Free Us from Power: Governmentality, Counter-conduct, and Simulation in European Democracy and Reform Promotion in the Arab World

Abstract

For over a decade, Arab governments have been enrolled into EU initiatives aimed at promoting democratic reform in the region. Common to these initiatives are their claims to be uninvolved with power and external imposition, professing instead to be based on voluntary notions of local demand and ownership. This article challenges this core liberalist assumption of the absence of power. Drawing on Foucault's reflections on liberal governmentality, it shows how power operates through a technology of “contractualization” which produces a distinct Arab subjectivity in the form of a lack (of reform will). Yet governing technologies are never complete, and possibilities of reversal and resistance always exist. In the second part, the article engages with the emerging debate on Foucault's concept of counter‐conduct, opening up the concept to more subtle and less spectacular forms of resistance. Drawing inspiration from Derrida's analysis of (in)hospitality and Baudrillard's logic of simulation, the article shows how the liberal assumptions of “invitation,” “ownership,” and “gradualism” inherent in European reform initiatives enable resistance in the form of: (i) selection of entry; (ii) setting conditions; and (iii) simulating reform.

EU security sector reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Reform or resist?

“…Similar analyses have been developed in the literature on the role of the EU in its neighborhood. For instance, Malmvig (2014) has used this framework to examine the EU's democracy promotion efforts in the Arab world. Cebeci (2016) has similarly studied how the Turkish ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has countered the EU's quest for political reform through overt and covert ways of resistance whilst pursuing the discourse and practices of accession to the EU.…”

“…Jackson (2011) adds that by following a liberal peace agenda, SSR contributes to a redefinition of state sovereignty "from being an international absolute to a variable one based on state capacity or a state being sovereign only in so far as it is capable of carrying out certain functions" (p. 1818). Implicit in this understanding is also the idea that there is no end point to this "becoming a capable state," that this is always a matter of degrees, of "progress," a gradual process (on gradualism, see also Malmvig, 2014). Technologies of power such as monitoring and benchmarking help in determining how much progress has been achieved (e.g., in the annual EU Enlargement Reports).…”

“…In Malmvig's (2014) words, "they resist in part by working inside European technologies and discourses-resisting not by being 'against,' but by making use of the liberalist discourse" (p. 296) of European principles, ownership, and gradualism deployed by the EU's governmentality. As stated by one of the interviewees (#12), "We haven't seen active resistance [from local actors].…”

“…As with the previous forms of resistance, in this case simulation operates within the EU's discourses and technologies by utilizing the discourse of gradualism and progress that characterizes the EU's engagement with its neighbors. In the case of EU democracy promotion policies, for instance, Malmvig (2014) argues that [s]ince political reform is presumed to be an incremental, slow and uneven process, European reform managers have immense difficulties establishing if a given Arab government is in the process of genuinely undertaking reform or if they are, in fact, resisting governing technologies by pretending to undertake reform. (p. 305) Similarly, the ambiguity inherent in the gradual process of enlargement and the vague nature of conditionality in the area of SSR (see section on European principles) allow Bosnian policy-makers to simulate reforms or at the best of times to apply them in a selective manner (see also Cebeci, 2016;Malmvig, 2014).…”

“…In the case of EU democracy promotion policies, for instance, Malmvig (2014) argues that [s]ince political reform is presumed to be an incremental, slow and uneven process, European reform managers have immense difficulties establishing if a given Arab government is in the process of genuinely undertaking reform or if they are, in fact, resisting governing technologies by pretending to undertake reform. (p. 305) Similarly, the ambiguity inherent in the gradual process of enlargement and the vague nature of conditionality in the area of SSR (see section on European principles) allow Bosnian policy-makers to simulate reforms or at the best of times to apply them in a selective manner (see also Cebeci, 2016;Malmvig, 2014). For instance, the annual European Commission progress reports tend to refer to more vague terms such as "meaningful progress" or "some progress," while avoiding where possible references to the lack of progress or no progress (see, for instance, European Commission, 2016).…”