Between 1987 and today Algeria has been engaged in a conflict pitching the army against Islamist guerilla groups which has killed more than 200.000 people. During the same period, Algeria also witnessed the explosion of more than 70,000 voluntary associations, making it one of the most civic-dense countries in the Arab world. This book analyses the development of these association in Algeria and the state's attempt to retain political legitimacy. Starting from a critique of portrayals of Algerian 'civil society' as a force conducive to democratization, the study examines the changing relationship of the state to voluntary associations in both the colonial and post-colonial eras. An in-depth assessment of the social bases of the associative sphere then leads to questioning its independence from the state, and highlights the role of the associative sector in tempering the fracture between the state and those social groups that most suffered from the collapse of Algeria's post colonial political framework. Finally, the study analyses donors' use of advocacy and service-delivery associations in democracy-promotion programmes, arguing that their focus on the country's 'civil society' contributed to the state's efforts to preserve its international legitimacy. Based on in-depth examination of existing literature and extensive fieldwork conducted at a time when Algeria was still closed to foreign researchers because of the conflict, Andrea Liverani challenges the mainstream views on the political role of associations in democracy, illustrating how 'civil society' can work towards the conservation of an authoritarian order, rather than simply towards democratic change. A lucid contribution to an emerging scholarship, Civil Society in Algeria will appeal to students, academic experts, and NGO/aid practitioners.

Are new forms of activism emerging in Algeria? Can civil society effect political reform in the country? The violence between radical Islamists and the military in the 1990s led to huge loss of life and mass exile. The public sphere was rendered a dangerous place for over a decade. Yet in defiance of these conditions, civil society grew, with thousands of associations forming throughout the conflict. Associations were set up to protect human rights and vulnerable populations, commemorate those assassinated and promote Algerian heritage. There are now over 93,000 associations registered across the country. Although social, economic and political turbulence continues, new networks still emerge and, since the Arab revolts of 2011, organised demonstrations increasingly take place. Civil Society in Algeria examines these recent developments and scrutinizes the role associations play in promoting political reform and democratization in Algeria. Based on extensive fieldwork undertaken both before and after the Arab Spring, the book shows how associations challenge government policy in the public sphere. Algeria is playing an increasingly important role in the stability and future peaceful relations of the Middle East and North Africa. This book reveals the new forms of activism that are challenging the ever-powerful state. It is a valuable resource for Algeria specialists and for scholars researching political reform and democratization across the Middle East and North Africa.

The civil war in Algeria shows no sign of imminent resolution. Yet little has been written about the conflict, its various participants, and the opinions of Algerians--indeed, even about what exactly is being fought over. Rather than presenting a historical account of the conflict, The Algerian Civil War focuses on the strategies employed by the war's main combatants.

The Arab Maghreb-the long stretch of North Africa that expands from Libya to Mauritania-is a vitally important region that impacts the security and politics of Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and the broader Middle East. As Middle East scholars Frederic Wehrey and Anouar Boukhars show in Salafism in the Maghreb, it is also home to the conservative, literalist interpretation of Islam known as Salafism, which has emerged as a major social and political force. Through extensive interviews and fieldwork, Wehrey and Boukhars examine the many roles and manifestations of Salafism in the Maghreb, looking at the relationship between Salafism and the Maghreb's ruling regimes, as well as competing Islamist currents, increasingly youthful populations, and communal groups like tribes and ethno-linguistic minorities. They pay particular attention to how seemingly immutable Salafi ideology is often shaped by local contexts and opportunities. Informed by rigorous research, deep empathy, and unparalleled access to Salafi adherents, clerics, politicians, and militants, Salafism in the Maghreb offers a definitive account of this important Islamist current.

Is civil society’s influence favorable to the evolvement of democratic structures and democratic gender relations? While traditional approaches would answer in the affirmative, the authors highlight the ambivalences. Focusing on women’s organizations in authoritarian and hybrid regimes, they cover the full spectrum of civil society’s possible performance: from its important role in the overcoming of power relations to its reinforcement as backers of government structures or the distribution of antifeminist ideas.

Are Arab parties facing a predicament? Are they paying the price of repression and limited pluralism? Have they become obsolete to the benefit of other political groups and mobilization modes such as communities, tribes, “asabiyyat” or to the disadvantage of non governmental organizations, associations and social movements? While some predicted “the end of parties” in the region as a result of authoritarian political systems, doesn’t the recent transition from the one party rule towards a fragile plural party system in many countries put again party organizations in the spotlight? Most of the time, contemporary Arab parties have little mobilizing power. Yet some are crawling out of underground activities and trying their hands at the exercise of power after years of oppositions. Others, and mainly on the Islamist arena, assert themselves as first hand mobilization structures, able in certain cases to compete with regimes in power. This book addresses those research questions. Emphasizing new and unpublished data, the book’s diverse contributions tackle holistically party life in six countries that have adopted very different political pathways: Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon, Morocco, Algeria and Iraq. All the studies approach the decline or the revival of the parties from a long term historical perspective mainly with regard to political institutions in those six countries. The studies focus on the rules of party games, on the junction between “the right to politics” and “political rights”. They reveal the fine-tuning between ideological frameworks and political strategies. They raise questions about the renewal of elites, forms of militant activism, the array of parties’ political activities, particularly social ones. They examine the issue of identity construction and political solidarities in the framework of the nation state, or in contradiction with it. As a final point, the book inquires about how party life in those six countries accounts for political transformations: possible democratization of regimes, forms of domination that are played out within those regimes, the emergence of the breakdown of leaderships and finally the rationale behind mobilization and collective action. This book is published with the support of the program on Political Party Development in the Arab World (Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco and Yemen) financed by the International Development Research Center (Ottawa, Canada).This publication gathers a series of studies...

On 11 January 1992 senior military officers forced President Chadli Benjedid to resign; canceled the second round of legislative elections and annulled the results of the first round, which saw the opposition Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) achieve a major electoral victory; and imposed a year-long state of siege. Constitutional government was replaced by an army-dominated so-called Higher State Council responsive to no one but itself. In the weeks and months that followed further draconian measures were undertaken intended to subvert the incipient democratic process that Algeria had been experiencing in the several years following the deadly riots of October 1988. As part of the army's effort to regain control of state and society, it reined in the free-wheeling press, abolished the country's most popular political party (FIS), dissolved the National Assembly, and reimposed on civil society the apparatus of the omnipresent state security system (mukhabarat).

When mass protests erupted in Algeria in 2019, on a scale unseen anywhere in the region since the Arab Spring, the outside world was taken by surprise. Algeria had been largely unaffected by the turmoil that engulfed its neighbours in 2011, and it was widely assumed that the population was too traumatised and cowed by the country’s bloody civil war to take to the streets demanding change. Michael J. Willis offers an explanation of this unexpected development known as the HirakMovement, examining the political and social changes that have occurred in Algeria since the ‘dark decade’ of the 1990s. He examines how the bitter civil conflict was brought to an end, and how a fresh political order was established following the 1999 election of a dynamic new leader, Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Initially underwritten by revenue from Algeria’s substantial hydrocarbons resources, this new order came to be undermined by falling oil prices, an ailing president, and a population determined to have its voice heard by an increasingly corrupt, out-of-touch and opaque national leadership. Exactly twenty years passed before Bouteflika’s presidency was brought to an end by the Hirak protests—this book is an authoritative account of them.

This open access book takes a critical and international perspective to the mainstreaming of the Global Citizenship Concept and analyses the key issues regarding global citizenship education across the world. In that respect, it addresses a pressing need to provide further conceptual input and to open global citizenship agendas to diversity and indigeneity. Social and political changes brought by globalisation, migration and technological advances of the 21st century have generated a rise in the popularity of the utopian and philosophical idea of global citizenship. In response to the challenges of today’s globalised and interconnected world, such as inequality, human rights violations and poverty, global citizenship education has been invoked as a means of preparing youth for an inclusive and sustainable world. In recent years, the development of global citizenship education and the building of students’ global citizenship competencies have become a focal point in global agendas for education, international educational assessments and international organisations. However, the concept of global citizenship education still remains highly contested and subject to multiple interpretations, and its operationalisation in national educational policies proves to be challenging. This volume aims to contribute to the debate, question the relevancy of global citizenship education’s policy objectives and to enhance understanding of local perspectives, ideologies, conceptions and issues related to citizenship education on a local, national and global level. To this end, the book provides a comprehensive and geographically based overview of the challenges citizenship education faces in a rapidly changing global world through the lens of diversity and inclusiveness.