Beyond Democracy: Rhetorical Values and Colonial Continuities in the EU's Engagement with Tunisia Since 2011

This article critically analyzes the EU’s involvement in Tunisia after 2011, by placing it in a context of imperial continuity through a decolonial approach. It challenges the notion that it is the current “dissensus” within and outside Europe that renders EU external instruments less effective, and interrogates both their legitimacy and effectiveness tout court, especially in terms of their normative character and their capacity to promote or sustain democracy. Against widespread tendencies within mainstream social sciences to crystallize phenomena in space and time, decolonial approaches overcome these barriers, facilitating a relational understanding. Methodologically, they transcend the boundaries of nation-states, highlighting transnational dynamics that are often concealed by methodological nationalism. Theoretically, they bring to light both epistemic and material imperial continuities, the latter intersecting strands of Marxist theories, especially ones centering the Global South. Decolonial approaches thus help reveal how “autocratization” processes in countries like Tunisia do not represent ruptures in the system, but developments within it, often shaped and sustained by foreign institutions, actors and/or policies, including those located within or pursued by the EU. Against the dominant framing of the EU as an inherently “force for good”, this article will draw on data produced through seven months of fieldwork in Tunisia to highlight two main insights: on the one hand the EU appears to be promoting a narrowly neoliberal conception of democracy; on the other, its normative claims are contradicted by the support extended to non-democratic actors, policies and practices that serve EUrope’s own strategic interests.