This article contributes to a theoretical understanding of rights claiming as a specific form of political practice. The article develops and defends a post-foundationalist understanding of rights discourse as a way of making a claim to social change through appealing to a universal and illustrates such an understanding with the contestation over women's rights in post-revolutionary Tunisia. To develop this argument, the article draws on Jacques Rancière's notion of political subjectification and Ernesto Laclau's engagement with the relation between the universal and the particular. To examine the relevance of such conceptualisation, the article turns to the struggle over women's rights in post-revolutionary Tunisia, where secular and sacred understandings of the universal have been invoked frequently through rights discourse. In this context it is shown that claims to the universal give rhetorical force to rights discourse, and instead of depoliticising social relations, which rights discourse is often charged with, such claims are vital for political efficacy. However, whereas Laclau's position helps us to understand rights as a language of resistance, a more robust defence of the universal is needed to defend rights in terms of emancipatory political change. To pursue this argument, the article turns to Rancière's defence of axiomatic equality.
Revolts in Tunisia and Egypt have led many observers to speak of the "first digital revolution" in the Arab world. Social media sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, are now recognised as the important tools that facilitated the "Jasmine Revolution". In fact, the willingness of the Mubarak government to block all internet connection in Egypt has demonstrated the concern over the power of new technologies in facilitating political change. The tenacity of the social movements that are still on-going in the Arab world continues to demonstrate the important role that networked technologies—such as the internet, satellite channels and social networking sites—play in revolutions. The revolutions demonstrate an effective use of social media and other network technologies as an organisational tool, and as a means of asserting pressure on current rulers and future governments. Accordingly, this article seeks to expose freedom of expression as a fundamental democratic principle and the internet network as a vehicle driving the demonstrations in the Arab countries of Tunisia and Egypt.
Domestic politics around the globe have become increasingly polarized along secular-religious lines. Recent literature suggests that one way to ease secular-religious tension and gridlock is for religious leaders to offer progressive reinterpretations of religious texts, that might convince religious conservatives to compromise from their seemingly-fixed policy positions. But can everyday citizens deploy religious reinterpretations themselves? We examine this question through a series of citizen debates in Tunisia, in which 602 participants attempted to reach a compromise over two 'culture wars' issues. Across both experiments, we find that having secular liberals engage religious conservatives with religious reinterpretations backfired, nearly halving the rate of compromise. Religious reinterpretations produced both defensive conservatives and emboldened liberals, obstructing compromise between them. While scholarship suggests that religious leaders may be able to deploy reinterpretations effectively, our results caution that everyday citizens may not.
In: Voltolini , B & Colombo , S 2018 , ' The EU and Islamist parties in Tunisia and Egypt after the Arab uprisings : A story of selective engagement ' , Mediterranean Politics , vol. 23 , no. 1 , pp. 83-102 . https://doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2017.1358901
This article argues that the new EU's selective engagement with Islamist parties in its Southern neighbourhood following the Arab uprisings is the result of a partial shift in the EU's frame used to understand political Islam, combined with a form of pragmatism that puts a premium on finding interlocutors in the region. Using the case studies of Tunisia and Egypt, it shows that the EU has replaced its previous monolithic conception of political Islam with an understanding that is more sensitive to differences among Islamists. This opens the door to some forms of engagement with those actors that renounce violence and demonstrate their commitment to work within the confines of democratic rules, while violent strands of political Islam and conservative groups remain at arm's length.
Rap and mahragan were the sound of youths that demanded freedom and social justice in Tahrir Square and in Tunisia Parliament Square sit-ins during 2011. It may have been, not merely the soundtrack of the revolution, but a motivating factor in bringing people into the streets and reshaping their basic political subjectivity: a core process of any revolutionary change in a country's social and political structures. On the one hand, rap and mahragan are used by young people as a way of calling into question the processes of marginalization. On the other hand, young people use it as a way of participating in public life. Despite its differences, from a mixed analysis using the data collected in the SAHWA project, both qualitative and quantitative, this article proves how rap and mahragan music scenes (re)produce informal spaces as an alternative to their social marginalization and positioned them into Tunisian and Egyptian political arenas in different places according to environmental political dialectics. ; This article has received funding from the FP7 and from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's HORIZON 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No. 613174 and No. 742705.
The fall of elected Egyptian President Morsi is likely to reverberate into the future throughout the Arab World. It pits the growing large communi- ty of Islamic-committed citizens (just under 60 percent in Egypt according to Pew Center surveys) and frustrated youth wanting participatory govern- ance and legitimate freedoms against military autocrats, their business and judicial associates, and hereditary rulers in the region who wish to maintain the status quo against the bedrock Islamic principle of representative govern- ance. Tunisia leads the way in providing a to-date successful transition post- 'Arab Spring' to an alternative vision favouring the welfare of its citizens. This is a consequence of the flexibility and willingness of Islamists there to work together in coalition with other groups even secularists. Egypt displays the beginning of an epic struggle that will unlikely end until some form of partici- patory governance is achieved through civil disobedience. President Moham- mad Morsi managed the passage of a new constitution (presently suspended) under strong opposition but was unable to project a 'democratic' image or resolve the country's economic problems. He also failed to embrace inclusive- ness even to work closely with other Islamic forces – the Salafists and the AlAzhar institution. Chief of the armed forces, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi however, in rebelling against his civilian commander, is attempting to restore the pre-Arab Spring status of covert military rule. He successfully drew initial support from the Salafists and liberals but can no longer assume their backing. Shaykh AlAzhar in openly supporting al-Sisi has compromised the erstwhile high regard held for Al-Azhar in the Muslim world.
In: Boodoo , Z 2018 , Donor Support for Sustainability Transition: The case of low-carbon development in the cement sector of Tunisia . UNEP DTU Partnership .
The overwhelming evidence and scientific consensus on the impacts of human-induced climate change have prompted enhanced mitigation responses over time, led by developed countries representing the biggest emitters historically. More recently, rapid economic growth in developing countries has led to soaring emissions of greenhouse gases. As a result, measures to promote a shift to low-carbon and sustainable futures in all countries of the world are now vital elements of global goals for the climate and sustainable development as established in two historical agreements in 2015, the Paris Agreement on climate change and the 2030 Agenda on sustainable development. To address the global challenge of sustainability transition, developed nations have confirmed in the Paris Agreement 2015 at the 21st Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to jointly mobilise USD 100 billion per year by 2020 for climate change action supporting developing-country counterparts. As part of this pledge, bilateral development cooperation agencies and multilateral financial institutions have been identified as key channels through which funding will be delivered. In turn, this indicates that the international community envisages donors playing an important role in supporting developing countries in their attempts to shift towards more sustainable futures. Against this background, the key aim of this PhD thesis is to contribute to the emerging literature on the role of donors in promoting sustainable transitions by investigating how transition concepts and donor practices influence low-carbon transitions in the developing world. This overall research topic is addressed in two ways throughout this thesis: 1) through a theoretical review of the management approaches that are prevalent within the donor community, and 2) by applying case-study methodologies to examine the impacts of donor interventions on low-carbon transitions in the case of the Tunisian cement sector. The theoretical and conceptual basis of the three articles comprising this thesis are drawn from the "Transition Management" literature to understand how transitions to low-carbon development can be governed and from the "Multi-Level Perspective" to understand the factors that influence the development of niches within the Tunisian cement sector. Analyses are based upon qualitative data collected mainly from semi-structured interviews, direct participation and observations conducted during consecutive periods of fieldwork in Tunisia in 2014-2015. This thesis finds that donors contribute towards stimulating low-carbon transitions in the developing world by addressing issues that limit the development of low-carbon measures in recipient countries, such as a lack of local expertise, coordinated action, and available funding. Donors address these constraints by engaging in niche development processes and encouraging regime-level changes through support for political and regulatory reforms or, more broadly, via donor funding modalities, which provide a basis for rational thinking and project structuring. In addition, this research finds evidence that current donor modalities suffer from a lack of attention to sustainability transition features of path dependency and lock-in. In particular, factors that constrain donor attempts towards sustaining low-carbon transitions in the developing world are: the lack of key change agents, the absence of formal decision-making legitimacy by donors within the formulation of transition initiatives, the short-term nature of development aid, a lack of coordination amongst donor agencies, the limited attention given to addressing local political processes, a lack of reflexivity, and assumptions regarding foresight and control in donor interventions. Given that the Parties to the Paris Agreement are now moving towards an implementation phase of increasingly ambitious climate policies and actions set out in Nationally Determined Contributions, the results of this thesis provide useful lessons that could be used to enhance donor impacts by avoiding the pitfalls highlighted.
What happens to the state elite of an authoritarian regime after its collapse? This article proposes an answer by examining the Tunisian case after the fall of Ben Ali's regime in 2011. Based on a corpus of in-depth interviews with sixty or so ex-politicians or civil servants, the article starts by describing the collapse of the regime in terms of the experience and perceptions of some of those who had served it. This is not presented as a series of institutional and political events linked up in a homogenous and unidirectional process, but rather as a variety of individual experiences, each unique. The fall of the regime thereby emerges as a concrete experience of political relegation, documented in precise detail by the accounts given of it. Analyzing this experience provides a way of testing several hypotheses regarding the post-revolutionary careers of former senior officials, stressing just how complex and diverse the paths are for reintegrating the political class.
At a moment when many countries of the MENA region are looking to accelerate economic growth and build more stable, open societies, this report argues that greater women's economic empowerment holds one of the keys. It asserts that despite challenges some countries are facing in guaranteeing women equal access to economic opportunity, progress is underway and can be further nurtured through targeted, inclusive and coordinated policy actions. Building on the conclusions of a first monitoring report released in 2017, the report analyses recent legislative, policy and institutional reforms in support of women's economic empowerment in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia and seeks to identify success factors that have helped anchor reform. Moreover, it delivers actionable examples and practical tools for policy makers to help them transform policies into effective actions for women's economic empowerment.