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Developmental Pressure and Political Limits: a Tunisian Example

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

Since the original draft of this article was completed during the early summer of 1969, the attempt at radical co-operative agricultural reform initiated in Tunisia in January 1969 has been abandoned, and its main promoter, the former Minister of Planning and of the National Economy, Ahmed Ben Salah, has been deprived of all political influence, excluded from the party, and finally arrested in March 1970.

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Articles
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1970

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References

Page 173 note 1 L'Action (Tunis), the daily French-language newspaper of the Tunisian party, published Ofl 21 and 22 September 1969 the new agricultural reform law adopted by the National Assembly.

Page 173 note 2 The charges against Ben Salah were later presented most explicitly in public speeches by the new Prime Minister, Bahi Ladgham. See in particular L'Action, 2 December 1969 and 16 January 1970, and Le Monde (Paris), 2631 March, I and 2 04 1970.Google Scholar

Page 173 note 3 See the summary published in L'Action, 14 October 1969.

Page 174 note 1 Cf. Moore, Barrington, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: lord and peasant in the making of the modern world (Boston, 1967).Google Scholar

Page 175 note 1 Tunisia has had to pay a very high price for capital in terms of dependence upon the international economic system. According to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, ‘Current Economic Position and Prospects of Tunisia’ (Washington, 1968, mimeo.), the inflow of private and public foreign capital into the country in 1967 was about $152 million, whereas the outflow of capital, in the form of interest and repayments of previous loans, during the same year was as high as about $65 million. Another measure of the dependence upon foreign capital is the foreign debt-service ratio (interest plus repayments as a percentage of export earnings). According to the same source, this ratio was 23 per cent for Tunisia in 1967 and expected to rise to 24 per cent in 1968. This places Tunisia among the most highly indebted countries in the world. Only India and a few Latin American countries seem to have a higher debt-service ratio, whereas Tanzania, for example, at the opposite extreme, managed to keep her ratio as low as 4.6 per cent in 1966 without recourse to export earnings from oils or other natural resources. In spite of official denials, it is difficult to believe that the World Bank had nothing to do with the dramatic change of agricultural policy in Tunisia after the beginning of September 1969. A clear indication to the effect that the World Bank was implicated was actually given in L'Action, 3 October 1969, where an earlier report from the Bank was quoted as severely critical of the state of agricultural reform in May and June. And L'Action, 26 and 27 October 1969, reports the ‘greatest satisfaction’ of the World Bank's consultative group for Tunisia with the new and more moderate agricultural policies applied after September of that year.

Page 175 note 2 Rudebeck, Lars, Party and People: a study of political change in Tunisia (Uppsala, 1967Google Scholar; second impression with new postscript, London and New York, 1969).

Page 176 note 1 The old name, Néo-Destour, is still often used. Destour is an Arabic word for ‘constitution’.

Page 176 note 2 Cf. Rudebeck, op. cit. pp. 258–67.

Page 176 note 3 Cf. for instance Duverger, Maurice, Les Partis politiques (Paris, 1951Google Scholar;English edition, London, 1964, cited here), pp. 17 ff.; Coleman, James S. and Rosberg, Carl C. (eds.), Political Parties and National Integration in Tropical Africa (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964)Google Scholar, introductory and concluding chapters; and Apter, David, The Politics of Modernization (Chicago and London, 1965 and 1967).Google Scholar

Page 177 note 1 Cf. the ‘reconciliation’ and ‘mobilisation’ systems distinguished by Apter, op. cit.

Page 177 note 2 In January 1970 there were 42 independent African States, of which only 14 could be classified as pure one-party states. Of the remaining 28 states, 12 had military régimes, whereas most of the rest were rather difficult to fit into any simple typology.

Page 177 note 3 Cf. in particular Almond's introductory essay in Almond, Gabriel A. and Coleman, James S. (eds.), The Politics of the Developing Areas (Princeton, 1960)Google Scholar. Almond's attempt to move beyond his own earlier thinking is found in Almond, Gabriel A. and Powell, G. Bingham, Comparative Politics: a developmental approach (Boston and Toronto, 1966)Google Scholar. The paper referred to in footnote 2 on page 178 contains, inter alia, a critique of this work.

Page 178 note 1 See in particular Easton's, David two latest works, A Framework for Political Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1965)Google Scholar and A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York, 1965)Google Scholar; and Deutsch, Karl W., The Nerves of Government (New York, 1963 and 1966).Google Scholar

Page 178 note 2 Rudebeck, , ‘Political Development: towards a coherent and relevant theoretical formulation of the concept,’ in Scandinavian Political Studies (Oslo), v, 1970.Google Scholar

Page 180 note 1 See The Arusha Declaration and Tanu's Policy on Socialism and Self-Reliance (Dar es Salaam, 1967).Google Scholar

Page 181 note 1 A good statement of the official ideology is to be found in the first part of the Plan quadrennial, 1965–1968 (Tunis 1965), pp. 12 ffGoogle Scholar. A more recent attempt to sum up its essence was made by Bourguiba in a speech delivered in Bucharest during an official Visit to Rumania in July 1968. The speech was printed in L'Action, 13 July 1968. Numerous other speeches by Bourguiba could also be cited.

Page 182 note 1 The increase of the gross domestic product during the first five years of independence barely kept pace with the population increase. Agricultural and industrial production stagnated and capital left the country. Cf. Rudebeck, op. cit. pp. 68 and 55 (note 6).

Page 182 note 2 The Swiss political scientist, Raimund Germann, suggests in a recent study of the Tunisian administration that this political mobilisation has been rather more limited than it appears in my own Party and People. Germann arrives at his conclusions by studying the state machinery, which, he finds, has gradually taken over the party, rather than the other way round. We probably have to accept a certain complementarity of ‘truths’ in this respect. See Germann, Raimund E., Verwaltung and Einheitspartei in Tunesien: unler besonderer Berücksichtigung des Genossenschaftsweseas (Zurich, 1968).Google Scholar

Page 183 note 1 Cf. my own data on the governors and the regional party secretaries; Rudebeck, op. cit. p. III.

Page 183 note 2 Zghal, Abdelkader, L'Elite administrative et la paysannerie (Tunis, 1968, mimeo.), p. 1.Google Scholar

Page 183 note 3 Sahel is an Arabic word for ‘shore.’

Page 183 note 4 Translated from Duvignaud, Jean, ‘Classe et conscience de classe en Tunisie’, in Cahiers internationaux de sociologie (Paris), xxxviii, 1965, p. 193.Google Scholar

Page 184 note 1 The term is used by Zghal, op. cit. p. 1. I think it conveys a fairly exact notion of what is being attempted in Tunisia at present.

Page 184 note 2 This view has been expressed in the opposition student paper Perspectives (Paris), and also by many of those who were tried and sentenced to heavy jail terms in September 1968 and February 1969, mainly students and teachers of the University of Tunis. Most of them were pardoned in January 1970, and the few who still remained in prison were promised their freedom before 1 June. See Le Monde, 10–16 and 18 September 1968, 23 and 24 February 1969, and L'Action, 18 and 19 January 1970.

Page 184 note 3 Cf. Rudebeck, op. cit. p. 58.

Page 185 note 1 Zghal, Abdelkader, ‘Changement de systémes politiques et réformes des structures agraires en Tunisie’, in Revue tunisienne de sciences sociales (Tunis), v, 12, 01 1968, p. 19.Google Scholar

Page 185 note 2 See, for instance, Zghal, ibid. p. 25; T. Haraguchi, ‘Réforme agraire en Tunisie: quelques aspects socio-économiques de l'unité de production,’ ibid. pp. 89–120; and Alouane, Youssef, ‘Attitudes et comportements des coopérateurs dans deux unités de production du nord’, in Etudes de sociologie tunisienne (Tunis), I, 1968, pp. 81163Google Scholar. Cf. also Rudebeck, op. cit. p. 124.

Page 185 note 3 What was attempted in Tunisia in 1969 was much more comprehensive and far-reaching than the nationalisation, in 1964, of all land owned by foreigners.

Page 186 note 1 The facts and figures that follow in the text are drawn from Zghal, Abdelkader, ‘Modification de l'agriculture et stratification en Tunisie’, in Cahiers internalionaux de sociologie, XXXVIII, 1965, pp. 201–6Google Scholar. Similar, though not identical, figures can be found for 1962 in Attia, Habib, ‘L'Evolution des structures agraires en Tunisie depuis 1962’, in Revue tunisienne de sciences sociales, III, 7, 11 1966, pp. 3358Google Scholar, and, for 1960, in H. Sethom, ‘Modification des structures agraires et industrialisation,’ ibid. III, 6, June 1966, pp. 43–64.

Page 186 note 2 Of the 16 million hectares of Tunisian territory, 9 million have been classified as suitable for agricultural use. Of these, only 4·5 million hectares have been classified as arable.

Page 186 note 3 200,000 has been more or less officially recognised as the minimum figure all through the nineteen-sixties. Zghal, ‘Changement de systèmes politiques,’ loc. cit. p. 20, mentions an estimate of about 500,000, whereas Sethom, op. cit. p. 56, suggests that about 40 percent of the male rural population are under- or unemployed. The total population of Tunisia increased from about 36 million in 1956 to over 4·8 million in 1969; over 50 per cent are under 20 years of age.

Page 187 note 1 Attia, Habib, ‘Problématique de la modernisation de l'agriculture dans le Maghreb’, in Revue tunisienne de sciences sociales, V, 15, 12 1968, p. 16Google Scholar, mentions that 80 per cent of the investment in agriculture in 1968 was of public origin.

Page 187 note 2 See E. Makhlouf, ‘Nouveau Dualisme de l'agriculture tunisienne,’ ibid. IV, March 1967, pp. 27–56, and ‘La Modernisation de l'agriculture en Tunisie,’ ibid. v, December 1968, pp. 17–53.

Page 188 note 1 ‘Rapport sur le mouvement coopératif en Turnsie’, a report submitted to the constituent congress of the new Union nationale de la coopération (Tunis, 1969, mimeo.), table 2.Google Scholar

Page 188 note 2 Makhlouf, ‘La Modernisation,’ loc. cit. pp. 52 ff., and Attia, ‘L'Evolution des structures agraires,’ loc. cit. p. 56.

Page 188 note 3 Ibid. Cf. also pp. 185ff., above.

Page 188 note 4 Makhlouf, ibid.

Page 189 note 1 Cf. Attia, ‘L'Evolution des structures agraires,’ loc. cit. pp. 45 ff.

Page 189 note 2 ‘Rapport sur be mouvement coopératif en Tunisie,’ p. II.

Page 190 note 1 Interview with Tahar Kacem, director of the Union nationale de la coopération, 3 March 1969. On 20 Septembr 1969, L'Action reported that M Kacem had been ‘called upon to assume other duties’.

Page 190 note 2 ‘Rapport sur le mouvement coopératif en Tunisie,’ p. 20.

Page 190 note 3 COOP (Tunis), 4, pp. 89.Google Scholar

Page 190 note 4 In the town of Ouardanine, there were anti-co-operative demonstrations on 27 January 1969, which caused the police to intervene, killing at least one person. See Le Monde, 29 January 1969, and L'Action, 31 January 1969.

Page 190 note 5 Ibid. 2 and 28 February 1969.

Page 190 note 6 Ibid. 18 and 23 March 1969. Since September 1969 the landowners are certainly full of hope again.

Page 191 note 1 Ibid. 31 December 1968.

Page 191 note 2 L'Avant-garde (Tunis), 3, nouvelle série, 02 1969, pp. 67.Google Scholar

Page 191 note 3 Tahar Kacem told me in March 1969 that private farmers were no longer able to get credit in the banks.

Page 191 note 4 COOP, 4, pp. 89.Google Scholar

Page 191 note 5 Plan quadrennial, 1965–68, part I, p. 17.

Page 191 note 6 E.g. L'Action, 7 and 26 November and 10 December 1969.

Page 191 note 7 ‘Rapport sur le mouvement coopératif en Tunisie,’ p. 10.

Page 192 note 1 Ce que le coopérateur agricole doit savoir: un guide publié par l'U.N.C. (French version published as a special section of L'Action, 9 March 1969). More basic texts are Loi numéro 63–19 du 27 mai 1963 (4 moharrem 1383, rélative à le coopération dans le secteur agricole) and ‘Statuts type d'une unité coopérative de production’ (Tunis, 1969, mimeo.). These rules do not seem to have been affected by the political changes after September 1969.

Page 192 note 2 See, for instance, Alouane, op. cit. and Haraguchi, op. cit.

Page 193 note 1 In the north there are usually about 80 full members on a co-operative farm of a little over a 1,000 hectares and in the rest of the country, before 1969, about 200 members on 3,300 hectares.

Page 193 note 2 ‘Statuts type’, article 34, and Ce que le coopérateur agricole doit Savoir, pp. 15 ff.

Page 193 note 3 Cf. Alouane, op. cit. and Haraguchi, op. cit.

Page 194 note 1 ‘Statuts type’, chapters III, IV, and V.

Page 194 note 2 Loi numéro 63–19 du 27 mai 1963, II: III (tutelle administrative), articles 41–2.

Page 194 note 3 Cf. also Germann, op. cit. pp. 152 ff., where the ‘basic problems and difficulties’ of the co-operative movement are analysed.

Page 194 note 4 Alouane, op. cit. pp. 118, 122, and 129.

Page 195 note 1 In addition to most of the articles already cited, and my own direct impressions, another article by Attia may be cited: ‘Structures sociales et évolution en Tunisie centrale’, in Revue tunisienne de sciences sociales, III, 6, 06 1966, pp. 538.Google Scholar

Page 195 note 2 A. Zghal, ‘Cadres agricoles et ouvriers qualifiés dans le nouveau systéme agricole,’ ibid. III, 7, November 1966, pp. 137–52.

Page 195 note 3 This impression is also emphatically conveyed by Germann, op. cit. pp. 138 ff.

Page 196 note 1 See Alouane, op. cit., Haraguchi, op. cit. and also Naccache, A., ‘Les Coopératives de production du nord: commentaire d'une enquête statistique’, in Revue tunisienne de sciences sociales, V, 12, 01 1968, pp. 141–60.Google Scholar

Page 196 note 2 See, for instance, Germann, op. cit. pp. 192 ff. and ‘Rapport sur le mouvement coopératif,’ pp. 9 ff.

Page 197 note 1 Cf. the following quotation from Zghal, written a short time before the new reform policies were announced: ‘The threat posed by the unorganised, landless peasants to the balance of society and the stability of the State means that more and more the legitimacy of power must depend upon the ability of that power to remodel the structures of society so as to integrate the threatening mass of landless peasants into the circular flow of production.’ Zghal, A., ‘La Participation de la paysannerie maghrebine à la construction nationale’ (Tunis, 1968, mimeo.), p. 40.Google Scholar