Tunisia's Rocky Road to Stability: Security Sector Reform, (De-) Radicalization and Socio-Economic Development - Policy Briefs from the Region and Europe

Despite the progress Tunisia has made in the past years, the country continues to be plagued by the persistence of grave socio-economic disparities - a key driver of the popular upheavals in 2011. Among other factors, corruption and the high frequency of changes in government have significantly hampered the Tunisian government’s ability to address these issues and implement effective socio-economic and political reforms. As a result, dissatisfaction with the political process has been growing, particularly among youth. This has provided a fertile ground for radicalization

Tunisia: Changes and Challenges of Political Transition. MEDPRO Technical Report No. 3/May 2011

For 23 years, a combination of harsh repression and impressive socio-economic development in Tunisia ensured a certain level of stability of Ben Ali’s regime. However, on 14 January 2011, after several weeks of anti-government protests, the President fled the country, revealing the fallacy of the ‘Tunisian model’. While the departure of Ben Ali is an important step towards Tunisia’s political change, the fate of its democratic transition remains uncertain. In light of these changes and challenges, this paper first assesses the factors underpinning the former stability of Ben Ali’s regime; it then investigates the causes of its underlying unsustainability, culminating in the anti-government popular uprising in December 2010-January 2011 and the removal of Ben Ali; finally the paper evaluates the prospects for a real democratic transition in Tunisia, by highlighting the main political and socio-economic challenges that confront the countr

A discursive analysis of women’s femininities within the context of Tunisian tourism

Tourism has been hailed as a vehicle for gender equality and women’s empowerment and yet the relationship between these is far from simple. As tourism is created in already gendered societies, the ability of the industry to empower is shaped by existing gender norms and discourses. Therefore utilising a postcolonial feminist frame, the primary focus of this thesis is to critically explore both the discursive role of tourism and its influence in (re)constructing feminine identities in Tunisia. Informed by the works of Michel Foucault, and postcolonial feminism a critical discourse analysis is performed to identify discourses on femininity within the (re)presentations of Tunisian women in the Tunisian National Tourism Office’s brochures and website. Critical discourse analysis often risks disempowering the communities it seeks to analyse and as such fifteen semi-structured, in-depth interviews were carried out with Tunisian women involved in the Tunisian tourism industry. The interviews were shaped by a terrorist attack targeting tourists that had happened just two weeks before. Interestingly both the promotional materials and the interviews display two particular discourses on femininity, the modern and uncovered daughter of Bourguiba, and the southern covered Other. Of these discourses, it is the daughter of Bourguiba who is privileged and the southern veiled Other who is excluded. These discourses have been fomented since independence from France in 1956 and the rule of President Habib Bourguiba, but they still have a very material impact on the lives of Tunisian women today as evidenced in the interviews. This thesis contributes to both tourism and postcolonial studies in its problematisation of the connotation of Othering as essentially negative. When discourses of the Other shaping (re)presentations refrain from the construction of a monolithic categorisation, they can be more inclusive than discourses of similarity, which exclude all Others. This is linked to host self (re)presentation being intimately entwined within a system of both local and global politics, when cross-cultural (re)presentations are removed from at least some of these. The use of photo elicitation is developed to gain an understanding of how those (re)presented view those (re)presentations, but also to overcome linguistic and cultural barriers

“Have Tunisian civil society organisations exhibited the civil political culture required to fulfil a democratic function through the post-2011 transition?”

This thesis asks whether the post-2011 transition has allowed Tunisian civil society to fulfil the democratic functions attributed to it by civil society and democratisation theorists. It uses an understanding of civil society as playing a democratising function through Oppositional-Resistance and Liberal-Associative roles, both of which rely on the existence of a civil political culture. The thesis examines the existence of a civil political culture, identified through the presence of the six criteria of Freedom, Equality, Pluralism, Tolerance, Trust, and Transparency. This thesis uses Welch’s theory of political culture, which recognises that political culture manifests as both discourse and practice. In order to understand civil society’s discourse and practice, Welch’s theory is developed into a methodology of three research methods, drawn from both positivist and interpretivist approaches of social science research. The role of civil society in the Tunisian transition is assessed in relation to its counterpart - the state. A triangulation of methods - a quantitative attitude survey, structured interviews, and ethnographic participant observation – examines inter-CSO relations, how CSOs interact with the state, and the internal CSO dynamics in addition to CSO institutional culture. This approach enables the assessment of the discourse and practice of civil society organisation (CSO) members’ political culture. The Tunisian case demonstrates the validity of the argument that the state must allow civil society sufficient public space to accomplish a democratic function. Simultaneously, civil society, in both Oppositional-Resistance and Liberal-Associative understandings, must exhibit civil political culture in order to fulfil a democratic function. It further demonstrates that only through a multifaceted research approach that addresses discourse and practice can political culture accurately be assessed. This thesis concludes that civility is developing in Tunisian civil society as CSO relationships with the state, other CSOs and its own members evolve, which has enabled CSOs to fulfil a democratic function

Agricultural Economics

Agricultural Economics - Current Issues is a review of topics related to the economics of agriculture in various parts of the world. It contains a total of seven chapters. These contributions are related to some of the significant current problems facing these regions. The book is divided into four parts. The first part is simply an introduction to the field of agricultural economics. It charts the development of the field from its origin of farm management economics to the current state of a variety of subjects in various parts of the world. In the second section, an issue related to marketing is discussed. This is followed in the third section by an issue related to water resource economics. In the last section the remaining three chapters are devoted to agricultural environment-related topics. All chapters present guidance for policymaking

Re-thinking Transitional Justice: The Prosecution of Political Leaders in the Arab Region. A comparative case study of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen.

The dramatic uprisings that ousted the long-standing leaders of several countries in the Arab region have set in motion an unprecedented period of social, political and legal transformation. The Arab Spring uprisings saw criminal prosecutions in the Arab region take centre stage in the pursuit of transitional justice. Through a comparative case study of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen, this thesis presents a critique of mainstream transitional justice theory. This theory is built on the underlying assumption that transitions constitute a shift from non-liberal to liberal democratic regimes, where measures – often legal – are taken to address atrocities committed during the prior regime. By examining the factors that triggered, drove and shaped decisions regarding the prosecution of political leaders in the four case studies, this thesis will enhance our understanding of how transitional justice is pursued in varied contexts. The findings of this research therefore build on the growing literature that claims that transitional justice is an under-theorised field and needs to be developed to take into account non-liberal and complex transitions. I argue that transitional justice in the Arab region presents the strongest challenge yet to the transitional justice paradigm, which presumes a shift from violent, non-liberal rule to peaceful, liberal-democratic rule. There are four parts to this argument. First, the non-paradigmatic nature of the Arab region transitions, whereby a renewed form of repressive, non-liberal rule has largely taken shape, warrants a re-thinking of transitional justice and its pursuit in various contexts. Second, the Arab region cases demonstrate that both domestic and international actors pursue competing accountability agendas, thereby weakening claims of a global accountability norm. Third, the emphasis these cases place on accountability for corruption and socio-economic crimes as opposed to civil and political rights violations underline the need to develop transitional justice theory. The limited content and extent of the investigations and prosecutions in the four case studies are driven by the controlled nature of the transitions and point to a practice of scapegoating certain high-level officials and a certain set of crimes to show that there has been a break with the former regime. Finally, a re-thinking of transitional justice needs to take into account the absence of pre-existing democratic structures and what this means for criminal accountability prospects in non-paradigmatic transitional contexts.

A discursive analysis of women’s femininities within the context of Tunisian tourism

Tourism has been hailed as a vehicle for gender equality and women’s empowerment and yet the relationship between these is far from simple. As tourism is created in already gendered societies, the ability of the industry to empower is shaped by existing gender norms and discourses. Therefore utilising a postcolonial feminist frame, the primary focus of this thesis is to critically explore both the discursive role of tourism and its influence in (re)constructing feminine identities in Tunisia. Informed by the works of Michel Foucault, and postcolonial feminism a critical discourse analysis is performed to identify discourses on femininity within the (re)presentations of Tunisian women in the Tunisian National Tourism Office’s brochures and website. Critical discourse analysis often risks disempowering the communities it seeks to analyse and as such fifteen semi-structured, in-depth interviews were carried out with Tunisian women involved in the Tunisian tourism industry. The interviews were shaped by a terrorist attack targeting tourists that had happened just two weeks before. Interestingly both the promotional materials and the interviews display two particular discourses on femininity, the modern and uncovered daughter of Bourguiba, and the southern covered Other. Of these discourses, it is the daughter of Bourguiba who is privileged and the southern veiled Other who is excluded. These discourses have been fomented since independence from France in 1956 and the rule of President Habib Bourguiba, but they still have a very material impact on the lives of Tunisian women today as evidenced in the interviews. This thesis contributes to both tourism and postcolonial studies in its problematisation of the connotation of Othering as essentially negative. When discourses of the Other shaping (re)presentations refrain from the construction of a monolithic categorisation, they can be more inclusive than discourses of similarity, which exclude all Others. This is linked to host self (re)presentation being intimately entwined within a system of both local and global politics, when cross-cultural (re)presentations are removed from at least some of these. The use of photo elicitation is developed to gain an understanding of how those (re)presented view those (re)presentations, but also to overcome linguistic and cultural barriers

Trade Unionism and the Institutional Equilibrium in MENA States. A Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) Supported Study of the Arab Upheavals 2011 - 2013 in Twelve Countries

This study uses Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) inside a broader framework of Comparative Historical Research (CHR) in order to asses and categorise the role of trade unions during the „Arab Spring“ 2011 – 2013. QCA is a method initially developed by Charles Ragin based on Boolean logic that allows for the identification of multiple conjunctural causations. It s a comparative method that initially derived from electrical engineering and used the Quine-McCluskey Algorithm in order to find patterns of similarity and difference between cases. Those cases are classified into the presence (1) or absence (0) of a particular outcome, and turned into combinations of variables which are also coded according to the absence (0) or presence (1) of variables. The configurations can be minimised in order to eliminate variables that were not affecting the particular outcome. As argued in the thesis, the approach bears several advantages with regard to quantitative methods, especially in small-n samples. Furthermore, the methodological and theoretical part of this thesis argues that to hold the case studies as thick as possible and as parsimonious as necessary, and the minimisation and interpretations as thick as necessary and as parsimonious as possible. As regards content, the thesis identifies the institutional equilibria of twelve Arab countries as starting point for the research. The sample includes Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Yemen, and Oman. The institutional equilibrium is a concept borrowed from Rational Choice Theory which makes it possible to include particularistic approaches to explain the power structures of single MENA countries into a meta-framework, without the study becoming dependent on their individual parameters. These particularistic approaches include cultural, legal, historical, religious, and sociological aspects from the broad field of Middle Eastern Studies and beyond. The so called “Bargain Rule” is here taken as a common denominator, in which the common citizens surrender their political and social rights to participatory government and are rewarded with a variety of goods and services in return. This bargain has gotten under pressure from the early 1970s on. MENA states developed different strategies in order to secure power while introducing mostly rigged democratic institutions. The study identifies Violence, the legal frameworks, and questions of identity and legitimacy as main pillars of these new institutional arrangements. With the upheavals that started most visibly in 2011, MENA countries entered a critical juncture in which these equilibria got heavily under pressure. Different players entered the public sphere in order to demand economic enhancements and / or political change. These players, as long as they attempted to change the equilibria of power, are labelled critical interference factors. In a further step, and by the help of rich case descriptions, the thesis tackles the question whether the trade union movement it the respective countries can be defined as critical interference factors. Against that background, and using a constructivist stance, the term “trade union” is put first into the Middle Eastern context and made operational as a well-defined research subject. The study focusses on those organisations that are labelled by the national legal framework Naqaba, or those who label themselves Naqaba. This approach includes professional associations (Naqabat Mihniya) as well as workers unions (Naqabat ’Umaliya). Moreover, it is argued that a crucial historical role of many trade unions in MENA has been to protect the authoritarian bargain and taking the role as the demander for socio-economic enhancements within its very logic. The variables that are set up for the QCA analysis include the non-compliance of the State concerning the Authoritarian Bargain (SOEC), intertwinedness of trade unions with opposition forces (INOPP), the degree of centralisation of trade union structures (CEN), importance of tribalism for upward mobility within the state (TRI), and eventually the trade unions‘ bargaining power im key sectors of the economy (KEYS). These variables are minimised with the help of the Quine McCluskey Algorithim and the results are srutinised qualitatively. Major findings of the study indicate that CEN is a necessary condition for transformative trade union activity, in combination either with INOPP (Gulf Countries) or SOEC (North Africa). Furthermore, this study suggests that the lack of centralisation and / or a high degree of tribalism weaken independent trade unionism in MENA