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

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 YOne can understand this situation, which recreates unanimity among Tunisians and amongEuropeans and Tunisians. Some of the reasons that lie behind this interpretation are certainlynot very honourable, such as those which drive the Administrative Commission of the UGTT(which does not want anyone talking about its own participation in the widespread system ofcorruption and clientelism), the political elite previously in power (for obvious political reasons,starting with the operation of the single party) or part of the business community (whichdoes not want anyone to look into its professional practices, often overlapping with politicalcompromises and even shady financial dealings with the Ben Ali regime). But other reasonsmay be honest, naive or strategic, as in the case of a majority of the population who trulybelieve that the family’s predatory activities have led the country into bankruptcy, people whoagree with the analyses of the relation between development, corruption and democracy, orpoliticians (whether Tunisian members of the former opposition or Europeans) who think thatthe debate on the family’s corruption is definitely a way to disqualify once and for all the useof personal power, to mobilize European countries in the freezing of assets in their own country,and to release new funds to help a friendly country in difficulty.Be this as it may, this focus on clan predation produces a fundamental perverse effect: itprevents anyone from raising and discussing the problems of the Tunisian economy, thepatronage system developed around the RCD and the UGTT, and the state of justice. Lowinvestment in the Tunisian economy is not only due to the clans draining off resources: it is alsodirectly linked to the incessant interventions mentioned above, and the nature of economicincentives shaped more by political pressure and by financial reasons than by considerationsof economic competitiveness and the trajectory of Tunisian entrepreneurs. The discourse ofthe new government elites calls for ‘good governance’ and an end to the endemic corruptionthat characterized the government under the former regime to gain a few percentagepoints of growth and address the structural problems of the Tunisian economy. In fact, thereis no questioning of the political economy of Tunisia, or of the arrangements that lay behindthe formation of a ‘credit bourgeoisie’, the extent of tax evasion, the illicit enrichment andrepression or even abuse of the world of work and wages. The fault lines of inequality andinjustice may be drawn in part by the places and modes of predation of the clans... but theyare far more decisively drawn by the model of economic development, by decisions on taxand incentives, by the conception of public service and the public good, by this politicaleconomy of arrangements and clientelism that created the regimes of Bourguiba and BenAli. None of this has been challenged by the departure of Ben Ali and the clans, and is notdiscussed. It involves a reorganization and investment in all areas of interventionism, in all fields:financial, legislative, fiscal, customs, legal, IT, social... and, last but not least, legal. The questionof justice is indeed fundamental, and in the final analysis not much discussed, whereas thepolitical instrumentalization of the world of judges, lawyers and more generally of all professionsinvolved in the legal world has been fundamental in the exercise of domination. The focuson the fight against corruption through the establishment of an ad hoc Commission preventsany proper clean-up from taking place, any professionalization and specialization fromdeveloping (such as specialized departments in financial, fiscal, and customs matters), andmakes it possible for people to avoid dealing openly and above all concretely with the recordof judicial independence, as is emphasized by the judges’ trade union and many lawyers. The61The reconfiguration of power, the socio-economicchallenges of the revolution, and European policy