Food Crises - II

1
Food Crises - II

• Case Studies
• esp. Tunisia

2
Readings

• "Riots in Tunisia"
• "Tunisia Bourguiba the Bread Riots"
• "Tunisia Bouguiba lets them eat Bread"
• "Tunisia From Universal Food Subsidies to a
  Self-Targeted Program"
• D. Seddon, "Riot RebellionPolitical Responses
  to Economic Crisis in North Africa"

3
Events

• January 1984 Govt cuts food subsidies ? dramatic
  rise in prices of basic food stuffs, e.g., bread
  prices rise 100
• Massive protest, beginning in poorest Southern
  regions, sweeps North into capital and coastal
  cities
• Govt responds with military repression, revolt
  spread
• Govt rescinds price increases, restores subidies

4
Government's Spin

• Blamed the upheaval on radical agitators
• maybe Libyan-backed,
• maybe Moslem fundamentalists
• This explanation was repeated in foreign press to
  some degree, however....

5
Analysis 1 Press, later Govt

• The press fairly quickly pointed out, and
  eventually the government had to admit, that the
  uprising was a "bread riot"
• Some tried to blame the govt and let the
  IMF/World Bank off the hook, but the subsidies
  cuts were in fact elements of an austerity
  program imposed by those institutions as
  conditions of debt roll-over

6
Analysis 2 Press, Seddon

• To some degree press reports recognized economic
  backdrop to uprising, i.e.,
• decline in tourism
• reduction in oil revenues due to Reagan recession
• reduction in Arab foreign aid due to same cause
• Seddon probes this as much as he can after
  debunking govt efforts to blame outsiders

7
Seddon - I

• High unemployment in South of Tunisia,
• partly due to govt neglect of agricultural
  development
• Also due to drought and catastrophic date harvest
• Wage increases for industrial workers in North
  increased income differentials
• Inflation had undercut real wages even before
  price increases
• Lower revenue from oil and phosphate exports

8
Seddon - II

• Decline in foreign tourism income
• Rising grain imports
• Rising trade deficit more generally with ? M,
  slower X
• IMF/World Bank pressure to reduce govt deficit
  via cuts in expenditures ? consumption taxes
  (cigarettes petrol)
• Collaboration of middle class trade union
  leadership with govt policies

9
Probing Deeper - I

• Behind neglect of agriculture
• we find development strategy based on cheap labor
  for manufacturing which requires rural-urban
  migration to keep wages low
• Alongside drought
• we find lack of offsetting govt efforts to
  subsidize income or agriculture for same reason
• "Natural" phenomenon converted into social one
• Rising Food imports?
• result of struggle for more wages, stagnation in
  Ag.

10
Probing Deeper - II

• Wage demands in cities partly a function of
  foreign wage possibilties
• Tunisian workers migrate to France as well as
  Libya and send/bring back
• money
• new expectations
• new experiences of struggle
• Global depression which reduced oil and phosphate
  revenues was brought on by US policy in response
  to "wage-push inflation"
• Question to what degree were Tunisian workers
  part of cycle of struggle that produced this
  policy response?

11
Probing Deeper - III

• Drop in tourist receipts
• result of European recession?
• result of perceptions of instability?
• Slowdown in industrial growth
• result in European recession?
• result of wage increases that undercut profits?
• Strike wave 1977-78? Results?

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