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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Europeans are tackling this issue, but from a technocratic point of view, based on alargely faulty diagnosis (since they underline, for example, the existence of significantprogress in education and health, particularly in the NIP 2011-2013), one which is notnecessarily questioned today. Regarding health, the results of the Program of support forthe reform of health insurance, launched in 2000 by the European Union with a donationof 40 million euros in the form of support for the budget of the Tunisian state and technicalassistance, have been overestimated. Completed in 2007, the program aimed, says astatement from the EU Delegation to Tunisia ‘at supporting the Tunisian government in itsreform set out in the tenth development plan (2002-2006), and confirmed in the eleventhplan ( 2007-2011), which provides for improving and streamlining the coverage of healthrisk for people affiliated to the health insurance system. It aims also to consolidatethe principle of equal access to health care and covering of health risk’. In 2008, theNational Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) was set up and the same statement welcomedthe program funded by the EU as ‘a remarkable achievement able to set an examplefor other countries’. Now, if there is one obvious flaw in this plan, it is that, far from beingegalitarian, it concerns only part of the Tunisian population likely to be affiliated to thenational health insurance system, the Caisse nationale d’assurance maladie (CNAM),since it excludes the poor, agricultural workers, the self-employed and of course workersin the informal sector. It also leads to many perverse results such as the diversion ofpatients to private medicine and, in general, the introduction of a two-speed medicalsystem. The ‘progress’ identified by the EU does not really relate to the access and qualityof care but simply their gradual privatization, which is seen by the EU as an improvement,without considering that, on the contrary, privatization is accompanied by a gradualabandonment of free care and a deterioration of public health for the greatest number,as evidenced by the stagnation of state spending in the hospital infrastructure.These contradictions and perverse effects need to be emphasized to the extent that thisprogram of cooperation is often presented as exemplary, and as beneficial not to theregime but to the whole population. 126 An overhaul of European cooperation programstherefore also requires a reassessment of earlier programs, a reassessment that goesinto the details of the implementation of the reform on the ground, takes into accountproblems of distribution and (in)equality, and is ‘de-ideologized’ with regard to theprivatization process.72What has been described in the case of health applies equally to other utilities like water,electricity and the road infrastructure, even though these were the main objectives ofBen Ali’s regime. The opening up of regions and their integration with the rest of theterritory and the dynamic economic zones on the coast and Greater Tunis still needs tobe carried out, as shown in the list of major works projects, and the extension of roadsand motorways. The commodification of clean water observed in several regions of thecountry not only raises the issue of access to this vital resource but also that of publichealth. Indeed, given the poor quality of water distributed by the National Society ofWater Distribution (Société nationale d’exploitation et de distribution d’eau: SONEDE),126 Interviews, Brussels, 29 March – 1 April 2011.
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 Ya large proportion of people buy from private providers or arrange to collect and purifyrain water, without being assured of the quality of water thus obtained. 127II.2.A.f. The migration issueA distorted presentation of the economic and social image of the country, finally, has afundamental impact on the relationship between Europe and Tunisia through the mostsensitive issue at present: that of migration. To the extent that it did not produce enoughjobs, the ‘economic miracle’ only worked by producing emigrants. Emigration is a centralelement in managing the surplus population and the blockages in the Tunisian economicmodel: this has always been ignored, on both sides of the Mediterranean. However, it is afundamental issue, both in terms of the management of supernumeraries of the ‘miracle’,and in terms of the input of currency and the contribution to an equilibrium in thebalance of payments. This question involves the well-known problem of the Partnershipand the Union for the Mediterranean, the Neighbourhood Policy and other free tradeagreements, including agreement on advanced status, namely the coexistence of thefree movement of goods, services, and flows of money and information on the one handand, on the other, an ever greater fragmentation of labour markets and the increasingobstacles to the movement of individuals. 128This situation is not sustainable for the very reason that the economic model underlyingall these partnerships and agreements is based, firstly, on the high value placed oncapital (relative to labour) and on the intensification of capitalist means of production(at the expense of the employment of labour) and, secondly, on increased insecurity ofworking conditions. These two features simply fuel the phenomenon of migration which,in European legal and political conditions, characterized by a repressive managementof these flows, can only occur illegally.The regime was well regarded in this sense, through the enactment of repressive lawsand the signing of readmission agreements. Organic Law 2004-6 of 3 February 2004amending the Law 75-40 of 14 March 1975 on passports and travel documents aimed tostem illegal emigration and illegal crossing of borders, and it did indeed limit the numberof people leaving Tunisia. 129 But for one thing, this law had a significant repressive effecteven in Tunisia: it was enacted shortly after the adoption of the law against terrorism in late2003. This coincidence allowed repression to be hardened even more inside the countrythrough the radicalization of the legal arsenal by exploiting the ‘windfall’ that followedthe events of September 11, 2001, which paved the way for the worldwide adoption ofdraconian laws. And for another, this law has not stopped migration. Illegal emigration127 Bruno Romagny and Christophe Cudennec, ‘Gestion de l’eau en milieu aride: considérations physiqueset sociales pour l’identification des territoires pertinents dans le Sud-Est tunisien’, Développementdurable et territoires (online), Dossier 6: ‘Les territoires de l’eau’, uploaded on 10 February 2006, accessedon 16 April 2011. URL : http://developpementdurable.revues.org/1805. Interviews and participantobservation, March 2011.128 See for example B. Hibou, ‘Le Partenariat en réanimation bureaucratique’, and more generally thespecial number ‘Les faces cachées du Partenariat euroméditerranéen’, Critique internationale, n°18, April 2003; J.-F. Bayart, Global Subjects. A Political Critique of Globalization, tr. by Andrew Brown(Cambridge : Polity Press, 2007).129 H. Meddeb, Ambivalence de la politique migratoire en Tunisie (Paris : FASOPO, mimeo, 2008).73The reconfiguration of power, the socio-economicchallenges of the revolution, and European policy
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 46 and 47: I.2.F.a. The confusion between disc
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 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 -
show all

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

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?