Economic reform and Tunisia's hegemonic party: the end of the administrative elite.

AuthorKing, Stephen J.
PositionBeyond Colonialism and Nationalism in North Africa

During a period of accelerated economic liberalization, from 1986 until today, Tunisia's hegemonic party abandoned its representation of a broad segment of society and became a vehicle representing the interests of the rural bourgeoisie and urban manufacturers, many of whom had been rural notables. In addition, an increasingly globalized economy and stagnant state-led growth strategies within Tunisia led to constraints on state autonomy as international forces pressed for increased market reforms. An Islamist movement serves as the strongest organized resistance to the hegemonic party.

In the four decades since Tunisian independence in 1956, a single political party, under different names and leaders, has monopolized the political system. I interpret Tunisia's state party historically as a political movement led by an administrative elite(1) that was capable of resisting social forces both domestically and internationally in the sense that state policy reflected their needs and preferences. These state authorities had a strong influence on socioeconomic change in post-independence Tunisia. The administrative elite is defined here as the provincial elites, especially those from the Sahel, who in the 1930s took over national leadership in Tunisia from the traditional elites in urban areas. The new administrative elite, mostly embodied in the Neo-Destour party, were characterized by their modern, usually French, education and a commitment to creating a modern economy with greater social equity. Their mission was to transform Tunisia economically, socially, and technologically. Among the administrative elite, there have been differences in strategies to attain an industrialized economy. They have tried both a state state-led growth strategy and liberal economic policies to reach their goal.

The administrative elites autonomy, however, has always been vulnerable to one powerful social group: the rural bourgeoisie. The post-independence policy process has frequently reflected the elite's vulnerability to the vested interests of the rural bourgeoisie. Until relatively recently, however, the administrative elite attempted to use their control, first of the nationalist movement and then of state patronage and state policy, to create an umbrella political organization that attempted to respond to all constituencies in Tunisia, while still formulating an overall development strategy according to their own ideologies and goals. Their actions led to a populist nationalist movement and a populist political party, the Neo-Destour. At independence, the administrative elite led by President Habib Bourguiba, took control of the political apparatus of the state. Party leaders and the bureaucratic establishment form the membership of the administrative elite.

The inability of a single party to represent all social groups in Tunisia even modestly well was apparent by the 1970s, but the current identity of the state party was solidified during the economic reform process between 1986 and 1996. The party's increasing link with the rural bourgeoisie and its urban offshoot as well as its ties to transnational capital ends the era of an administrative elite in Tunisia that was willing and able to challenge the interests of the most powerful social forces within and outside of the country. Any pretense of a populist party that represented all Tunisians has ended. In terms of the literature on Tunisian and North African politics, international political economy variables and class analysis probably deserve more attention than the earlier emphasis on political elites, regime types, and ideology.(2)

During economic reform, the state has remained authoritarian leaving few options in the formal political system for the abandoned constituencies of the once populist party. This dire political picture is partially alleviated by relatively strong overall economic growth rates during the structural adjustment era(3) and by the civil war in neighboring Algeria which the current regime uses to justify a frozen political system. The regime has banned the participation of the only opposition political party with significant public support, the Islamist Al-Nahda party, and smothers the development of any other significant political threat, while society continues to rapidly change politically and economically.(4)

To maintain political coherence and stability the regime appears to be relying on market reforms to produce rapid economic growth (with little regard to equity in the distribution of benefits), and has assumed an adversarial position against an Islamist movement through use of repression. While Tunisian state authorities fundamentally reorganize the distribution of economic and political assets in favor of more dominant social groups, no political parties representing the interests of the peasantry or labor have been allowed to develop.

THE NEO-DESTOUR AND MODERNIZATION THEORY

A generation of scholars, largely working within the modernization school, provided a base for an understanding of Tunisia's single (now hegemonic) party system. Modernization theory provided a liberal, pluralist interpretation of change. There was an optimism in this approach which in most versions predicted a nonviolent trajectory culminating in liberal democracy.(5) Developed partly as an alternative to Marxist approaches, political change was not tied to economic forces. Also very little was done to integrate the realms of domestic and international politics.

In the Tunisian version of modernization theory, the Neo-Destour "became Tunisia's key instrument of modernization."(6) In this line of thinking, a single party with a quasi-monopoly on political power could lead the march toward modernity and liberal democracy by "maintaining national cohesion and mobilizing the people along national and modernist lines while exercising a minimum of constraint and allowing a reasonable amount of discussion."(7) Political change entails an elite committed to modernization. This elite maintains national cohesion, mobilizes and educates the masses, and transforms values and structures. Eventually, the elite moves aside for the full operation of liberal democracy.(8) I differ with this linear, relatively non-conflictual view of change by asserting that in the course of the evolution of Tunisia's hegemonic party system a transformed rural bourgeoisie has overtaken the administrative elite, and for various reasons, the international arena has become central to economic policy making.

If they underestimated the vulnerability of the administrative elite to powerful social forces and missed in the predictions of the trajectory of the political system, modernization theorists were absolutely correct to be impressed by the dynamic group of new elites from the provinces that arose in the early part of the century to take over the nationalist movement from the stagnant, traditional urban elite. The Neo-Destour, founded in the 1930s by Habib Bourguiba, and his colleagues began as a break from the Destour party which was the first to challenge French colonial role. The Destour was essentially a party of Tunisia's traditional leadership based in the capital, Tunis: the administrators, religious leaders, and notables of the Ottoman Beys. Carl Brown described the Destours, a distinctive social class, which emerged to lead Tunisia's first national political party just after the end of World War I:

Like medieval Islamic society in general, this class was urban centered, but it was not the instrument of a commercial, industrial, or any other kind of revolution. It included the following: the religious leadership or ulema; the religio-judicial leadership, or muftis, caids and aduls (notaries); prominent merchants; leaders of the most respected crafts; and the informal leaders of various quarters of the cities. This traditional group was the most self-contained and thus the least open to western influence.(9)

Ultimately the Old Destour failed to mobilize popular support from rural areas in their struggle against the colonial regime. Popular nationalism could not be accommodated within the framework of the first nationalist organization. Instead the Destour was supplanted in the 1930s by the Neo-Destour. This party, largely, had its power base in the provinces.

The nationalist movement in Tunisia was captured by a new generation of elites who had little in common with the leadership of the Old Destour. The Neo-Destour leadership was comprised of a new intelligentsia of modest social origins, educated in Franco-Arab schools, especially Sadiki College. Founded by the Islamic reformer, Khaireddine, prime minister of Tunisia from 1873-1877, the mission of Sadiki College was to bring Western education to Tunisia in order to meet the challenge of the European powers.

Sadiki College served as an important channel to elite status for bright young people from rural areas. These new elites mastered French, learned to negotiate the colonial administration, and frequently went to France for advanced education in one of the liberal professions. The new party leaders were distinct due to the premium they placed on intellectuality in social leaders,(10) organization and activism in all sectors and areas of the country, and social control in a centralized hierarchical structure.

The most important Sadiki College graduate was Habib Bourguiba, the son of a low ranking government functionary in the Sahel town of Monastir. Trained in political science and law in France, Bourguiba became the founding father of modern Tunisia and the charismatic leader of the nationalist movement. He was deposed in 1987. Other French-educated founders of the party included Mahmoud Materi, Taher Safer, and Bahri Guiga, who all returned from France in the late 1920s. The group originally participated in the Destour party, but early on it became apparent to this young cadre that a nationalist movement would require more than...

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