The European Union and neoliberal governmentality: Twinning in Tunisia and Egypt

Abstract

As a response to the Arab uprisings that started in 2010, the European Union has emphasised, more determinated than ever, the urgency of inclusive and sustainable socio-economic development in the Arab region. The central objective of this article is to understand the nature and operation of European Union support for development following Arab mass movements. More specifically, it examines the European Union's Twinning instrument in Egypt and Tunisia through a neoliberal governmentality framework, with a major focus on visualisations, technologies and subject formation. This approach enables us to observe the application of an agenda through which Twinning intervenes into non-economic domains of governance in the target countries and aims at shaping these spheres by economic rationalities and techniques. By constructing change around local governance capabilities, the Twinning programme acts upon individual skills, institutional arrangements and relationships, deploys benchmarking techniques, and empowers subjects and government behaviour in order to bring conduct to certain economic logics and exercises. The outcome is the rendering of Tunisian and Egyptian socio-economic development open to enterprise-based, calculative and professionalised operations that make local conditions serviceable to neoliberal governing patterns, linkages and practices of business, capital production and investment.

Ordoliberalizing the Neighbourhood? The EU's Promotion of Regulatory Reforms in Egypt

“…It is argued that ordoliberal principles and practices are an integral part of the EU's promotion of regulatory reforms in ENP partner countries. Insofar as it differs from the view of the EU as a neoliberal actor suggested in recent literature (Isleyen, 2015;Tagma et al, 2013), this finding identifies a distinctive contribution of the EU to the process of neoliberal restructuring. On the other hand, this paper also brings into dialogue two bodies of literature that have hitherto developed in isolation, focusing respectively on EU's regulatory externalization (Damro, 2012;Young, 2015) and on the role of institutional isomorphism in EU's external relations (Bicchi, 2006).…”

(Not) Learning from the Past? The Diffusion of the EU’s Rural Development Policy in its Neighbouring Countries

“…63 After the Arab revolts the EU's Twinning programmes continue to support a discourse that assist the reproduction of such neoliberal practices. 64 ENPARD enriches this narrative by highlighting the poor entrepreneurial skills of small farmers as one of the main reasons for increasing environmental degradation in the region. 65 The programme claims that it will promote eco-responsible practices and procedures; 66 and will 'focus on 'sustainable management of territorial resources'.…”

Banking on ordoliberalism? Security, stability and profits in EU’s economic reform promotion in Egypt

“…15 Interview with ECB resident programme coordinator, Cairo, June 2010. 16 This move towards simultaneously governing from a distance and increasingly shaping all aspects of social life is reminiscent of Foucault's work on governmentality and biopolitics (Işleyen, 2015). With specific reference to economic reform promotion, the hypothesis of the EU as promoter of 'postmodern ordoliberalism' has recently been advanced (Serres, 2016).…”