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity (PfDSP) and A new response to a changing Neighbourhood (NRCN). For these documents, critical discourse analysis
can offer insight in the interplay between the document and their receivers. Indeed, texts may form part of social practices, but they tell nothing about the ‘’agents’’ and ‘’patients’’ of the actions, or place and time. They may only reflect some choices and reveal a certain pattern but it does not reveal the reception of these texts (Van Leeuwen, 2005: 13). Therefore, semi-structured interviews with civil society actors will be needed to analyze the activities and the perception of the EU policy towards them. It is in particular the claim that the renewed EU policy is a ‘’fresh look’’ that ‘’responds’’ to the challenges of the Arab uprisings that will be tested by looking at the differences and the responsiveness of the approach after 2011. The focus will be
rather on Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) than NGOs because the former encompasses a broader range of actors than NGOs. These can also include other non-profit actors, think tanks, social movements, trade unions, universities, research institutes and many others (IFIT, 2013: 5). The objective is to assess the perceptions of these CSOs in general towards international expert assistance and in particular from the EU. Since international expert assistance is a broad topic, and the EU is not the only actor active in the field, semi-structured interviews will be conducted in order to keep the interviews related to the role of the EU.
Chapter outline
The question that this thesis poses will be answered through different subthemes that will each be described in a chapter. Firstly, a theoretical framework is provided through which to analyze EU democracy promotion after the revolution. This will encompass theories from the literature on political transitions and from literature on EU democracy promotion. Secondly, a brief overview of the Tunisian political context pre- and post-revolution will be given to sketch the political context of Tunisia and to highlight the main differences between Tunisia before and after the revolution of 2011. Then, the (historical) relations of the EU with Tunisia will be described in order to provide insight in the institutional framework of the EU – Tunisia relations before and after the revolution. Subsequently, the discourse of the EU regarding political reform in Tunisia will be analyzed. This will be followed by a section in which an account will be provided on the CSO landscape in Tunisia and in which the
perceptions and experiences of the CSOs will be examined. This will be wrapped up in the last chapter, where the intersection of the insights from the top-down and bottom-up approach will be examined in order to provide an answer to the central question of this research.
1. Theoretical framework
In this chapter an overview will be given of the most current debates in
democratization literature and on democratic transitions. This will start with a conceptual discussion on the notion of democracy, followed by an account on issues that can come up with democracy promotion as regards to its legitimacy and its efficacy. Subsequently, the role of civil society in democratization debates will be explained and, finally, the challenges that occur during transitional contexts for international expert assistance will be discussed.
The conceptual stretch of democracy
An examination of democracy promotion policies is inextricably linked to the conceptual debate on the notion of democracy. Although it is beyond the scope of this thesis to grasp and examine every definition of this concept, it provides an important framework to assess the core of democracy promotion policies and its underlying assumptions.
Philippe C. Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl note that democracy is ‘’the word we are stuck with as the catchword of contemporary political discourse’’ (Schmitter & Karl, 1991: 75). It is a notion that usually comes up to people’s mind when
struggles for freedom and a better life are at stake. Since the wave of transitions in the 1970s and 1980s, there has been a convergence toward a common shared definition on democracy with a fixed set of criteria concerning the minimal
conditions of democracy. The concept has been increasingly described as ‘a system
of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives’ (emphasis added) (Schmitter & Karl, 1991: 76).
This definition encompasses several elements that are part of what is usually ascribed to democracies. Firstly, a system of governance is rather an ensemble of patterns that determines the methods of access to the principal public offices, characters of the admission or exclusion of actors to these offices, strategies to get access and the rules that follow in the decision making process. In order to function, these patterns have to be institutionalized and be known, practiced and accepted by
most actors. These characteristics, forms and rules lead together to several regime types of which democracy is one. Furthermore, democracies depend upon the presence of rulers as persons who occupy specific authority roles and who can give legitimate commands to others. The norms that enable access to state power and the practices that hold a leader accountable is what makes a difference between democratic and non-democratic regimes. The public realm covers the ‘’making of collective norms and choices that are binding in a society and backed by state coercion’’ (Schmitter & Karl, 1991: 76). Its content varies depending upon
distinctions between public-private, state-society, legitimate coercion and voluntary exchange, and collective needs and individual preferences. The role of citizens is also a distinctive element in democracies, since having only a public realm and leaders is not deemed sufficient to establish democracy. The inclusion of citizens is key in a functioning democracy and only certain procedures can guarantee this inclusion. That is why the role of elections has been stressed and that regular free and fair elections have been almost equated with democracy (Schmitter & Karl, 1991: 77).
This ‘’electoralism’’ has led to the belief that periodic elections are sufficient for the regulation of political action into a peaceful and benign competition among political elites. However, due to their intermittent character they do not enable citizens to influence public policy in the intervals between elections. Toward this end, citizens have to seek other mechanisms to enable their participation. This can be done through membership of interest associations, social movements, local groups and other forms of associational life that are to be found in the realm of civil society. In conclusion, a modern democracy provides a variety of processes and channels that enable the expression of interests and values in a polity (Schmitter & Karl, 1991: 78).
By the same token notions like ‘’rule of law’’, ‘’good governance’’ – terms that derive from public sector management - are also often associated with
democracy in order to assess the quality of democracy. The same goes for the notion of human rights, which is often seen as the core of democracy, good governance and the rule of law and which is more clear-cut and, officially, less contested due to its codification in several international agreements (Del Sarto & Schumacher, 2011:
937-938).
The aforementioned minimalist notions of democracy have led to the
creation of a vast array of rankings, graphs and ideal types that seek to put countries in boxes to make them understandable and gaugeable for academics and
practitioners. International organizations monitor these standards and foreign policy makers, on their turn, employ these standards to formulate their policies (Schmitter & Karl, 1996: 76). The rankings of the American NGO Freedom House are probably the best known and entail a threefold categorization that classifies countries as ‘’free’’, ‘’partly free’’ and ‘’non free’’ countries. In the context of the MENA, the well-known Freedom House rankings have played an important role in the categorization of countries, mainly reiterating their lack of democracy. 12
For the sake of comparison, these categories have proven to be useful for many academics and especially for practitioners. Many policy makers have based their policies and decisions in the field of democracy promotion on these criteria. How useful these rankings may be, there is a risk of essentializing countries due to these categorizations.13
This may also occur in the case of the EU, which does not have a country specific democracy promotion policy, but rather regional policies. Therefore, this may lead to a certain essentialization of the societies within the region by
overlooking the internal dynamics of these countries. (Powel, 2007: 67). Finally, this prerequisite approach, which implies a ‘’democracy test’’ a country can either pass or fail, has been criticized by among others Eva Bellin and Nicola Pratt. They refute this approach to democratization and argue that the democratization literature on the Arab world should rather focus on the conditions that enable and maintain authoritarianism. These conditions are related to the presence of coercive institutions that have the will and the capacity to suppress democratic initiatives (Bellin 2005) and to the role of societal actors that leave authoritarianism sustained (Pratt, 2007: 189).
12
Freedom House, Middle East and North Africa, http://www.freedomhouse.org/regions/middle-east-and-north-africa#.U3ZJqygk2t8, accessed on 2 May 2014.
Legitimacy of democracy promotion
The debate on democracy promotion has been heavily influenced by the question as to whether international democracy promotion can be seen as legitimate or not. The issue of legitimacy can be linked to both legal/political and cultural considerations.
Legal and political considerations
The first issue that usually comes up concerning the legitimacy of democracy promotion is as to whether it constitutes an assault on state sovereignty and if it is not part of broader strategies that are underpinned by imperialist ideas. The realist stream of thought within International Relations, for instance, perceives democracy promotion as threatening for state sovereignty. However, this is an argument that is also often misused by authoritarian regimes to impede political reforms (Schmidt, 2013: 248). Consequently, external support and foreign funding can become heavily politicized and this can have serious implications for the legitimacy and
receptiveness of the content of democracy promotion policies among those targeted by it. To avoid being seen as a policy that is driven by an imperialist agenda, it is suggested that international expert assistants have to act in a strategic way. By extension, Schmidt argues that these policies require ‘’refrain[ing] from adopting normative approaches or exercising hands-on control’’ and that they ‘’rather strengthen capacity and inclusion’’ (Schmidt, 2013: 249). In order to achieve this, inclusion is deemed essential if the ‘’norm promoter’ strives to self-management instead of imposing institutions and elections.
Cultural considerations
The second issue that is part and parcel of the debate on the legitimacy of
democracy promotion concerns its universal validity. In general, the liberal strand in International Relations has been heavily concerned with the spread of norms and values, mainly those related to (liberal) democracy. Adherents of this stream argue that democracy is an international norm that is stronger than ever and universally considered as an ideal system of government that has yielded peace among
democratic states. With this Kantian notion of democratic peace, adherents see democracy promotion policies as an acceptable tool of foreign policy among the international community of policy makers (McFaul, 2004: 159).
Along this line of thinking, the field of EU studies has witnessed an important rise of a body of literature that aims to grasp the role of the EU as an international actor and the type of power it claims to represent. Building on earlier literature which described the EU as a ‘’civilian power’’, due to the lack of a unified pan-EU army, Ian Manners added an ideological twist to this theory by claiming that the EU is a normative actor that seeks to spread its norms – democracy, human rights, rule of law – in the world. This normative character is said to be a result of the EU’s existence as ‘’being different to pre-existing political forms’’ (Manners, 2002: 242), since it can neither be called a state or an ordinary international organization. It is this difference that ‘’predisposes the EU to act in a normative way’’ (Manners, 2002: 242). The aforementioned values are seen as values with a European historical context and as ‘’universal’’ and it is expected that these values gain approval wherever they are heard or received (Manners, 2002: 240). Consequently,
democracy promotion policies outside the EU would be a natural consequence of this perceived normative character.
However, this universality has also been contested by those who argue that democracy is contingent upon local contexts. This thinking has led to the rise of a strand, which is also known as the ‘’cultural turn’’ in democratization studies
(Ottaway 2010; Pace 2011). It refutes the ‘’one size fits all’’ model that is assumed to be exportable to the rest of the world regardless of the cultural, political, economic and social dynamics in a certain country. One of the main assumption was that this could be realized through external support, pressure and by providing expertise in order to realize elections, create political parties and to create institutions (Pace, 2011: 39).
Nicola Pratt notes that one of the most important causes of the failure of Western democracy promotion policies was related to these assumptions, which led to a lack of understanding of the context in which these actors had to intervene. Toward this end, an in-depth analysis of a country is needed and those that are
engaged in democracy promotion should assess the ‘’political core syndrome’’ of the country (Pratt, 2007: 199-200).
Those who criticize the claimed universality of the norms the EU aims to spread, claim that by promoting its ‘’core values’’, the EU seeks to distinguish itself as international actor and as an EU-European distinctive actor. It is said that through the promotion of these ‘’EU’s core values’’ that characterizes the discourses and practices of the EU rather contribute to the definition and articulation of an EU-Europe on the one hand and on the other hand an emerging Neighbourhood. Thus, the EU, as the ‘’self’’ is clearly distinguished from the neighbouring non-EU countries as the ‘’other’’ (Scott, 2011: 161). This implies that the EU uses its foreign policies, such as the democracy promotion policy, to define its own borders and to
demarcate the EU from what it sees as its ‘’neighbourhood’’.
Effectiveness of Democracy Promotion
In addition to questions related to the conceptualization and the legitimacy of democracy promotion policies, the effectiveness of the democracy evokesquestions on how democracy promotion policies can achieve the goal of promoting
democracy. The main considerations are related to socio-economic issues but also to possible negative side-effects of democracy promotion policies.
Social and economic considerations
As mentioned before, the conceptual discussion of the concept of democracy is not only related to the political definitions that can be given to this concept. Its relation with socioeconomic factors gives lead to different points of view on the potential of democracy to be installed and to be consolidated in a certain country. In other words, the question that often rises is whether it is useful to promote democracy without promoting socioeconomic rights. Accounts on the socio-economic
conditions of democracy have usually indicated an association between economic development and political democracy, but this does not imply the presence of causality. Yet, among scholars there is no consensus on the underlying reason for this connection (Huber, Rueschmeyer & Stephens, 1993: 72). On the one side,
democracy is seen as an entailment of a certain level of socio-economic
development. On the other side, it is suggested that democracy may be installed in low-income countries – India is often referred to as example- and that high-income countries may be immune to democratization. According to this perspective, other factors than social and economic ones may be more suitable to account for the presence of a democratic political culture (Londregan & Poole, 1996: 1). In the context of the MENA region, the theory on rentier states has aimed to account for the maintenance of authoritarianism. According to this theory, regimes use their access to revenues, which they among others generate from the export of natural resources, to fund the distribution of socio-economic benefits in order to mitigate social unrest and to suppress dissent (Pratt, 2007: 197).
Positive or perverse impacts?
Another source of contention within democratization debates concerning its efficacy is whether democracy promotion leads to positive or perverse impacts. Does
democracy promotion eventually lead to (more) democracy? The perverse impacts of democracy promotion policies can be fueled by other considerations that
jeopardize these policies. Critics of democracy promotion argue that mainly security related interests form a dark cloud over these policies. Genuine democracy
promotion, in this case, is solely limited to the cases where it does not threaten interests, in particular in the security realm, in the region. Consequently, they argue, that the lack of a real commitment to promote democracy eventually leads to the maintenance of the status quo in the authoritarian regimes of the region (Santini & Hassan, 2012: 66). Something that has been stated well before the events of 2011 is that democracy promotion in Tunisia and in the whole MENA region was jeopardized by a continuous and counterproductive promotion of stability (Powel, 2009: 195).
Institutions versus Actors: the role of civil society
The debate in democratization studies on the role of actors and institutions is a debate that to some extent reflects the social sciences debate over structure versus agency. Institutions refer to the macro structures that shape the realm of politics with rules regulating political conduct such as periodic elections. Actors, on the other
hand, refer to the individuals who shape the sphere of politics and include
government officials, political party members, civil society activists and other groups of individuals that take part in politics (Pratt, 2007: 193).
Within the transition paradigm, actors are seen as the main initiators of political change and, thus, of the process of democratization. Actors would appear on the scene as soon as cracks occur in the ruling regime and would take the lead in the process. Institutions in the form of free and fair elections and the establishment of multiparty systems would rather function as consolidation mechanisms to
maintain democracy after the process has been initiated (Carothers, 2002: 7-9). Empirical cases, however, have revealed that political transitions do not always take place according to this pattern. Carothers notes that most of the transitional countries enter a political gray zone that can be neither categorized as dictatorial nor as one heading to democracy (Carothers, 2002: 9). Moreover, Nicola Pratt argues that both agential and institutional factors can account for the initiation, but also for the failure of democratic transitions. Echoing Anthony Giddens, actors and
institutions are seen as mutually dependent and constitutive (Giddens 1984). In the case of Tunisia, both institutions like elections and the involvement of actors like civil society groups can account for change and progress during the transition process. It is therefore useful to take these into account in assessing democracy promotion policies for Tunisia.
Civil society and authoritarianism
On the role of civil society in the MENA region, it has been stated that civil society has played an important role in generating consent for the legitimatization of authoritarianism rather than paving the way for democratization. International expert assistance in authoritarian political systems, for instance, is said to be shaped around the characteristics of these regimes. Local regimes integrate and co-opt these agendas in their own policies and give their own spin-off in its discourse. In Tunisia, the authoritarian one-party rule was decisive for the political agenda norm entrepreneurs could set up. They had to deal with the dominance of the ruling party through government organized NGOs (GONGOs) (Allal, 2010: 115). In order to gather
consent for the regime, GONGOs have been an important tool used by authoritarian regimes to legitimize their rule and to show that they do support civil society. However, these GONGOs rather functioned as a mouthpiece of the regime and thus also posed challenges in the issue of foreign funding. 14
Civil society and ideological contestation
Another point that has to be taken into account is that it is not so much the number of civil society groups that makes the difference, but rather the nature of the
ideological contestation between them that can influence the transitional pathway (Pratt, 2007: 201). In respect to the role of the EU in Tunisia, this requires a look at the ideological differences that exists within civil society and in the broader state-society complex. The issue of ideological contestation in civil state-society has serious implications for the issue of inclusiveness in foreign funding. International donors willing to fund civil society organizations in authoritarian regimes are confronted with the dilemma of supporting dissident groups that are officially not acknowledged by the regime and risking problems with the authorities or to support the legal CSOs but thereby supporting actors that seek to maintain the status quo. In Tunisia, the Ben Ali regime infiltrated several NGOs and repressed NGOs that were critical towards the regime (Kausch, 2013: 3).
Instruments: political conditionality
Democracy promotion can be described as a collection of instruments and measures that are used by external actors to promote democracy by employing democratic assistance, conditionality, political dialogue and even external intervention by force (Freyburg, 2011: 1001). Examples of democracy promotion can be categorized as explicit and implied forms; with the former covering the grant of funds and the signing of specific agreements and the latter encompassing the use of political dialogues and the establishment of institutional frameworks. These forms in their
14
Shadi Hamid, Civil Society in the Arab World and the Dilemma of Funding, October 2010, http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2010/10/middle-east-hamid, accessed on 13 March 2014.
turn can be linked to positive and negative conditionality mechanisms (Cardwell, 2011: 21). In the context of the EU, political conditionality has played a key role in its external policies towards non-EU countries. Political conditionality entails the linking of “perceived benefits for other states (such as aid, trade concessions, cooperation agreements, political contacts, or international organization membership), to the fulfillment of conditions relating to the protection of human rights and the advancement of democratic principles” (Smith 1998).
The failure to bring about change in Tunisia and in the Southern
Mediterranean15 has led to the emergence of a vast array of EU literature focusing on the leverage of the EU and its conditionality schemes to implement its policy strategies in the countries it deals with. Already before the Arab uprising it has been stated that, in terms of leverage, democracy promotion should not be seen as an external independent variable that influences a dependent domestic variable (Burnell, 2013: 839).
Due to this limited leverage of the EU on political liberalization and its limited capacity to bring about democratic change –it is rather responding to change than actually bringing about change- it seems that the efforts of the EU stabilize
authoritarian regimes even more. Even the leverage model of the EU democracy promotion policy contains many limits and constraints such as a lack of measurability due to the ambiguous character of the requisites regarding levels of political
liberalization. With the lack of clear criteria, conditionality cannot be applied in a proper fashion (Del Sarto & Schumacher, 2011: 935).
Moreover, there is little evidence that democracy promotion policies from the EU or any other international actor will lead to democratic openings. Several studies have shown that democracy promotion policies are conditional upon other
(domestic) factors and cannot account for political reforms in a country. In particular, the EU’s influence on domestic institutional change is deemed very limited and depends mainly on the willingness of regimes to engage in democracy promotion efforts (Van Hullen, 2012: 12).
15
In EU documents, the ‘’Southern Mediterranean’’ usually covers the following countries: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia.
Challenging contexts: post-revolution transitions
TransitionAs has been mentioned before, it is beyond the scope of this thesis to examine the causes of the popular uprising that led to the depart of Ben Ali. For the sake of this research, the current transitional phase is seen as the context in which international actors such as the EU seek to intervene to pursue their policies in the field of reform.
The concept of ‘transition’ can be described as ‘’the opening created by the formal end of an authoritarian regime or armed conflict in which new possibilities for transformative political, economic and socio-cultural change become possible’’ (IFIT, 2013: 3). The notion of ‘’’time’’ is paramount in transitional contexts, as one
foundation leader notes: ‘’If you pick the right countries, you can have the most astonishing impact […]. You can go into the same place at a different time and have a completely different result’’ (IFIT, 2013: 10). In many studies the concepts
‘’transition’’, ‘’liberalization’’, ‘’democratization’’ and ‘’reforms’’ are used interchangeably. Although they do not mean the same, these will be used interchangeably because it is beyond the scope of this thesis to analyze each of these concepts (Del Sarto & Schumacher, 2011: 938).
The first response
Regarding the usual responses from international expert assistants to events similar to the uprisings of 2010-2011, Fred Halliday noted that there are ‘’two predictable, and nearly always mistaken, responses to any great international upheaval: one is to say that everything has changed; the other is to say that nothing has changed’’ (Halliday, 2002: 235). There are roughly two responses that can be distinguished; on the one hand a ‘’stay-the-course’’ framework and on the other hand a ‘’seize-the-day’’ or radical risk taking approach (Burnell, 2013: 844; IFIT, 2013). The first one covers responses that are guided by discomfort on the new situation and leads to situations where international actors either stay out or prefer to keep doing business with the old familiar actors. The second one makes international expert assistants prompting it to leap into action, not always with sufficient prudence. Yet, besides
these two extremes, a middle course has also been suggested. This framework is one of ‘’informed risk-taking’’ which combines elements from both extremes and is built on the recognition of heightened risk as corollary of enhanced opportunity and on a commitment to expand work and efforts in the country in a careful manner (IFIT, 2013: 3).
Practical perspectives on democracy promotion in transitional contexts
As regards to the timing of transitions, it is often said that although its end-point may be debatable – so it does not specifically have to lead to a certain political ideal type -, its beginning and the process itself could be better identifiable. It usually starts with a succession of critical junctures that encompasses a social contract formation between a state and a society but also with other neighbouring countries and the international community (Carothers, 2002: 5-6; IFIT, 2013: 4). The beginning is also characterized by the demise of a set of established rules that -whether they are legitimate or not- and it leads to the consolidation of another set of rules. The most dominant assumption in the field of transitology is that the choices that are made during this process will have a lasting effect upon a possible outcome – whether it is the regime type or the quality of its performance. 16 In this particular case, the interplay between the EU and Tunisian CSOs could be seen as a social contract that is shaped by critical junctures that varies through time and space.
The current developments in the MENA region after 2011 remind us among others of the continuing currency of the concept of transition even in the case of crises, the highly contested nature of the aspects of a transition out of repressive rule and the common set of difficulties that are faced in post-authoritarian societies in the early years of the transition. In relation to the latter, one can sum up the different challenges that can be encountered during the process. Transition periods are marked by different challenges that need to be taken into account by
international actors -like the EU with its democracy promotion policies- who are
16
Philippe C. Schmitter, Reflecitons on ‘Transitology – Before and after.
http://www.eui.eu/Documents/DepartmentsCentres/SPS/Profiles/Schmitter/ReflectiononTransitolog yrev.pdf. Accessed on 22 April 2014.
engaged by providing support or expertise in the transition process. There are six different typical challenges that can emerge in transitional contexts (IFIT, 2013: 6). The first challenge in a transition period is the difficult task to balance short-term crisis management with a planning on the long-short-term. Conflicting goals can emerge due to the rise of groups with different ideologies. In Tunisia, the growing ideological rift between secularists and Islamists can overshadow the articulation of a long-term societal vision. This difficulty also leads to the second challenge, which is the power of the past. Post-revolution periods are usually marked by high
expectations of citizens who want to see their social-economic and political demands – which led them to take to the streets in the first place- being met. This, of course, can take time and demands a lot of patience, which can give rise to the reemergence of old mind-sets and the nostalgia of a romanticized past. Due to the stagnation and the inflation that plagues the Tunisian economy and the deterioration of the security situation, some Tunisians already long back to the former regime because of its – in retrospect, relative economic and political stability. 17 On a higher level, the Tunisian state apparatus can suffer from leadership gaps and spoilers as a result of a lack of basic skills of modern governance with a weak parliamentary system and a weak electoral system with embryonic political parties. The current political elite consists of many political activists who lived in exile or were in jail for years and do not have any political experience, which is for example the case for the Islamist Ennahda party and the Congres pour la Republique (CPR) party of current president Moncef
Marzouki and other opposition parties. This goes along with the challenge of
dysfunctional public institutions, because the lack of functioning institutions can lead
to petty crime networks or more ad hoc forms of terror or political violence and of weak non-state sectors, with a civil society’s capacity to act remaining variable. Finally, while the state apparatus and the society are dealing with these challenges, they are also confronted with an international avalanche of financial and technical
assistance actors which puts even more pressure on the local absorption capacity as
it is expected to be the case in Tunisia.
17
Foreign Policy, What Tunisians miss about Ben Ali,
http://transitions.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/17/what_tunisians_miss_about_ben_ali, accessed on 12 March 2014.
Conclusion
In this chapter a number of relevant theories on democracy and democracy promotion have been discussed. The aim was to provide insight in the different theoretical debates in order to lay the ground for the understanding of democracy promotion policies. The conceptual discussion of the concept of democracy
underpins the several debates that are related to the effectiveness and legitimacy of democracy promotion policies. Political, legal, cultural and socio-economic strucures all make the debate on democratization a diverse debate with different competing considerations and interests. Furthermore, the role of civil society and its relation to democratization is of great importance to assess the role of actors, in addition to those of structures. These insights all together enable one to position the relation of the EU with Tunisian CSOs in the transitional context in the framework of these theoretical debates.
2. Tunisian political context
Any examination of the current political landscape in Tunisia cannot be done without gaining insight in the history of the country and the region. The political system that emerged after independence has been crucial for the contemporary political and social landscape and is key to understand the current configuration of state and society and the relation between these two. However, at the same time one has to be cautious in interpreting these through current experiences. In the end, the aim is not to provide a historical analysis but rather to provide a relative (historical) sketch that is relevant to this research.
For this research, the Tunisian political context can be distinguished into three important time frames: the period after independence in 1956 until the depart of Ben Ali on 14 January 2011, the period after 14 January 2011 until 23 October 2011 – the day of the first democratic elections in Tunisia’s history and the period after 23 October 2011 until 26 January 2014 –the day the first Tunisian post-revolution constitution was adopted.
Post-independence Tunisia: one party-systems and political repression
Bourguiba and ‘’the second fight’’
After being part of the Ottoman Empire as a relatively autonomous regency and of the French colonial empire as a protectorate, Tunisia gained its independence in 1956. In the run up to independence, the first nationalist movement that was founded in the Maghreb was the Tunisian Destour (Constitution) party in 1920. Within this party and its successor, the Neo-Destour party that was established in 1934, the lawyer Habib Bourguiba rapidly climbed up to become the leader of the party. Bourguiba, himself originate from the coastal town of Monastir, sought to include the urban working class by co-opting trade unions and to establish links with the rural population by closing agreements with tribal chiefs. Consequently,
Bourguiba increasingly became to embody the struggle for independence and would become the first president of the Tunisian republic in 1956 (Willis, 2012: 24 - 25).
For the Maghreb region, the colonial past of this region and thus of Tunisia could be seen as the most important but also the most complex political legacy that
still is decisive for a great part until the present day. On the one hand, the construction of infrastructure and the establishment of a modern, efficient and centralist state apparatus was beneficial for those who came to power in the post-independence era. Furthermore, colonial rule succeeded, to some extent, in unifying populations beyond, for example, tribal cleavages, which made it easier for the post-independence rulers to exercise power over the population and to control it.
Although one has to note that Tunisia, in comparison with other countries of the Maghreb18, has a relatively homogeneous population with only a small Berber speaking minority in the South and a Jewish minority. Furthermore, the small size of the territory and population facilitated the process of state and nation building to a significant degree. Notwithstanding these aspects that may have been beneficial, the question of course remains as to whether this weighs up against the adverse
economic, social and political implications –without speaking of the thousands of lives that were lost during the violence of the colonial era (Willis, 2012: 32).
What, at least, can be said is that the colonial experience left
post-independence Tunisia with many questions concerning its identity and provoked many debates on how it should shape a new order and how concepts like religion, politics, education, language and economy should be constructed and what role should be attributed to them in society. Indeed, the first years of independence were marked by a certain degree of conflict and instability, as was the case in many decolonizing countries in the region. In Tunisia, the new regime under the leading of president Bourguiba attempted to rule out political rivals and to consolidate its own power. This power struggle was also a rivalry between those who followed
Bourguiba, who advocated a French-based model state, and those who followed neo-Destour member Salah Ben Youssef, who was more in favor of a model in which the Arab-Islamic identity remains leading in the construction of the societal order. This rift between what became to be known as the rivalry between ‘’bourguibistes’’ and ‘’youseffistes’’ ended with the expulsion of Ben Youssef from the neo-Destour party and his exile in 1956 where he was assassinated – most probably ordered by
18
The countries that are member of the Arab Maghreb Union that has been established in 1995 are Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. However, the term ‘’Maghreb’’ usually refers to the three main countries of this union, namely: Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.
president Bourguiba. Furthermore, the support of Tunisia’s leading labor union of the Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT) for Bourguiba in his rivalry with Ben Youssef played a pivotal role in the consolidation of the power of the regime. To further ensure his supremacy over the political players in the scene, Bourguiba created a split within the union (Bellin, 2002: 94). With the removal of Ben Youssef and the weakening of the labor union, Bourguiba could unilaterally initiate his societal project with a set of economic and social reforms leading to a national modernization process in Tunisia.
In what Bourguiba called ‘’the second fight’’ – with the fight against the French being the first one- the Tunisian state sought to encourage social
development by prioritizing education throughout Tunisia. Education became free of charge and compulsory for all Tunisians under the age of 16 and child labor was forbidden. Another important element of this modernization project was the introduction of the Code du Statut Personnel (CSP) in 1956. This unified civil code, which regulates family law, introduced some far-reaching reforms that were
achieved for the first time in Tunisia and in the region. The law raised the legal age of marriage, regulated family planning and abolished forced marriages, male
repudiation and polygamy. The latter was at the time a very far going reform and unprecedented in the region (Brand, 1998: 218). In addition to these legal reforms, the regime sought to encourage women’s emancipation by involving them in the women’s cells of the ruling party. The official aim was to emancipate and educate women, however, this could also be seen as part of a larger strategy of state
feminism to mobilize different groups, among them women, to support the power of the ruling party. This proved to be especially useful in the confrontation with powers of kinship and other traditional societal institutions such as the religious ones. Civil society played a pivotal role in the mobilization of these women and ended up being effective in facing the Islamist opposition movement in the 1970s and 1980s (Brand, 1998: 244-245).
These social reforms went along with a state-led modernization process of the economy. Although Bourguiba aimed to reform society according to a Western secular model, he also pursued a strategy of ‘’anti-imperialism’’ in a brief socialist experiment that was undertaken in the 1960s. This process of state-led
modernization entailed the expropriation of land, radical agricultural reform and strict state-led economic planning (Bellin, 2002: 21). It is in the light of this
experiment that the ruling party, Neo-Destour, was renamed in 1964 and became the Parti Socialiste Destourien (PSD). While functional groups representing the workers, peasants and businessmen were included in the mass mobilization for the new societal project, as was the case for women, independent political parties were forbidden. In the spirit of the early independent years in different decolonized countries, political pluralism was deemed divisive and threatening for national unity and stability (Bellin, 1995: 127).
Despite the efforts to build a modern state apparatus, the first cracks in the ‘socialist economic’ experiment started to appear by the end of the 1960s. This led to a series of budgetary deficits and a shortage of investment capital. Moreover, agricultural reforms were met by a widespread reluctance from small size
landowners (Bellin, 2002: 23). From 1969, the government started to abandon its old economic policy and initiated a strategy of infitah (Open Door Economic Policy). Foreign capital sought its way into the Tunisian economy and seemed to stabilize the economic situation to some extent. Yet, continuing budgetary crises, trade
imbalances and inflation remained and fueled social unrest. While the regime chose the path of economic liberalism, further political repression culminated in the exclusion of more political players and finally in Bourguiba’s decision in 1975 to make himself president for life (Pratt, 2007: 66).
With the demise of pan-Arab/nationalist socialist movements in the Arab world at the end of the 1960s, the rising political Islamist movements would grow to become an important challenger of the regime. The Islamist movement began life in the universities and was aimed at ‘’restoring’’ the Arab-Muslim character of Tunisia in response to the secular character of the Bourguiba regime. Despite some small political openings, this movement, which became the Mouvement de Tendance
Islamique (MTI) in 1981 and would become later Ennahda (Renaissance) in 1989,
was met by harassments and arrests. Along with bread riots in 1984 that were crushed down by the regime throughout the country, public observance of Islamic symbols became to be officially banned. Women were officially not allowed to wear the veil in universities and workplaces and praying during working hours was
forbidden (Pratt, 2007: 77). It is in this fashion that the regime sought to exclude the rise of Islamists and to defend the societal project of Bourguiba at all costs.
Reign of Ben Ali: ‘’le changement’’
It is amidst the political repression and socio-economic unrest of the 1980s that former military and minister of Interior Zine el Abidine Ben Ali ascended to the office of president after removing Bourguiba in 1987 by declaring him medically incapable to fulfill his presidential tasks. In his first days, which Ben Ali usually referred to as le
changement, Ben Ali promised to introduce more political freedoms and adopted
structural adjustment programs to pursue a strategy of privatization. Whereas the economic privatization could be continued and deepened, the small political opening was soon reversed after the clamp down on Islamist and every kind of independent civil society activism (Pratt, 2007: 99; Powel, 2009: 206). Alike the period under Bourguiba, Tunisia would again be ruled by a dominant party, this time by the
Rassemblement constitutionnel democratique (RCD) with two million members, that
would hold the political monopoly until its dissolving in 2011 (Murphy, 2011: 299). This dominance of one ruling party has contributed to the installment of a clientelist system that benefitted those that were member of this party or close to the state leader either through political or family ties (Graciet & Beau, 2009: 3). Meanwhile Tunisia increasingly developed into a police state with a massive security force. It is said that the Ministry of Interior had a labour force that consisted of 130,000 people responsible for a population of 10 million inhabitants. By way of illustration, France has 160,000 police men for 90 million inhabitants. Furthermore, a large group of plainclothes security agents was responsible for following and
harassing activists, opposition members and anyone who was suspected for being ‘’subversive’’ (Kausch, 2009: 12).
With this repressive state policy, Ben Ali employed a ‘’security doctrine’’ through which he securitized Islamists actors to enforce his own position. Related to this doctrine, Ben Ali stressed the shared task of both Tunisia and the EU, but also the US, in the ‘’fight against terrorism’’. In this narrative, the Islamists were
