A clash of norms: normative power and EU democracy promotion in Tunisia

Abstract

As the European Union (EU) evolved as an international actor in the 1990s, it placed a commitment to promote certain values at the core of its foreign policy. These values include democracy, and alongside others such as a respect for human rights and the rule of law, they have resulted in the branding of the EU by some scholars as a ‘normative power’. Democracy, however, is but one of many values promoted by the EU, and may not necessarily represent the most important in its relationship with Tunisia, where President Zine el Abidine Bin Ali and the ruling elite base their authority on claims championing stable development, modernization, and promoting secular values. Political actors advocating different values to the government are suppressed in the name of stability, leaving little space for a democratic opposition to develop. Evidence suggests that in the Tunisian context, stability is now increasingly preferred by EU policy-makers. This has a negative effect on both the potential for external support for political reform in Tunisia, and on the EU's wider claims to being committed to the promotion of democracy.

Keywords:

• Tunisia
• European Union
• democracy promotion
• normative power
• Euro-Mediterranean Partnership

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank two anonymous reviewers, along with Michelle Pace and Peter Seeberg, the guest editors of this special issue, for their hard work, helpful comments, and significant patience during the writing of this article.

Notes

Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 34.

Ayubi, Over-stating the Arab State, 134.

Murphy, Economic and Political Change in Tunisia, 43.

Sadiki, ‘The Search for Citizenship in Bin Ali's Tunisia’.

European Union, Barcelona Declaration, 1995.

EU, Official Journal L097: 2–174.

Commission of the European Communities, Wider Europe – Neighbourhood. For a more detailed outline of the EMP and the ENP, see the Introduction to this special issue.

European Union, EU/Tunisia Action Plan.

King, Tunisia.

However, there is little evidence of collaboration between the EU and the partner states over the actual content of the declaration.

Interview with an official from the Tunisian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Tunis, April 2006.

It is worth noting that a ‘Mediterranean Union’ was initiated (largely by France) in 2008, after this article was written. This seeks to compensate for the failures of European policy in the region, albeit without including the EU or northern European EU member states within its members.

Duchêne, ‘Europe's Role in World Peace’, 43.

For a summary of this debate, see Bretherton and Vogler, The European Union as a Global Actor, 37–61; and Pace, ‘The Construction of EU Normative Power’.

Manners, ‘Normative Power Europe’.

Bicchi, ‘Our Size Fits All’; Diez, ‘Constructing the Self and Changing Others’; Manners, ‘Normative Power Europe Reconsidered’; Pace, ‘The Construction of EU Normative Power’; and Sjursen, ‘The EU as a “Normative” Power’.

Manners, ‘Normative Power Europe’, 242.

Sjursen, ‘The EU as a “Normative” Power’, 243.

Bicchi, ‘Our Size Fits All’, 292.

See for example Flockhart, ‘Complex Socialization’, and the various contributions in Flockhart ed., Socializing Democratic Norms.

Flockhart, ‘Complex Socialization’, 291; Diez, ‘Constructing the Self and Changing Others’, 630.

Bicchi, ‘Our Size Fits All’.

Youngs, ‘Normative Dynamics and Strategic Interests’.

Smith, ‘The EU, Human Rights and Relations with Third Countries’, 193–8.

Ibid., 196–8.

Interview with an official from the Tunisian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Tunis, March 2006.

See also Diez, ‘Constructing the Self and Changing Others’, 615–16; Sjursen, ‘The EU as a “Normative” Power’, 239.

See for example Holm, ‘The EU's Security Policy’; Malmvig, ‘Cooperation or Democratization?’; Pace, The Politics of Regional Identity.

Pace, The Politics of Regional Identity.

Commission of the European Communities, Mid-Term Euro-Mediterranean Conference.

Ibid., 2.

Commission of the European Communities, On Strengthening the European Neighbourhood Policy, 9.

Commission of the European Communities, Thematic Programme, 4.

See for example Bicchi, ‘Our Size Fits All’; and Diez, ‘Constructing the Self and Changing Others’, 230–2.

Diez, ‘Constructing the Self and Changing Others’.

European Council, Common Strategy, 3, emphasis added.

EuroMed Report, no. 52, 28 November 2002. Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, Europe and the Mediterranean: Time for Action, speech given at Louvain-la-Neuve: Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, 26 November 2002. Cited in Pace, The Politics of Regional Identity, 105.

EU, Official Journal L097: 14.

Interview with an official from the Tunisian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Tunis, March 2006.

Commission of the European Communities, Wider Europe – Neighbourhood, 4.

Holm, ‘The EU's Security Policy’, 12.

Young, Postcolonialism, 88.

Ibid., 30.

Ibid., 89.

See for example Alexander, ‘Opportunities, Organizations and Ideas’; and Hamdi, The Politicisation of Islam.

Burgat and Dowel, The Islamic Movement in North Africa, 234–7; Hamdi, The Politicisation of Islam, 67–70.

Sadiki, ‘The Search for Citizenship’.

Willis, ‘Containing Radicalism’.

Alexander, ‘Back from the Democratic Brink’, 37.

For an outline of the concept of securitization, see Buzan, Wæver, and de Wilde, Security.

Bensedrine and Mestiri, L'Europe et ses Despotes, 49.

Interviews with officials from the Tunisian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Tunis, March and April 2006.

Hamdi, The Politicisation of Islam, 72–3.

Quoted in Hamdi, The Politicisation of Islam, 73.

Sadiki, The Search for Arab Democracy,183.

Interviews with Tunisian NGO activists, Tunisia, July 2005 and April 2006.

Interviews with former state employees, NGO activists, and artists, Tunis, La Marsa, and Sousse, April and August 2005, April 2006.

Magharebia, ‘Headscarf Controversy In Tunisia Heats Up’.

Magharebia, ‘Tunisian President Speaks Against Wearing of Headscarves’.

See for example Alexander, ‘Back from the Democratic Brink’; Hamdi, The Politicisation of Islam, and Murphy Economic and Political Change in Tunisia.

Biswas, ‘The “New Cold War”’, 200.

Interviews with 18 Tunisian citizens, Tunis, Sousse, Nabeul, and Sousse, 2005 and 2006.

Interviews with 14 Tunisian citizens, Tunis, La Marsa, and Sousse, March, April, and August 2005, and April 2006.

EU, European Security Strategy, 3.

EU, The European Union Strategy for Combating Radicalisation.

See for example Volpi, ‘Regional Community Building’; Panebianco and Attinà, ‘Security Cooperation in the Mediterranean’; and Silvestri, ‘EU Relations with Islam’, 390.

EU, The European Union Strategy for Combating Radicalisation.

Ibid.

Interviews with representatives of EU member state governments, Tunis, August 2005, March and April 2006.

Interviews with British Foreign Office officials, Tunis, March 2006 and an official from the Tunisian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, April 2006.

Interviews with European Commission officials, member state diplomats, and representatives from Tunisian and European NGOs, Tunis and Brussels, 2005 and 2006.

Interviews with representatives of EU member state governments, Tunis, July 2005 and March/April 2006. The UK government, for example, regularly invite representatives from secular opposition parties and human rights organizations to the British embassy.

Bicchi and Martin, ‘Talking Tough or Talking Together?’, 197.

Youngs, ‘Normative Dynamics and Strategic Interests’, 424.

European Union, Barcelona Declaration.

Önis and Keyman, ‘A New Path Emerges’, 106.

For a discussion on the origins of, guiding influences on, and differences between various Arab Islamist movements, see Ayubi, Political Islam; or Ismail, ‘Being Muslim’.

Silvestri, ‘EU Relations with Islam’, 390.

Commission of the European Communities/European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument, Regional Strategy Paper, 3, emphasis added.

European Union, Barcelona Declaration.

Ferrero-Waldner, ‘The EU, the Mediterranean and the Middle East’, original emphasis.

EU, Declaration on Combating Terrorism.

Interviews with Commission officials, member state diplomats, and representatives from Tunisian and European NGOs, Tunis and Brussels, 2005 and 2006.

Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation, ‘Mission and Values’.

For a full list of participating Tunisian organizations, see http://www.euromedalex.org/Tunisia/EN/MembersList.aspx

Interviews with EU officials, Brussels, July 2006.

Interview with a representative from a European NGO, Brussels, July 2006.

Interview with a representative from a European NGO, Brussels, July 2006.

Connolly, The Ethos of Pluralization, xiii.

Interviews with a former government employee and with a human rights activist, Tunis, March 2005 and April 2006.

Interviews in with Commission officials, Brussels, July 2006, and with Tunisian officials and Tunisian NGO representatives, 2005 and 2006.

Abdalah, ‘Address before the Euro-Mediterranean Barcelona Summit’.

Interview with an official from the Tunisian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Tunis, April 2006. Also see Abdalah, ‘Address before the Euro-Mediterranean Barcelona Summit’.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Bin Ali, ‘Address at the Close’.

Ibid.

Bin Ali, ‘Speech on the Forty-Ninth Anniversary’, emphasis added.

Bin Ali, ‘Speech on the Fiftieth Anniversary of Independence’.

Ibid.

Interviews with officials from the Tunisian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Tunis, August 2005 and March 2006.

Interviews with officials from the Tunisian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Tunis, August 2005 and April 2006.