Foreign Aid and Security Sector Reform in Tunisia: Resistance and Autonomy of the Security Forces

Abstract

Three years after the demise of the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia, the progress and state of security sector reform (SSR) is in limbo. What have been the main dynamics dragging the reform of the security sector? What role has foreign aid and assistance played in this process? By exploring these questions, this article makes the argument that the approach and vision of multi- and bilateral aid agencies is fundamentally flawed, producing effects at cross-purposes to their stated aims and values. The stalling of SSR reflects the ‘successful’ resistance of the security forces against oversight and accountability by instrumentalizing the deterioration of security and alleged rise of violent extremist threats. Against the backdrop of vocal calls for prioritizing security, the approach followed by foreign actors has thus far barely acknowledged that struggle, thereby unintentionally supporting the increasing autonomy of the security forces. Using the concept of military autonomy, the paper highlights the fact that in the current approach to reform, security risks to take precedence over the political.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Michaël Ayari, Hassen Boubakri, Samy Ghorbal and Rafaa Tabib for all the insightful discussions, as well as all those who have helped me with their advice and especially those who agreed to share their insights with me. I am also always grateful to Oliver Jütersonke and Benoît Challand for their constant intellectual encouragement. Finally, special thanks go to Matt Johnson for his help with editing. Of course, all errors are mine.

Notes

^1. A large share of the information and data on the security sector in Tunisia comes from daily programme activities and meetings with stakeholders, activists and international experts in Tunisia carried out by the author since autumn 2012.

^2. The ‘Labo’ Démocratique' is the main CSO advocating on the archive issue.

^3. The term is borrowed from Bermeo (2009: 73). My argument differs to the extent that SSR is itself seen as a tool to support transitions and democratization. However, we cannot speak of side-effects per se as the unintended effects of SSR are not inherent to the approach, but to the national dynamics and political struggles, i.e. they run at cross-purposes because they cancel out their own expected effect. Hence, they do not develop their intended effect in the first place.

^4. I follow the conceptualization of Caparini and Fluri (2006: 12) that SSR broadens the traditional focus of civil–military relations to include public security: law enforcement, border guards, penal institutions and intelligence. I use ‘armed forces’ as the more generic term for the military and ‘security forces’ for the broad category of all forces in charge of internal security and law enforcement (apart from the military).

^5. Confidential interview with security expert in Tunis, September 2013. See also Séréni (2011).

^6. For this point I am very grateful to Samy Ghorbal.

^7. They sought to ‘plant their flag’ as the IFIT (2013: 9) formulates.

^8. Regular conversations with the foreign aid community indicate that support to SSR is still very tentative. Including equipment, total aid for SSR (excluding US military aid) since the fall of Ben Ali has hardly surpassed US$30 million.

^9. At least this was the tenor of the conversation I had with officials of the diplomatic missions in Tunisia.

^10. According to Hanlon (2012: 6), around 250 to 300 stations were attacked.

^11. The protests were called Kasbah 1, 2 and 3. Leftist groups initiated Kasbah 3 but it was co-opted by Islamist and salafist movements (see ‘La Casbah de Tunis…’, 2011). For a timeline of the events in Tunisia, see Bendana (2011).

^12. Military responsibilities at that time included protecting strategic sites, securing the borders (in the face of the armed conflict in Libya), and providing administrative and logistical support for the conduct of the elections and the day-to-day operations in several governorates (see Kartas, 2013).

^13. The irritation of Tunisian civil society over DCAF's access to the Ministry of Interior became quite visible during a conference on police reform on 25 January 2013 in Tunis. See http://www.reform.tn/reformtn/activities/show/680,001

^14. For a background on US and French military aid to Tunisia see Grimaud (1995). On the US bilateral assistance see McInerney (2011) and McInerney and Bockenfeld (2013: Table 3).

^15. Prioritization of foreign aid towards elections and the media was obvious during several conversation with advisors to the High Instance for the Realization of the Objectives of the Revolution in April and December 2011.

^16. For example OHCHR (the High Commissioner for Human Rights), UNSESCO, UNDP, as well as the ICRC and the DCAF may be implicated here.

^17. Conversation with the head of DCAF Tunis, December 2011 and several conversations with foreign representatives in Tunisia See also Kefi (2011).

^18. Informal conversation with Jamil Sayah, head of the Tunisian Observatory, December 2013.

^19. The organization is also known as ‘Reform’, ‘the Reform Foundation’ or reform.tn. Informal conversations with Bassem Bouguerra, head of Reform in Tunis, January, March 2013.

^20. The focus of large international human rights NGOs has thus far been on documenting police abuse. They have not been visible in presenting concrete reform strategies.

^21. The US has, for example, provided the Ministry of Interior with 24 vehicles (information from ‘Réunion d’information dans le domaine de l'appui à la réforme du secteur de la sécurité en Tunisie (Bureau du PNUD, 6 septembre 2013, 10H00). Compte-rendu de reunion'). Qatar has offered 76 anti-riot vehicles, 50 SUVs, 13 4x4 vehicles (Hummers), and 8 fire trucks. See ‘Le Qatar offre à la Tunisie 76 voitures pour enrichir la flotte du ministère de l’intérieur', Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = ZtLH-mRAMYo. See also IRIB (2012).

^22. On problem-solving versus critical theories, see Cox (1981).

^23.http://www.businessnews.com.tn/tunisie–unification-des-forces-de-securite-pour-faire-face-au-noyautage,519,42,512,3

^24. Observation based on confidential interviews with members of police unions in Tunis and Gabès, May 2012. See also statements quoted in ICG (2012: 13–16).

^25. Confidential interviews with member of the National Investigation Commission headed by Taoufik Bouderbala in Tunis, April 2011 and December 2011. See also Gadhoumi (2011) on a press conference of the Commission disrupted by the NUISF.

^26. Despite estimates by human rights organizations of a police force numbering up to 130,000 officers, the real number was probably around 45,000. The figure has been the subject of much speculation. For example, Khiari (2003: 102) and Camau and Geisser (2003: 204f) estimated 80,000 officers.

^27. I use discursive(ly) to mean a set of truth statements that are dominant. A discursive move is thus a combination of statements and practices seeking to become dominant.

^28. The numbers were given by a high-level member of NUSIF during an interview with the author in Tunis, May 2012. The law is called: ‘Loi n°69–4 du Janvier 1969, règlementant les reunions publiques, cortégés, défilés, manifestations et attroupements’, Available at http://www.legislation-securite.tn/sites/default/files/files/lois/Loi%20n°%2069–4%20du%2024%20Janvier%201,969%20(Fr).pdf

^29. Unions spoke often of instrumentalization, see e.g. Cherif (2013) or Z.A. (2012).

^30. The LPR emerged out of some neighbourhood watches as hyper-localized versions of the Council for the Protection of the Revolution. They were later co-opted by ‘religiously-inspired’ former thugs with ties to the Trabelsi and Ben Ali families.

^31. Confidential interview with cadre of a police union, Tunis May 2012.

^32. See e.g. Ben Said (2013) or Weslaty (2012).

^33. The reform of the French security apparatus culminated under Georges Clemenceau and Célestin Hennion (between 1907 and 1913) with the creation in 1911 of the General Intelligence Services (Berlère & Vogel, 2008: 21–24). The aim of this republican policing was ‘internal political use’ in the sense of protecting the republican regime not for public safety and was anti-clerical in nature (Berlère & Vogel, 2008: 16).

^34. Although reflecting primarily on the military, Krause (1996) stresses the defining significance of the security referent and threat construction on the evolution of the security apparatus.

^35. Chokri Balaïd was killed on 6 February 2013 and Mohamed Brahmi on 25 July 2013.

^36. In contrast to the media, some local police unions left the NUSIF and FUSIF because of their aggressive political positions, see TAP (2013).

^37. The study remains one of the largest social research efforts until today; see Stouffer et al., 1949. This was also the main inspiration for the two most influential ‘theories’ on civil–military relations: Huntington's (1957) argument of professionalization based on objective control (through self-restraint) and Janowitz's (1960) more institutional perspective on the constabulary force. On the dominance of Huntington's argument up to today, see Born (2003: 156), and Feaver (1999).

^38. This is an analysis also made by Jütersonke and Kartas (2010) on the effect of development aid on conflict in what they called ‘centralized decentralization’.

^39. Ample argument has been provided on this argument in other fields, see e.g. Abrahamsen (2000), Mosse (2001), Hayter (1985), Ferguson (1990) and Hanlon (1991).

^40. One should keep in mind that the uprising followed the immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi after an altercation with a policewoman.

^41. On the surveillance mechanisms see Hibou (2006), Khiari (2003), and ICG (2012).

^42. Based on previous field research in 2003 in the underprivileged neighbourhoods of Tunis.

Additional information

Funding

FundingThis article is based on research receiving the support of the Swiss National Scientific Fund (Project 100017_146098).