An oasis or a mirage ? [Ressource électronique] : the impacts of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership on human rights in Tunisia / Franqois Levesque

Master of Arts : Dalhousie University : 2005

Bibliogr. p. 154-169

Taken that international actors have gradually been playing a greater role in human rights promotion, this thesis explores how successful Europe's main foreign policy instrument towards the Mediterranean, the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, has been in influencing human rights discourse and practice in Tunisia. We test a constructivist model of the norm socialization process, the spiral model, as a way to study the interplay between the Tunisian domestic state (government and society) and international actors (the European Union and the transnational human rights network). The spread of human rights norms has influenced Tunisia in that the government has strongly adopted a human rights rhetoric yet its actions are not in line with the language used. Tools set up within the EMP such as certain projects with a human rights emphasis, political dialogue and conditionality measures have not been sufficiently explored and have not persuaded Tunisia to engage in a reform process. While the transnational human rights network has pressured Tunisia to reform, the EU appears to have accepted political status quo and the push for more liberalization as the best ways to ensure stability and security in Tunisia in the immediate future.