THE POLICE STATE LEGACY, SECURITY SECTOR GOVERNANCE AND REFORM (SSG&R) WITHIN A P/CVE* FRAMING IN TUNISIA: LOCAL OWNERSHIP AT A CRITICAL JUNCTURE

Thirteen years after the fall of the Ben Ali regime and the advancement of the “post-police state” narrative in Tunisia, international actors invested in Security Sector Governance and Reform programs (SSG&R) with a Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) framing. However, the modalities of local ownership within this set of programming are complex, given the programs' security dimension, the police state legacy, and pre-existing socio-political configurations. Through multifaceted and multi-method research, this study contends that SSG&R tends to be driven primarily by the excessive preoccupation with the security of Western ideals with little consideration of local agency, power struggles, socio-political structures, and historical legacies. Suggesting a universalism and the existence of templates in SSG&R for P/CVE. While promoted as a positive case, the SSG&R process in Tunisia remains stalled, focused on the professionalization of the police forces while overlooking citizen participation and oversight, and mechanisms of accountability. While the literature on the local turn continues to argue for more meaningful engagement with local stakeholders, their knowledge, and priorities, it remains critical mainly of how the localization agenda is implemented. Building on comprehensive research and analysis, this study concludes that local ownership in itself is a securitizing discourse that patronizes the ‘local’ by imposing Western-centric conceptualizations of it. It undermines the complexity and agency of locals and views human security as linear and secondary to hard security.