Browsing by Author "Häivälä, Timo"

Tunisia’s transformation from autocratic governance to democracy has taken place after the Arab Spring demonstrations in 2011. None of the other Arab Spring countries or Tunisia’s neighbours have succeeded in a similar transformation, despite the popular support for democracy in Arab Barometer surveys. The European Union bases its external relations on the promotion of 'European' values, including democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Democracy and democratisation are seen as a response to a wide variety of problems, including the spread of terrorist movements and migration movements. The EU’s relationship with Tunisia was formalised in 1995 with an Association Agreement. In 2005, the two parties agreed on an Action Plan which outlined the EU’s expectations for political change in Tunisia. After the Arab Spring, another Action Plan was drafted in 2013, providing an updated version of the roadmap for democratisation in the country. Despite the claims of supporting and fostering democracy, the EU has been criticised in research literature by supporting stable dictatorships over unstable democracies, as well as often implementing democratic norms poorly in its own governance. This study firstly examines the previous research on democratisation and democratic change in the Southern Mediterranean countries, concluding that the research is often based on a narrow conception of (electoral) democracy. Therefore, the framework of embedded democracy is adopted in this study, in order to provide a more multifaceted conception of democracy. The central research question is: 'How can the EU’s democracy promotion strategy in Tunisia in the time period 2005-2015 be understood in the framework of embedded democracy?' Embedded democracy is operationalised with the concepts of linkage and leverage, which refer to instruments in democracy promotion. The two Action Plans and other relevant EU documents are used as source material and the research method is qualitative content analysis. The main findings of the study firstly indicate support for the claim that the EU was not pursuing democratic change in Tunisia before the Arab Spring, but rather supported the stable governance of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The only leverage instruments involved changes in Tunisia’s economic system in order to gain better access to the European single market. The linkage instruments used by the EU favoured economic and geopolitical linkage of Tunisia, thereby reinforcing the external factors of embedded democracy. However, the country resembled a form of defective democracy, given the poorly functioning internal regimes of embedded democracy. After the Arab Spring, in the 2013 Action Plan, the EU’s strategy included similarly few leverage instruments although economic sanctions were taken against the ousted president and his allies. Economic and geopolitical linkage were again the most conspicuous instruments. Furthermore, transnational civil society linkage was more prominent in the EU’s strategy after 2011, and internal improvements in the Tunisian democratic system were suggested. Despite the relative success in consolidating democracy, Tunisia’s future is anything but certain. Popular support for democracy is decreasing, the economic situation is deteriorating, and unemployed youths are increasingly attracted to the radical forms of Islam in Tunisia’s neighbouring countries. The supportive external factors of embedded democracy need to be increasingly promoted by the EU while acknowledging both the internal and external threats to the functioning of Tunisian democracy. Without support, Tunisia risks becoming another defective democracy in the region.