A Political Economy of Youth Policy in Tunisia

Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 2017

2016

Youth” has been a category of public action in Tunisia ever since the country achieved its independence, although the discourse, values and policies associated with it have changed following the different phases of the country’s political economy. The paper provides an analysis of relevant youth policies in four interrelated domains of public action, with a focus on the period since the 90s: family, employment, migration and spatial planning policies.

Young people are very often the driving forces of political participation that aims to change societies and political systems. Rather than being depoliticized, young people in different national contexts are giving rise to alternative politics. Drawing on original survey data collected in 2018, this edited volume provides a detailed analysis of youth participation in nine European countries by focusing on socialization processes, different modes of participation and the mobilization of youth politics. "This volume is an indispensable guide to understanding young European’s experience and engagement of politics, the inequalities that shape young people’s political engagement and are sometimes replicated through them, and young people’s commitment to saving the environment and spreading democratic ideals. Based on compelling and extensive research across nine nations, this volume makes important advances in key debates on youth politics and provides critical empirical insights into which young people engage, influences on young people’s politics, how young people engage, why some young people don’t engage, and trends across nations. The volume succeeds in the herculean task of focusing on specific national contexts while also rendering a comprehensive picture of youth politics and inequality in Europe today." —Jennifer Earl, Professor of Sociology, University of Arizona, USA "Forecasts by social scientists of young people’s increasingly apathetic stance towards political participation appear to have been misplaced. This text, drawing data and analysis across and between nine European countries, captures the changing nature of political ‘activism’ by young people. It indicates how this is strongly nuanced by factors such as social class and gender identity. It also highlights important distinctions between young people’s approaches towards more traditional (electoral) and more contemporary (non-institutional) forms of participation. Critically, it illuminates the many ways in which youth political participation has evolved and transformed in recent years. Wider social circumstances and experiences are identified as highly significant in preparing young people for, and influencing their levels of participation in, both protest-oriented action and electoral politics." —Howard Williamson, Professor of European Youth Policy, University of South Wales, UK "This book is an incredible guide to understanding the role and sources of inequalities on young people’s political involvement. Country specific chapters allow the authors to integrate a large number of the key and most pressing issues regarding young people’s relationship to politics in a single volume. Topics range from social mobility and the influence of socioeconomic (parental) resources and class; young people’s practice in the social sphere; the intersection of gender with other sources of inequalities; online participation and its relationship with social inequalities; the impact of harsh economic conditions; the mobilization potential of the environmental cause; to the role of political organizations. Integrating all these pressing dimensions in a common framework and accompanying it with extensive novel empirical evidence is a great achievement and the result is a must read piece for researchers and practitioners aiming to understand the challenges young people face in developing their relationship to politics." —Gema García-Albacete, Associate Professor of Political Science, University Carlos III Madrid, Spain

POMEPS STUDIES 36 Youth Politics in the Middle East and North Africa, 2019

Youth politics in Tunisia today can be understood through a differentiation between ‘civil’ society in the form of non-governmental organizations from two ‘contentious’ cadres: ‘land/labor’ protests, on the one hand, such as Weinou el Petrol (‘Where Is The Petrol’), and ‘leftist’ movements, such as Manich Msema7 (‘We Will Not Forgive’) and Fech Nestanaou (‘What Are We Waiting For’), on the other. Membership and participation among these three forms of political participation are often shared, and activities sometimes overlap around common struggles for “Work, Freedom, and National Dignity,” constituting what Manheim labels a distinct ‘generational unit.’ But the divisions among this trifurcation of civil society are significant, particularly in the ways in which geography determines and shapes grievances. Differences in their tactical approaches, local vs. national scope, and organizational and decision-making strategies are also prevalent, and oftentimes follow, from this geographic distinction. Significantly, these differences militate against unified political action and often play into the hands of regime strategies to coopt and instrumentalize (civil), repress (leftist), and divide and conquer (land/labor). Opposition to the corporatist, elite-led model of democratization and neo-liberal mode of governance thus remains largely unsuccessful despite being repeatedly checked and vociferously challenged.

The initial call for participants for what has come to be known as the 'crisis seminar' was released in the autumn of 2012. Notwithstanding political proclamations about finding resolutions and solutions to the various connected crises-the banks, Greece and the so-called PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain), fiscal contractions, sluggish economic growth, interest rates, the reining in of public expenditure and the general climate of 'austerity'-it is young people who have continued to bear the brunt of their consequences, in terms of unemployment, loss of hope, broken transitions, undesired migrations and much more. A further impact on the young has been a loss of faith and trust in contemporary political leadership, producing new social movements such as Occupy and the indignados. Indeed, this report has been compiled around the time of the death of Stéphane Hessel at the age of 95, the French resistance fighter, concentration camp survivor, diplomat and writer, whose 2010 pamphlet Indignez-Vous! (Time for Outrage!) inspired these movements. Drawn from his wartime experiences, commitment to human rights and to public welfare systems, it sold an estimated 4 million copies. Shortly before his death, Hessel made the following observation: This is not an ideological revolution. It is driven by an authentic desire to get what you need. From this point of view, the present generation is not asking governments to disappear but to change the way they deal with people's needs (The Guardian 28.2.13) Part of the subtitle of this report is adapted from the title of a pamphlet co-authored by one of the participants at the 'crisis seminar', Søren Kristensen. That pamphlet was the product of a study of a European Commission funded programme of youth initiatives in the very early 1990s (see De Wachter, B. and Kristensen, S. (1995), Promoting the Initiative and Creativity of Young People, Luxembourg: European Commission). Though there are incessant debates about the relationships between the 'initiative and creativity' of young people and their transferability to 'enterprise and entrepreneurship' particularly, though not exclusively, in the labour market, few would dispute that measures that can support and strengthen the often self-initiated spontaneity, innovation and imagination of young people are critical for the future health and well-being of Europe. Youth work, non-formal education and youth participation are, arguably, central means of doing soaddressing social exclusion, contributing to education and personal development, and promoting active citizenship. That was, indeed, the focus of the 'crisis seminar'. The seminar took place at a time when the political establishment appeared to be increasingly framed more by administrative technocrats driving forward measures of austerity and new, naive players trading on the disillusionment of many voters than by penetrative, persuasive political analysis and debate. Hence the allusion to the 'autocrats'. At the same time, in the labour market, whatever warm words are uttered about knowledge societies, critical thinking and soft skills, there is growing awareness that mass employment in the service economy is often tantamount to a modern form of slavery. One newspaper article quoted an individual commenting on a local 'fulfilment centre' that "The feedback we're getting is that it's like being in a slave camp", while an unnamed manager at the same workplace described employees as follows: "You're sort of like a robot, but in human form". Chris Forde, a professor of employment studies at Leeds University, says that working arrangements like these-that can affect up to 90% of a company's workforce-are becoming increasingly common, across sectors such as vehicle manufacturing, food processing, hotels and

Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques, 2018

In this paper, I argue that both concepts of "youth" (arabic "šabāb") and "generation" (arabic "ğīl") are in different ways misleading and problematic when applied in empirical research on Tunisians of lower age. While they are not affirmatively used and partly even rejected by the latter, they also appear inadequate when employed as analytical categories. Instead, as I will suggest, (historical) "age cohort" is an adequate reference category that can be qualitatively described according to the shared perceptions and actions of its respective members. Thereby, the focus on self-concepts and self-narratives appears to be particularly helpful in understanding the contemporary condition of Tunisians of lower age and their social mobilization practices. It reveals, among other findings, that their movements are not primarily directed at political and social change, though conventionally assumed, but rather express a search for greater possibilities of mobility and autonomy beyond both state and societal boundaries.

Acta Politica - International Journal of Political Science, 2017

In this paper, the authors analyse non-institutionalised political participation patterns of precarious urban youth in five European cities—Cologne (Germany), Geneva (Switzerland), Kielce (Poland), Lyon (France) and Turin (Italy)—following the 2008 financial crisis. In particular, the aim is to test the validity of the ‘grievance theory’ on precarious youth. In fact, the political participation of precarious youth has been overlooked to date. The article shows that across the cities, precarious workers exhibit higher levels of political participation owing to a sense of relative deprivation with respect to their regularly employed counterparts. The authors apply a logit analysis to duly consider the local context (i.e. unemployment regulations and labour market regulations). The empirical results show that precarious youth are more active than regular workers when unemployment regulations and labour market regulations are at their intermediate level, featuring as ‘issue-specific’ political opportunity structures. In sum, the article contributes to the debate on occupational disadvantage and political participation, shifting the focus on precarious young workers.

Child and Youth Care Forum, 2005

This paper focuses on the tradition of ''radical youth work'' within western democratic societies. It argues that this tradition has been lost within the field of contemporary youth work through the appropriation of youth services by capitalist interests. Utilizing Marxist and post-Marxist analysis, the mechanisms by which capitalism has removed the revolutionary political possibilities of youth-adult collaborations are outlined and their impact on youth work practice delineated. The paper closes with a proposal for the beginnings of an alternative ''radical youth work'' based in shared risk and the transformative capacity of affect.

2015

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies

Tunisia, the birthplace of the 'Arab Spring', has emerged as the only credible story of political transition and democratic consolidation across the region. However, ongoing challenges are tempering the euphoria of the early emancipatory mantra of freedom and dignity. Nevertheless, the political transformation continues to gather assured democratic momentum. And whilst the country's political elite and leading civil society organizations have managed to avoid the chaotic, and in some cases violent, scenarios in neighbouring countries, some significant challenges remain ahead, none less important than enduring corruption, socioeconomic inequalities, sporadic but highly damaging security events, and persistent economic problems, most notably high unemployment among university graduates. Based on qualitative insights and quantitative data, this paper shows that many of these challenges are epitomized in the critical demographic cohort of youth who are disengaging from all forms of formal political activities. The paper argues that democratic gains can be fragile and will be jeopardized unless urgent structural reforms and transformative initiatives are introduced in the country to restore, even partially, the youth's capacity to influence the social reform agenda and the overall democratization process.