Browsing by Author "Rantama, Minna"

This study addresses the security situation in Tunisia from the perspective of emancipatory security. In the field of world politics, it adopts the position that security should be studied on various levels, including enquiry into how individuals and groups politically negotiate their security concerns vis-à-vis the state. This phenomenon is addressed through the police-citizen relations in Tunisia with a particular focus on the dynamics of secularism and political Islam, approached through the two student unions in the country. Through an exclusive interview case study and various supporting data, the study seeks to answer how the respondents construct constraints to their security in their discourses about the police, how these notions of security are politically negotiated, and what alternative ways to frame security emerge from the analysis. The main theoretical framework is security as emancipation in the field of critical security studies, with a particular focus on the ideas of Ken Booth. The study employs reflexive methodology combined with selected discourse analytical tools. The study finds that the respondents’ discourses of the police and security constraints are deeply connected to political negotiation, expressed in how accepting they are of the transition government that they view as advancing political Islam. The police as the face of the state are used as a narrative tool for constructing political identities and for legitimising or delegitimising the state. A divide between the respondents of the two student unions is found, but when the respondents construct their own ideal notions of security, this divide is bridged and similar emancipatory notions emerge. These findings bring about suggestions for both the practice and the study of security. The study points to the importance of understanding the political nature of security construction in reforming the police and other in acute processes in Tunisia and other states undergoing a transition to democracy. For the study of security, the results show way to how security as emancipation can be applied to different levels of world security and suggest further research on how various value communities negotiate security.