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Linkage, leverage and organisational power: Algeria and the Maghreb Spring

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Abstract

As Abdelaziz Bouteflika begins his fourth term as Algeria’s president, questions persist over his regime’s survival. Why has it endured while those of Tunisia’s Ben Ali and Libya’s Qaddafi have not? What has Bouteflika done differently? What sets Algeria apart? The aim of this paper is to address these questions by using Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way’s (Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) celebrated model for explaining democratisation to chart and examine Algeria’s links to European and North American countries, the amount of leverage Western governments have over Algiers, and the Bouteflika regime’s organisational strength. The paper concludes that Europe and North America have little appetite and only limited means to press Algeria to democratise and that the regime possesses strong coercive capabilities. Together, these factors have helped ensure Bouteflika’s survival.

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Notes

  1. The term Maghreb Spring refers to the wide range of events, demands, initiatives and actors that together comprise the Arab Awakening as it manifests itself in Northwest Africa.

  2. Bouteflika won over 80 % of the votes cast (Markey and Chikhi 2014, p. 1).

  3. After serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1963 to 1978, Bouteflika was one of the frontrunners to succeed President Houari Boumedienne when he died in December 1978. Then in 1989, after spending 6 years in self-imposed exile to avoid corruption charges, Bouteflika re-joined the ruling National Liberation Front’s (Front de Libération Nationale, FLN) Central Committee before being elected president in April 1999 (Lowi 2009, p. 129).

  4. The Maghreb has long been considered a special region. Located at the geo-cultural intersection between Africa, the Middle East and Europe, its countries (Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya) are bound by commonalities that distinguish them from everywhere else (Humbaraci 1996, p. 10 and Willis 2012, p. 9). As a result, none of the various African, Asian and European case studies considered in Levitsky and Way’s 2010 book completely speak to the Maghreb’

  5. For more on the reception of this work, please see the introduction to this special issue.

  6. There is an apparent inconsistency in Competitive Authoritarianism over the number of categories of links. In the subsection entitled Linkage to the West, Levitsky and Way identify six groupings: economic, intergovernmental, technocratic, social, information and civil society (Levitsky and Way 2010, pp. 43–44). Yet in Appendix III: Measuring Linkage, they identify only four categories: economic, social, communication and intergovernmental (Levitsky and Way 2010, pp. 374–375). Based on what they include, the information and communication groupings are broadly the same. This paper considers the six categories of links so as to cover the greater breadth of connections.

  7. The World Bank (2011, p. 1) values the money transfers made in 2010, at slightly over US$ 2 billion.

  8. As Ross observes, ‘many of the poorest and most troubled states in the developing world have, paradoxically, high levels of natural resource wealth’ (Ross 2001, p. 328). Moreover, ‘states with greater natural resource wealth tend to grow more slowly than their resource-poor counterparts … [and] are … more likely to suffer from civil wars’ (Ross 2001, p. 328). To these two components of the resource curse, Ross adds a third, that ‘oil and mineral wealth tends to makes states less democratic’ (Ross 2001, p. 328).

  9. More specifically, the rentier effect can manifest itself in at least three different forms. It can lead governments to use their revenues ‘to tax their populations less heavily or not at all’ in order to dampen their demands for ‘accountability from—and representation in—their government’ (Ross 2001, p. 332); increase spending on patronage, ‘which in turn dampens latent pressures for democratisation’ (Ross 2001, p. 338); and ‘prevent the formation of social groups that are independent of the state and … may be inclined to demand greater political rights’ (Ross 2001, p. 335).

  10. By 2009 Algeria’s defence spending was not only the highest in Africa but was also seven times greater than what it had been in 1992 (Perlo-Freeman 2012, p. 203).

  11. The most notable attempt to diversify Algeria’s economy was the programme of industrialising industries pursued by President Boumedienne in the 1970s (Bennoune 1988, p. 121).

  12. The restrictions President Clinton had imposed on the sale of certain weapons and other military equipment to Algiers’ in response to its questionable human rights record were quietly lifted in the wake of the terror attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon (Le Sueur 2010, p. 106; Evans and Phillips 2007, p. 255).

  13. The EU’s earlier strategies include the Mediterranean Partnership (1995), the European Neighbourhood Policy (2004), and the Union for the Mediterranean (2008) (Echagüe et al. 2011, p. 330).

  14. The Islamist insurgency which gripped the country throughout this period grew rapidly from 2,000 fighters in 1992 to 27,000 in 1994 (Lowi 2005, p. 232).

  15. The FLN was established in 1954 by nine men: Hocine Ait Ahmed, Ahmed Ben Bella, Larbi Ben M’Hidi, Mustapha Ben Boulaid, Mohamed Boudiaf, Rabah Bitat, Mourad Didouche, Mohamed Khider and Belkacem Krim (Ottaway and Ottaway 1970, p. 14n).

  16. Bouteflika stood as both the FLN and RND’s candidate in the 2004 and 2009 presidential elections.

  17. In the local and regional elections held on 12 June 1990, the FLN retained control of just 487 municipal and 14 wilaya councils compared to the 853 and 32 taken by the FIS (Hill 2009, p. 135). Then in the parliamentary election held on 26 December 1991 it retained just 15 seats compared to the 188 won by the FIS and 25 taken by the Socialist Forces Front (Front des Forces Socialistes, FFS) (Hill 2009, p. 137).

  18. Benflis did eventually stand in the election as a FLN candidate. But as a result of Bouteflika’s actions, the FLN split with part of it nominating Benflis and part of it Bouteflika (Layachi 2014, p. 146n).

  19. A high point in this pressure was the publication of the so-called Sant’Egidio Platform on 13 January 1995. The Platform was the outcome of a series of meetings between the leaders of the main opposition parties (FLN, FFS, MSP, PT and the Movement for Democracy in Algeria (Mouvement pour la Démocratie en Algérie, MDA) and those senior FIS figures not in prison at the Sant’Egidio religious community in Rome. As well as calling for the separation of powers, the re-establishment of a multi-party system, Tamazight to be given equal status with Arabic, and the government to foreswear the use of violence for political purposes, it also demanded that the ban on the FIS be lifted. Even though many of its objectives matched his own, President Zéroual summarily rejected the Platform because he saw it as a threat to his authority (Le Sueur 2010, pp. 66–67).

  20. This had been a provision of the 1989 constitution as well, but had not been enforced.

  21. The 1996 referendum was to approve a new national constitution (passed), the 1999 referendum to approve an amnesty for Islamist insurgents (Law of Civil Concord, passed), and the 2005 referendum to approve a second amnesty (Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, passed).

  22. Nevertheless the outcome of the 2009 election, which was widely questioned by both domestic monitors and opposition parties, was still accepted by Paris, Brussels, London and Washington. Of course concerns were raised and hopes for greater rigour and transparency in the future were voiced. But such doubts were made sotto voce and were not considered sufficiently serious to prevent either President Hollande or Prime Minister Cameron from paying historic and highly symbolic visits later on.

  23. The Islamist Justice and Development Party (Parti de la Justice et du Développement, PJD) and Ennahda have won legislative elections in Morocco and Tunisia respectively.

  24. The new constitution was overwhelmingly approved by Tunisia’s Constituent Assembly on 26 January 2014.

  25. The new constitution was approved by referendum on 1 July 2011.

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  1. Defence Studies Department, King’s College London, London, UK

    J.N.C. Hill

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Hill, J. Linkage, leverage and organisational power: Algeria and the Maghreb Spring. Z Vgl Polit Wiss 10 (Suppl 1), 117–135 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12286-015-0260-y

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