tunisia after 14 january and its social and political economy - Refworld

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I.2.F.a. The confusion between discourse and realityBehind all the talk of the reforming ‘model student’, actual practices are far more heterodox.This is what has been called ‘liberalization without liberalism’. 77 The case of the liberalizationof foreign trade is emblematic. Tunisia is often considered the first country in the region tohave liberalized its foreign trade. But this process is actually largely negotiated not only withdonors and international organizations themselves, but also with the various economicactors in Tunisia. The decision to appear as the ‘model student’ of the WTO and especiallythe Euro-Mediterranean Partnership cannot go against the interests of entrepreneursor, more precisely, cannot happen in a way too opposed to their interests. Now theseinterests can very easily be taken into account thanks to the decree of August 29, 1994,which allows all sorts of restrictions, thanks to temporary safeguard measures included inthe agreement on association and Article 28 of the latter, which allows for exceptionsto the principle of free trade for ‘reasons of public morality, public order, public safety,and the protection of the health and life of people and animals. 78 These legal provisionsenable the legalisation of ‘snags’ obstructing openness, which in this way do not appearas a violation of free trade agreements. The techniques are many and varied: healthchecks and technical checks, the over-fussy checking of specifications, heavy-handedbureaucracy, the invention of taxes to offset the elimination of tariffs, and so on. In the caseof the balance of the current account slipping, or shortage of currency, the Central Bankissues oral instructions to banks and government agencies to restrict imports. An increasednumber of customs formalities, limitations on providing importers with currency, and barriersto obtaining documentary credits, delaying the arrival of products by encouraging portauthorities to slow clearance procedures and access to the necessary documents, adhoc and unofficial rises in customs duties, negative feedback on the product for faults inproduction, lack of adequate information, or quite simply because it is defective, etc. Thesemodes of intervention are countless. 79I.2.F.b. Hidden power relationsCThis smooth discourse confuses discourse and reality and also has the effect of erasingpower relations at work in all reforms and all business practices. If we stay with theexample of hidden practices of protectionism, it is easy to see how they can also bevectors of favouritism and socioeconomic inequality. When importing a product dependson subjective judgments, more or less unofficial administrative procedures, or the qualityof personal relationships, protection becomes an obvious instrument in the service of thecentral power and its need to control.46But the same applies to all public policies. Thus, upgrading programs initiated by Europeto help Tunisian enterprises to adapt to international competition, have been transformedinto real mechanisms for controlling the business world. 80 This policy, conceived as anindustrial policy designed to help businesses compete globally, has indeed been77 Béatrice Hibou, ‘Le libéralisme réformiste, ou comment perpétuer l’étatisme tunisien’, L’Economiepolitique, n°32, October 2006, pp. 9-27.78 For a detailed analysis of these measures, see N. Baccouche, ‘Les implications de l’accord d’associationsur le droit fiscal et douanier’.79 Béatrice Hibou, The Force of Obedience, ch. 8.80 See B. Hibou, The Force of Obedience, ch. 9 for a critical analysis of upgrading in these terms.
T U N I S I A A F T E R 1 4 J A N U A R Y A N D I T S S O C I A L A N D P O L I T I C A L E C O N O M YT H E I S S U E S A T S T A K E I N A R E C O N F I G U R A T I O N O F E U R O P E A N P O L I C Yintegrated into the political economy of Tunisia, thereby giving it another meaning. Theupgrading program is primarily an almost farcical expression of the voluntarism of theTunisian state, a point that has often emphasized by those it has left disappointed, itsdetractors, its sponsors and supporters, as well as by outside, independent analysts. 81The pernickety interventionism of the Tunisian authorities is simultaneously a more or lessforced mobilization, a more or less real support, a more or less effective surveillance. Whendonors praise Tunisian voluntarism and contribute to the funding, even partial, of suchpolicies, they simultaneously give a blank check to techniques of control and ways ofexercising power that are not necessarily consistent with the rules they in other respectsintend to promote, for example those of the rule of law and good governance. Whetherthey are aware of it or not hardly matters in the end, to the extent that their support istantamount to an external legitimization that is conscientiously exploited by the Tunisianauthorities. However, it is obvious that, for entrepreneurs, upgrading is primarily a ‘stateaffair’, 82 as dictated by the logic of a liberal and authoritarian interventionism. Moreover,even if upgrading is rationally designed and implemented, with targets for sectors andregions, with a real desire to modernize and adapt to international competition, witha desire, also, to answer the concerns of the economic world, the program is naturallyincorporated into the diffuse ethos of authoritarian reformism. Entrepreneurs understandthe program in terms of power relations, of administrative and political control over thebusiness world, in line with previous policies whose foundations were precisely the oppositeof current policies. As a result, upgrading is not interpreted as an apprenticeship for freetrade, but as a protective subsidy and at the same time as a friendly and yet inquisitorialsupervision. Unlike liberalism itself, ‘upgrading’ is an additional opportunity to obtain aid- the continuation, under new forms, of a public policy, economically interventionist andpolitically vote-catching. Subsidy emerges from its economic framework to become anhonorary gratuity, an intrusive gaze, a protection that is simultaneously reassuring anddangerous. The lack of economic credibility when it comes to upgrading also resultsfrom this alliance of a liberal discourse and interventionist practices, of a discourse ofopenness and protectionist and political interpretations thereof.Similarly, privatization has been a unique area for the predatory activities of ‘clans’, butalso for the distribution of benefits and income for the traditional bourgeoisie which was‘rewarded’ in turn by being able to move into the acquisition of the companies sold off. 83National preference was not only a decision taken ‘from above’, by the government,to promote or conversely hamper any particular entrepreneur, to impose one strategyrather than another, or to block any view from outside. It is intimately experienced,by the members of Tunisian society, as an exercise of national sovereignty, and as thedefence of Tunisian identity and of a certain mode of existence able to safeguardcertain types of social relationships. Of course, these interventions, which are at the sametime training techniques, help to control individuals in society. These social relationshipsfacilitate the monitoring of actors and economic and financial interests; they normalize4781 The most exhaustive analysis is that by J.P. Cassarino, Tunisian New Entrepreneurs and their PastExperiences of Migration in Europe and ‘The EU-Tunisian association agreement’.82 These are the words of M. Camau (in ‘D’une République à l’autre’).83 B. Hibou, The Force of Obedience, ch. 9.T h e r h e t o r i c o f ‘ s t a b i l i t y ’ a n d t h e e c o n o m i c ‘ m i r a c l e ’
Page 1: TUNISIA AFTER 14 JANUARY AND ITSSOC
Page 6: This document has been produced wit
Page 9 and 10: T U N I S I A A F T E R 1 4 J A N U
Page 12 and 13: E x e c u t i v e S u m m a r yMADE
Page 14 and 15: An alarming socio-economic situatio
Page 16 and 17: In public debate, the analysis of c
Page 18 and 19: half between conceptualization and
Page 20 and 21: I N T R O D U C T I o nMADE by Euro
Page 22 and 23: More specifically the report is an
Page 24 and 25: I. The rhetoric of ‘stability’
Page 26 and 27: I . 1 . T h e m o d e s o f c o n s
Page 28 and 29: modernisation and is now the engine
Page 30 and 31: I.1.E.The concealment of divergent
Page 32 and 33: I.1.F.b. Data that are concealed an
Page 34 and 35: of reforms deemed capable of settin
Page 36 and 37: or the ‘developing’ and ‘emer
Page 38 and 39: unemployment rate among young peopl
Page 40 and 41: as well as in Tunis. In addition, T
Page 42 and 43: conditions. In order to operate, th
Page 44 and 45: I.2.E. Managing supernumeraries by
Page 48 and 49: their behaviour. Disciplinary power
Page 50 and 51: II.The reconfiguration of power,THE
Page 52 and 53: of the cumbersome bureaucratic mach
Page 54 and 55: II. 1. The uncertainty and the chan
Page 56 and 57: opposing or supporting the transiti
Page 58 and 59: a year, including all those who, wh
Page 60 and 61: factory for the Tunisian Chemical G
Page 62 and 63: Justice Program of the European Uni
Page 64 and 65: such zones, it is not only the natu
Page 66 and 67: II. 2. The stakes for a radical tra
Page 68 and 69: from 2000 and had opened the biddin
Page 70 and 71: II.2.A.d. The system of incentives
Page 72 and 73: Europeans are tackling this issue,
Page 74 and 75: has not stopped. Tunisians still ma
Page 76 and 77: The ambiguities are obvious and any
Page 78 and 79: II.2.B.b. How the bureaucracy works
Page 80 and 81: II.2.B.c. Taking into account the b
Page 82 and 83: diminishing trickle. At the nationa
Page 84 and 85: construction of these arrangements,
Page 86 and 87: Conclusion86The current situation i
Page 92: Vestergade 16 - 1456 Copenhagen K -

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