Brothers without rights? Forced migration governance at critical junctures of state formation in Tunisia

How is forced migration governance affected at critical junctures of state formation? Do such situations of high uncertainty trigger change or do path dependencies still continue? Drawing on interviews and archival material from Tunisia between 1950 and 2020, this paper compares how the Tunisian state has dealt with the arrival of refugees from neighboring countries during two crucial junctures of state formation: its independence in 1956 and its democratic opening since 2011. During the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962), nearly 200,000 Algerians fled to Tunisia, where they were welcomed as prima facie refugees in a spirit of brotherhood between two independence-seeking nations. Multiple local, national and international actors provided short-term support to Algerian refugees and later organized their return – making it the UNHCR’s first mission in Africa. Similarly, since the beginning of the Libyan conflict in 2011, an estimated 500,000 Libyan refugees arrived in post-revolutionary, democratizing Tunisia. While they initially received a warm welcome, especially from families in Tunisia’s south, the Tunisian state has been reluctant to provide humanitarian assistance and residence permits to Libyans. Despite significant differences across both cases, important path dependencies stand out, such as the absence of a crisis discourse surrounding large-scale displacement, the prevalence of a no-camp policy or solidarity narratives without legal implications. These insights suggests that to understand forced migration governance at critical junctures of state formation, we need to analyze whether accommodating a refugee group is perceived as instrumental for – or a risk to – the political transformation process.