Dr Souhaïl Belhadj, researcher at the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP), has started a two-year project named “Opportunities and Obstacles facing Political Decentralisation in Tunisia: Security Provision and Local State Authority in a Time of Transition”, with the support of the Special Programme on Security, Society and the State of the Gerda Henkel Foundation. Souhaïl Belhadj brings some precisions on his research.
It is widely said that Tunisia’s new Constitution of 2014 proposes the decentralisation of power to local government. Is that right?
The constitutional principles are clear on this matter, but the implementation is very complex because Tunisia is a highly centralised state. There is a strong resistance to change within the Tunisian political elite and the central administration. Thus, researchers, politicians and analysts are struggling to ascertain the possible effects of this decentralisation process on the Tunisian political transition – not least in the light of a highly fragmented body of literature focusing on local governance in Tunisia specifically, as well as in the Arab world more generally.
What are the main goals of your work?
It aims to provide an in-depth analysis of Tunisia’s on-going process of political decentralisation from the viewpoint of security provision. It explores the complex relationships between public administration, human security and local governance from the interdisciplinary perspective of political sociology. The new Constitution foresees far-reaching reform measures targeting a significant devolution of powers to local government, but who are the potential “spoilers” of the envisaged reforms, and how do (or should) the implementation modalities reflect variations in the ways in which the state relates to, or is “present”, at the sub-state level?
What is the originality of the project?
Methodologically, the project constitutes qualitative case studies of four municipalities chosen to represent a variation in state authority on the local level. By comparing and contrasting de facto modes of sub-state political rule in the light of the de jure decentralisation measures currently being implemented, it seeks to investigate the existing institutional practices of security provision at the local level, and the ways these are linked to the transformation of public administration in the post-authoritarian era, as well as in the devolution of power and authority foreseen by the new Constitution.
Can you tell us about your research field and how you are going to work?
The idea is to study the opportunities and obstacles facing the political decentralisation process in Tunisia by zooming in on existing local governance structures, and their respective (historical) relations with the central state. This is operationalised along varying levels of de facto state authority, i.e. the extent to which the state is in a position to impose law and order through the provision of public security – here broadly understood as a stable provision of the rule of law, public safety, and a functioning and independent judiciary. Five visits are planned to Tunisia, for a total of 19 weeks, in four localities in the capital, Tunis, but also in the central region and the south of the country.
What is the main motivation underlying your project?
This project is situated within a larger CCDP research cluster seeking to explore the linkages between security provision, interpersonal and collective forms of violence, and the underlying socio-political setting. It is inspired by the intuitive proposition that if centralisation has helped an authoritarian regime to remain in power by constraining political pluralism at the local level, political decentralisation – the “transfer” of power and authority to the sub-state institutions of representation and public administration – should thus stimulate a legitimation of the state by consolidating democratic local governance.