Applying Principal-Agent Theory to Security Force Assistance: The Atypical Case of Post-2015 Tunisia

ABSTRACT

This article applies the Principal-Agent model to Security Force Assistance (SFA) in Tunisia, problematising some of its assumptions and advancing complementary notions to capture evolving international and national security practices. By investigating how post-2015 SFA contributed to the reconfiguration and evolution of domestic actors, national strategies, and debates on security in the context of regime change, we argue that it epitomises a counter-intuitive success story of principals-agents' dynamics leading to increased security performance. Meanwhile, SFA evolved from an emergency and state-centric approach, to a partially diversified set of practices embodying more comprehensive and bottom-up understanding of societal and human security.

KEYWORDS:

• Armed forces
• counter-terrorism
• borders
• state security
• societal security
• Tunisia

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) for research assistance, Maggie Dwyer, Øystein H. Rolandsen, William Reno, Florian Kühn and anonymous reviewers for their insights on earlier versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Initially, four working groups were set up, each co-led by an international partner and a Tunisian: on borders (under the lead of Germany and the MoD), protection of tourist sites and other sensitive sites (United Kingdom and MoI), protection of ports and airports (France/United Kingdom and the MoI) and counter-terrorism (France/European Union and MoD).

2 Given the sensitive nature of the issues, but also a natural reluctance and even self-censorship of many interviewees, conversations were not recorded. Interviewees asked to remain anonymous.

3 The G7 was a multilateral coordination platform for international donors in the Tunisian security sector. In 2015, it became the G7plus 6 as the original members were joined by the EU, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

4 Authors’ interviews with EU diplomats, Tunis, April and November 2019.

5 Cimini’s interview with a retired military officer, Tunis, November 2019.

6 Ibid.

7 Authors’ interviews with civil society activists, Ben Guerdane, November 2019. When asked to link a list of institutional actors to the concepts of ‘state’ (dawla) and/or ‘nation’ (watan), all our interviewees agreed upon connecting the army to the latter, implying a far greater emotional attachment.

8 Cimini’s interview with a retired military officer, Tunis, November 2019.

9 Hanau Santini’s interview with UN official, Tunis, November 2019.

10 Cimini’s interview with UN project analyst, Tunis, November 2019.

11 This strategy, signed by the president in December 2017, was presented to the G7plus in April 2018, but there has been no real follow-up so far. Hanau Santini’s interview, German Embassy, Tunis, November 2019.

12 Cimini’s informal remote conversation, German Diplomat, October 2020.

13 Authors’ interviews in Ben Guerdane with civil society activists, November 2019. Cimini’s interview, Cultural Centre, Dehiba, 14 November 2019.

14 Cimini’s interview, German Diplomat, Tunis, November 2019.

15 Cimini’s interview with UN project analyst, Tunis, November 2019.

16 Ibid. This fifth Working Group was co-led by the Netherlands and the EU. On the Tunisian side, the leader was the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), at least before the Groups were consolidated from 5 to 3 with the new US presidency to the G7: (1) Border Integrity and Transport and Security; (2) Counter-Terrorism; and (3) Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism.

17 Cimini’s interview with UN project analyst, Tunis, November 2019.

18 Hanau Santini’s interview, British Embassy, Tunis, November 2019.

19 Hanau Santini’s interview, French Embassy, Tunis, November 2019.

Additional information

Funding

This research benefited from the financial support of the Research Council of Norway under the grant ‘The Impact of Security Force Assistance on State Fragility, Project No. 274645’. Dr Cimini also acknowledges the financial support of the Germany-based Gerda Henkel Foundation in the context of the project ‘Security for whom? Reshaping notions of state legitimacy for a new social contract’.

Notes on contributors

Giulia Cimini

Giulia Cimini is a Gerda Henkel Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of Bologna (IT). She was previously Visiting Fellow at the University of St. Andrews and at the Centre Jacques Berque in Rabat, and Teaching Assistant of Politics at Università L’Orientale in Naples. She currently works on Maghrebi political parties, security assistance and dynamics of contention.

Ruth Hanau Santini

Ruth Hanau Santini is Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations at Università L’Orientale in Naples. She is the author of Limited Statehood in post-revolutionary Tunisia. Citizenship, economy and security (Palgrave, 2018) and several articles on Italian and European foreign policy towards the Middle East and North Africa, international relations of the Middle East and on changing notions of citizenship and statehood in the region. She has previously held research positions at The Brookings Institution in Washington DC, at the Stiftung fur Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin, at CEPS in Brussels and has served as consultant at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and currently at the World Food Programme.