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Tunisian Sovereignty Index (Burke Index), 2024-2025
24.10.2025 16:38
indexThe Making of the Tunisian Revolution
10.09.2025 10:03
researchTHE ROLE OF NGOS IN CLIMATE POLICIES: THE CASE OF TUNISIAThe role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in climate policy and the green transition (conservation of biodiversity, energy transition, climate change) is becoming increasingly important worldwide. This paper examines the contribution of NGOs to drafting and implementing climate policy in Tunisia, engaging in climate negotiation processes and activities, and formulating effectiveness criteria related to climate change lobbying at the local, national, and international levels. First, we show that improved working conditions have a positive effect on NGO involvement in climate change actions. Second, greater professionalism has a substantial effect on Elaboration Resilience 2050, Elaboration of a Low Carbon Economy 2050, and climate change training, whereas the effect of the Conferences of the Parties (COPs) is marginally negatively significant. Third, exclusion from the drafting of government laws is a major determinant of involvement in climate change actions. Fourth, NGOs which cooperate with the government and receive funds from international organizations are more likely to be involved in climate change actions, climate policy, climate negotiations, and NGO projects. Fifth, NGOs working on project implementation do not have sufficient resources to undertake several activities simultaneously. Sixth, budget increases and the number of funding sources seem to be positively correlated to engagement in policy changes/negotiations and the implementation of climate projects.
“Securing the state” in post-transition Tunisia: performativity of the (authoritarian) neoliberal stateIn this article I adopt the theoretical lens of authoritarian neoliberalism (Bruff 2014; Tansel 2017) coupled with the concept of performativity (Butler 1998; Lister 2018) to analyse post-transition Tunisian security politics. In doing so, I argue that “securing the state” from discursively constructed “threats” such as terrorism, political Islamism and instability can be understood as a performative enactment of statehood in the context of reduced sovereignty associated with neoliberal deregulation as well as a crisis of legitimacy faced by successive post-transition governments in Tunisia. However, performative counterterror discourses and practices are aimed not only at “flexing the muscles” of the state. They also seek to construct moral panic surrounding certain marginalised groups and thus “justify” the roll out of repressive policing of already marginalised communities rather than merely suspected terrorists. This performance is intended to distract from some of the root causes of radicalisation in contemporary Tunisia: economic inequalities and dispossession linked to failed neoliberal deregulation. Thus, through the exploration of the Tunisian case between 2014-2021, I contend we can best understand (in)security in the MENA when adopting an analytical approach bringing together security studies and International Political Economy (IPE).