Tunisia’s Autocratic Drift: How Global Entanglements Contribute to Repression

Tunisia has been gradually drifting towards authoritarianism, a development that has received little attention from scholars or policymakers. A closer examination reveals that global entanglements have played a significant role in shaping the country’s security apparatus and reinforcing coercive power.

Internal Security Beyond Borders

According to experts, internal security in Tunisia has undergone a widening process, extending beyond national borders and influenced by international issues. This perspective is crucial for understanding Tunisia’s authoritarian drift, as it avoids exceptionalizing the country’s context and highlights postcolonial continuities that shape its practices.

Key Concepts

• Entanglements: Reciprocal relationships between actors, acknowledging postcolonial encounters that condition present practices.
• Extraversion: A form of negotiated dependency where ruling elites appropriate resources and authority from external sources.
• Collusions: Assembled parts, networks, and relations legitimized in particular time-space conjunctures.

These concepts convey a sense of multiplicity and complexity, breaking with binary thinking. They highlight the interplay of material/practical, symbolic, human, and non-human factors that produce power. Theories that start from sovereignty and the vertical state are insufficient in explaining authoritarian coercion, as they do not account for governance, which is crucial in our era.

Transnational Entanglements and Authoritarian Coercion

In Tunisia, transnational entanglements have impacted domestic power configurations through counterterrorism agendas, including CFT (Combating the Financing of Terrorism). This has formalized security practices with a preemptive nature and extended them to financial coercion. It has also produced opportunities for collusive transactions between security and bureaucratic actors, as well as the growing criminalization of the informal economy.

The Role of Financial Intelligence

Financial intelligence in Tunisia is deeply entangled with global governance provisions and border construction across the Mediterranean and the world. This has made it increasingly difficult for the postcolonial state to tolerate informal money trafficking.

Conclusion

As Tunisia continues to drift towards authoritarianism, it is essential to understand the role of global entanglements in reinforcing coercive power. By mapping and interpreting evolving arrangements and Tunisia’s participation in CFT, this article aims to illuminate the co-constitutive nature of these security practices.