Infrastructural Power and National Identity in Morocco and Tunisia

• In Event: National Identity and its Consequences in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

The post-independence period brought wide variation in the expansion of the "infrastructural power" of the state in former colonies throughout the developing world. This local variation in the institutions of the state, is generally thought to be extremely consequential for variation in the degree to which individuals identify with the nation, as opposed to other ascriptive identities. In some countries, nationalist governments rapidly expanded services into the countryside cementing a strong sense of belonging and inclusion even in regions long neglected under the colonial government. In others, patterns of physical infrastructure established during the colonial period proved remarkably durable, heightening a sense of grievance and exclusion from the nation. In still other cases, there was a dramatic expansion of some aspects of physical infrastructure: roads, electrification, and piped water for example, but progress was far more measured with respect to other public goods like schools and hospitals. This paper examines the political origins of these discrepancies in infrastructural power and its consequences for national identity by looking at two comparable, but disparate cases of state building: Morocco and Tunisia. I argue that in both cases discrepancies in physical infrastructure inherited from the colonial period, facilitated campaigns of "punitive development," the systematic restriction of the physical infrastructure of the state for political purposes, this variation in turn had significant consequences for degrees of identification with the state.

Author

• Gabriel Koehler-Derrick, Brown University