Buying time: The intellectual debate in Tunisia’s food crisis and Kais Saied’s wait-and-see strategy
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: During the recent food crisis in Tunisia, President Kais Saied adopted a wait-and-see strategy that was not aimed at rapidly resolving the crisis, but rather at buying time. The article has two main aims. First, in order to understand the apparently counterintuitive behaviour of Tunisia’s government, it calls for a politically and historically grounded understanding of food politics in the country. Tunisia’s dependent and subordinate position within an uneven international order forced the government to balance the need to ensure affordable food for the lower classes and firms’ competitiveness against stringent budgetary constraints. The impossibility of meeting both imperatives simultaneously without uprooting existing power relations helps to explain Saied’s wait-and-see strategy. Second, the article explores how Saied legitimized his handling of the crisis. Drawing on 32 semi-structured interviews with domestic and international experts, it maps the intellectual debate in the country. By focusing on two key dimensions – the domestic/international context and the contingent/structural nature of the crisis – the analysis identifies four main discursive paradigms, which are termed as ‘food modernist’, ‘food security’, ‘food sovereignty’, and ‘food regime’. By combining ideas and issues drawn from different paradigms, Saied constructed a sovereigntist-technocratic discourse that ultimately allowed the continuation of pro-market food politics.
Source: Mediterranean Politics
Authors: Gianni Del Panta, Martino Tognocchi
Institution: University of Pavia
Language: English
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Awards: G1308026955, G3687884160
OpenAlex ID: W7160630944