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Abstract
Scholars have widely adopted the view that the behaviour of the Tunisian military during the ‘Arab Spring’ constitutes a positive case of military defection. This paper argues that, contrary to this dominant interpretation, the military remained loyal to the authoritarian civilian leadership throughout the protests as it had repeatedly done in the past. Defection occurred, however, within the Police and the National Guard, which are mistakenly portrayed as having been loyal to Ben Ali. The paper shows that scholars have sought to explain exactly the opposite of what actually happened and, thus, it questions their conclusions regarding civil-military relations in Tunisia.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank David Mendeloff, as well as the anonymous reviewers of this journal, for helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.
Notes
1 Zoltan Barany, ‘Comparing the Arab Revolts: The Role of the Military’, Journal of Democracy 22/4 (Oct. 2011), 28–39; Eva Bellin, ‘Reconsidering the Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East. Lessons from the Arab Spring’, Comparative Politics 44/2 (Jan. 2012), 127–149; Risa Brooks, ‘Abandoned at the Palace: Why the Tunisian Military Defected from the Ben Ali Regime in January 2011’, Journal of Strategic Studies 36/2 (April 2013), 205–20; Philippe Droz-Vincent, ‘From Fighting Formal Wars to Maintaining Civil Peace?’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 43 (2011), 392–4; IISS, ‘The Arab Awakening,’ in Strategic Survey 2011 (Routledge for International Institute for Strategic Studies 2011), 43–96; Derek Lutterbeck, ‘Arab Uprising, Armed Forces, and Civil-Military Relations’, Armed Forces and Society (13 April 2012), 1–25; Sharon Nepstead, ‘Nonviolent Resistance in the Arab Spring: The Critical Role of Military-Opposition Alliances’, Swiss Political Science Review 17/4 (2011), 485–91; Daniel Silverman, ‘The Arab Military in the Arab Spring: Agent of Continuity or Change? A Comparative Analysis of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria’, Paper presented at the APSA 2012 Annual Meeting, <http://ssrn.com/abstract=2108802>.
2 Brooks, ‘Abandoned at the Palace’, 209.
3 Bellin, ‘Reconsidering the Robustness of Authoritarianism’.
4 Lutterbeck, ‘Arab Uprising, Armed Forces, and Civil-Military Relations’.
5 Barany, ‘Comparing the Arab Revolts,’ 31.
6 There are two differences between Bellin’s concept of institutionalization and Huntington’s concept of professionalism: first, institutionalization does not imply political neutrality as professionalism does; and second, professionalism explicitly includes expertise in the management of violence (which makes the military different from other bureaucratic organizations), whereas institutionalization does not. Although theoretically important, these differences are of little empirical significance here and are not discussed further.
7 Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State. The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1957).
8 Alain Rouquié, The Military and the State in Latin America (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press 1987).
9 Samuel E. Finer, The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1988); Robin Luckham, ‘Crafting Democratic Control over the Military: A Comparative Analysis of South Korea, Chile and Ghana’, Democratization 3/3 (1996), 215–45.
10 Peter Feaver, ‘The Civil-Military Problematique: Huntington, Janowitz, and the Question of Civilian Control’, Armed Forces and Society 23/2 (Winter 1996), 235.
11 Barany, ‘Comparing the Arab Revolts’; Bellin, ‘Reconsidering the Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East’; Brooks, ‘Abandoned at the Palace’.
12 Denis Prieur, ‘Defend or Defect: Military Roles in Popular Revolts’, SSRN, 15 Dec. 2011, 23, <http://ssrn.com/abstract=211506> or <http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2115062>.
13 Yezid Sayigh, ‘Agencies of Coercion: Armies and Internal Security Forces’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 43 (2011), 404.
14 Alfred Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone (Princeton UP 1988).
15 Querine Halon, The Prospects for Security Sector Reform in Tunisia: A Year after the Revolution, Strategic Studies Institute Monograph (Carlisle, PA: US Army War College, Sept. 2012), 8.
16 ‘Cable/09TUNIS506’, Wikileaks, 22 July 2009, 09Tunis506, <http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/07/09TUNIS506.html>.
17 Lutterbeck, ‘Arab Uprising, Armed Forces, and Civil-Military Relations’, 7; Peter Schraeder and Hamadi Redissi, ‘Ben Ali’s Fall’, Journal of Democracy 22/3 (July 2011), 6.
18 Halon, The Prospects for SSR in Tunisia, 13.
19 Ibid., 16.
20 Amnesty International, In the Name of Security. Routine Abuses in Tunisia (Amnesty International, 23 June 2008), 9, <www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE30/007/2008/en/b852a305-3ebc-11dd-9656-05931d46f27f/mde300072008eng.pdf>.
21 Halon, The Prospects for SSR in Tunisia, 12.
22 Raphaelle Rafin, ‘Tunisia’s National Fact-Finding Commission on Abuses Final Report’, iLawyer, 13 June 2012, <http://ilawyerblog.com/tunisias-national-fact-finding-commission-on-abuses-final-report/>.
23 Neither Barany nor the IISS, for instance, provide sources for their respective analyses.
24 Lutterbeck, ‘Arab Uprising, Armed Forces, and Civil-Military Relations’; Brooks, ‘Abandoned at the Palace’.
25 Brooks, ‘Abandoned at the Palace’, 206, note 5.
26 Al Arabiya, ‘Al Arabiya Inquiry Reveals How Tunisia’s Ben Ali Escaped to Saudi Arabia,’ Al Arabiya News, 13 Jan. 2012, <http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/01/13/188093.html>.
27 Abdelaziz Barrouhi, ‘Tunisie: La Véritable Histoire Du 14 Janvier 2011’, Jeune Afrique, 25 Jan. 2012; Pierre Puchot, ‘14 Janvier 2011 à Tunis : Le Jour Où Ben Ali Est Tombé’, Mediapart, 10 Nov. 2011, <www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/071111/14-janvier-2011-tunis-le-jour-ou-ben-ali-est-tombe>.
28 Ammar did refuse to help protect the houses of members of the Trabelsi family when Seriati made the request. However, this was not an order as Seriati was inferior in rank to Ammar. The latter argued that the role of the military was to protect public installations and not private ones. The only instance where Ammar actually disobeyed the Minister of Defense was concerning the order to suppress the rebellious units of the internal security forces at Carthage Airport, see Puchot, ‘14 Janvier 2011 à Tunis’.
29 Al Arabiya, ‘Al Arabiya Inquiry’; Barrouhi, ‘Tunisie: La Véritable Histoire’.
30 Barrouhi, ‘Tunisie: La Véritable Histoire.’
31 David Kirkpatrick, ‘Chief of Tunisian Army Pledges His Support for “the Revolution”’, New York Times, 24 Jan. 2011; Issabell Lasserre, ‘Rachid Ammar, Le Centurion Du Peuple’, Le Figaro, 21 Jan. 2011.
32 Abdelaziz Barrouhi, ‘Tunisie: Que Mijotait Ali Seriati ?,’ Jeune Afrique, 28 March 2011, <www.jeuneafrique.com/Article/ARTJAJA2619p054-056.xml0/justice-securite-tunisie-mohamed-ghannouchitunisie-que-mijotait-ali-seriati.html>.
33 Abdelaziz Barrouhi, ‘Le Général Ammar, l’Homme Qui a Dit Non,’ Jeune Afrique, 7 Feb. 2011.
34 David Kirkpatrick, ‘Behind Tunisia Unrest, Rage Over Wealth of Ruling Family’, New York Times, 14 Jan. 2011.
35 Halon, The Prospects for SSR in Tunisia, 15.
36 Al Arabiya, ‘Al Arabiya Inquiry’.
37 Tarhouni also had the opportunity to detain Serene Ben Ali (the daughter of the dictator) and members of the Mabruk family, but for unknown reasons he let their plane take off.
38 Some reports indicated as many as 170 men were supporting Tarhouni’s rebellion, but I use here the smaller estimate.
39 Barrouhi, ‘Tunisie: Que Mijotait Ali Seriati ?’; Barrouhi, ‘Tunisie: La Véritable Histoire’; Puchot, ‘14 Janvier 2011 à Tunis’; Tunisie Numérique, ‘Le 14 Janvier 2011, l’Histoire D’un Héro de La Révolution Tunisienne: Le Lieutenant-Colonel Samir Tarhouni’, Tunisie Numérique, 7 Aug. 2011.
40 Puchot, ‘14 Janvier 2011 à Tunis'.
41 The former minister denied this order in his testimonies, Barrouhi, ‘Tunisie: Que Mijotait Ali Seriati ?’.
42 Al Arabiya, ‘Al Arabiya Inquiry’; Barrouhi, ‘Tunisie: La Véritable Histoire'.
43 Al Arabiya, ‘Al Arabiya Inquiry’; Puchot, ‘14 Janvier 2011 à Tunis’.
44 Vivienne Walt, ‘Chaos Threatens Tunisia’s Revolution’, Time, 16 Jan. 2011, <www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2042740,00.html>.
45 Kirkpatrick, ‘Chief of Tunisian Army Pledges His Support for “the Revolution”’.
46 Halon, The Prospects for SSR in Tunisia, 5.
47 Steven Cook, ‘The Calculations of Tunisia’s Military’, Foreign Policy (20 Jan. 2011), <//mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/20/the_calculations_of_tunisias_military?wp_login_redirect=0>.
48 Bellin, ‘Reconsidering the Robustness of Authoritarianism’.
49 Dirk Vandewalle, ‘From the New State to the New Era: Toward a Second Republic in Tunisia',’ Middle East Journal 44/4 (1988), 602–20; Global Security, ‘January 1978 General Strike’, Global Security, 8 May 2011, <http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/tunisia/politics-1978.htm>.
50 Global Security, ‘The Riots of 1984 and Their Aftermath’, Global Security, 8 May 2011, <www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/tunisia/politics-1984.htm>.
51 Lewis B. Ware, ‘The Role of the Tunisian Military in the Post-Bourguiba Era’, Middle East Journal 39/1 (Winter 1985), 39.
52 Barany, ‘Comparing the Arab Revolts’; Bellin, ‘Reconsidering the Robustness of Authoritarianism’.
53 Amnesty International, Behind Tunisia’s Economic Miracle: Inequality and Criminalization of Protest (Amnesty International, 17 June 2009), http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE30/003/2009>; Eric Gobe, ‘The Gafsa Mining Basin Between Riots and a Social Movement: Meaning and Significance of a Protest Movement in Ben Ali’s Tunisia’ (HAL- Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société, 2010), <http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00557826/fr/>.
54 Gobe, ‘The Gafsa Mining Basin’, 8.
55 Amnesty International, Tunisia: Open Inquiry Into Killing of Demonstrator Against Rising Prices (Amnesty International, 9 June 2008), <www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE30/008/2008/en/242038ee-36d8-11dd-b59e-d93366ce2eab/mde300082008eng.pdf>.
56 Amnesty International, In the Name of Security: Routine Abuses in Tunisia.
57 Ware, ‘The Role of the Tunisian Military in the Post-Bourguiba Era’, 37. My italics.
58 Nicole Grimaud, La Tunisie à La Recherche de Sa Sécurité (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1995), 170.
59 Ibid., 94.
60 Ibid., 135.
61 Halon, The Prospects for SSR in Tunisia, 25.
62 Vandewalle, ‘From the New State to the New Era,’ 609.
63 Lewis B. Ware, ‘Ben Ali’s Constitutional Coup in Tunisia’, Middle East Journal 42/4 (Fall 1988), 587–601.
64 Ibid., 156.
65 Ware, ‘Ben Ali’s Constitutional Coup in Tunisia'.
66 Ware, ‘The Role of the Tunisian Military in the Post-Bourguiba Era’.
67 Huntington, The Soldier and the State, 2.
68 Michael Desch, ‘Soldiers, States, and Structures: The End of the Cold War and the Weakening US Civilian Control’, Armed Forces and Society 24/3 (1998), 389–406.
69 Desch, ‘Soldiers, States and Structures’, 395.
70 Al Arabiya, ‘Al Arabiya Inquiry’.
71 Borzou Daragahi, ‘A Tunisian State Police Officer Shares Harrowing Inside View’, Los Angeles Times, 3 Feb. 2011, <http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/03/world/la-fg-tunisia-police-20110202>.
72 Halon, The Prospects for SSR in Tunisia, 40.
73 Ibid., 26.
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Alejandro Pachon
Alejandro Pachon is a doctoral candidate at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (Carleton University). His research is currently focused on the behavior of security forces during popular uprisings, civil-military relations, and security sector reform.