Matt Buehler | University of Tennessee (original) (raw)
Books by Matt Buehler
Syracuse University Press, 2018
Since 2011, the Arab world has seen a number of autocrats, including leaders from Tunisia, Egypt,... more Since 2011, the Arab world has seen a number of autocrats, including leaders from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, fall from power. Yet, in the wake of these political upheavals, only one state, Tunisia,
transitioned successfully from authoritarianism to democracy. Opposition parties forged a durable and long-term alliance there, which supported democratization. Similar pacts failed in Morocco and
Mauritania, however. In Why Alliances Fail, Buehler explores the circumstances under which stable, enduring alliances are built to contest authoritarian regimes, marshaling evidence from coalitions
between North Africa’s Islamists and leftists. Buehler draws on nearly two years of Arabic fieldwork interviews, original statistics, and archival research, including interviews with the first Islamist prime
minister in Moroccan history, Abdelilah Benkirane. Introducing a theory of alliance durability, Buehler explains how the nature of an opposition party’s social base shapes the robustness of alliances it builds
with other parties. He also examines the social origins of authoritarian regimes, concluding that those regimes that successfully harnessed the social forces of rural isolation and clientelism were most
effective at resisting the pressure for democracy that opposition parties exerted. With fresh insight and compelling arguments, Why Alliances Fail carries vital implications for understanding the mechanisms
driving authoritarian persistence in the Arab world and beyond.
Book Teasers by Matt Buehler
Revista de Estudios Internacionales Mediterráneos, 2020
Los levantamientos populares de 2011 mostraron la posibilidad de colaboraciones interideológicas ... more Los levantamientos populares de 2011 mostraron la posibilidad de colaboraciones interideológicas entre las distintas fuerzas políticas de oposición de los países del norte de África y Oriente Medio. Fueron especialmente relevantes los ejemplos de cooperación entre los actores islamistas y la izquierda, dos de las oposiciones tradicionales a los regímenes de la región, y que, sin embargo, arrastraban un amplio historial de enfrentamientos. Estas experiencias, no obstante, no lograron los mismos resultados en todos los países. Mientras que en algunos casos fueron exitosas, en otras se rompieron antes de alcanzar sus objetivos y, en un tercer caso, las coaliciones ni siquiera llegaron a conformarse. Si todos los países de la región experimentaron movilizaciones populares que exigían mayores niveles de democratización, ¿por qué fueron tan diferentes los resultados de las alianzas entre la izquierda y los islamistas? Esta es la pregunta que se realiza Matt Buehler en "Why Alliances fail? Islamist and Left Coalitions in North Africa", la cual le sirve de marco para realizar un análisis comparado entre las distintas coaliciones surgidas en el norte de África.
En concreto, Buehler analiza los casos de Túnez, Marruecos y Mauritania. Mientras, que en el primero, la coalición entre fuerzas islamistas y de izquierdas (la alianza entre el partido islamista Ennahda y los partidos Congreso para la República, y el Foro Democrático para el Trabajo y las Libertades) se movilizó exitosamente contra Ben Ali y desempeñó un papel fundamental en el proceso de democratización de Túnez, la coalición lanzada en Mauritania entre la izquierda y los islamistas no logró sobrevivir a las revueltas y sucumbió al anuncio de reformas por parte del presidente del país, Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz, y la convocatoria de nuevas elecciones; mientras que en Marruecos la alianza entre la Unión Socialista de Fuerzas Populares (USFP) y el Partido de la Justicia y el Desarrollo (PJD), rota ya en 2009, no llegó a producirse. Este escenario permite a Buehler formular su pregunta de investigación, "¿bajo qué condiciones tienen éxito o fracasan las alianzas entre la izquierda y los islamistas?" (pg. 4). El resultado es un análisis comparado comprensivo, basado en casi 200 entrevistas realizadas en árabe y la incorporación de nuevas bases de datos cuantitativas y, en especial, de información de carácter cualitativo. La investigación
Politics and Religion, 2020
Perspectives on Politics, 2019
International Journal of Middle East Studies
Journal of North African Studies, 2018
Papers by Matt Buehler
L’Année du Maghreb, 2020
This study examines the Islamist political party in Mauritania, the National Rally for Reform and... more This study examines the Islamist political party in Mauritania, the National Rally for Reform and Development (Tawassoul) which ran candidates in the local elections of 2006 and 2013, respectively, both as a banned party and unbanned party (after legalization in 2007). Drawing on original data collected during fieldwork, and also using Arabic interviews with Tawassoul politicians, this study compares variation in Islamists’ electoral strategies during their period of illegality compared with their period of legality. As a banned party competing in 2006, Mauritania’s Islamists focused on running candidates in districts of their traditional supporters, urban and religious voters. However, after the Islamist party gained legalization, its candidates for the 2013 elections concentrated less exclusively on urban urban areas, becoming statistically neither more nor less likely to compete in urban districts than rural ones. Moreover, Islamist candidates became statistically more likely to try and gain a brand-new, unprecedented political foothold in rural districts. This study concludes by positing a potential explanations, focusing on the party’s desire to attract support form marginalized social groups based in rural areas, especially Haratine voters.
https://journals.openedition.org/anneemaghreb/6808?lang=en
Review of Middle East Studies, 2019
To deal with the growing migrant crisis in North Africa, several states have considered granting ... more To deal with the growing migrant crisis in North Africa, several states have considered granting amnesty to foreign displaced persons (both economic migrants and potential refugees) who have entered their territories clandestinely. Morocco has taken the lead in this policy approach, launching two successful amnesty campaigns in 2014 and 2017 that regularized the status of approximately 40,000 displaced persons in total. While policymakers in many North African states increasingly see this policy as a viable solution, it is less understood how ordinary citizens view such regularization policies. Hence, this article inquires: under what conditions do ordinary native citizens support regularizing clandestine migrants and refugees? Further, what factors correlate with either higher or lower levels of public support for (or opposition to) regularization campaigns? Drawing on an original representative public opinion poll from Morocco's Casablanca-Settat region completed in 2017, this article finds that more than 59 percent of native citizens of Morocco support these regularization campaigns. Particularly, Moroccans who were wealthier, female, and ethnic minorities (black Moroccans) endorsed regularization more strongly. By contrast, Moroccans opposed regularization when they had concerns about whether displaced persons hurt the economy, undermine cultural traditions, and reduce stability.
Political Research Quarterly , 2018
Why do autocrats retain some elites as core, long-term members of their ruling coalitions for yea... more Why do autocrats retain some elites as core, long-term members of their ruling coalitions for years, while others are
dismissed in months? How and why might the type of elites retained within coalitions vary across time and different
autocrats? Although what constitutes an authoritarian regime’s ruling coalition varies across countries, often including
the military and dominant parties, this article focuses on one critical subcomponent of it—an autocrat’s cabinet and
his elite advisors within it, his ministers. Because coalitions function opaquely to prevent coups, scholars consider
their inner-workings a black box. We shed light through an original, exhaustive dataset from the Middle East of all 212
ministers who advised Tunisian autocrats from independence until regime collapse (1956–2011). Extracting data from
Arabic sources in Tunisian national archives, we track variation in minister retention to identify which elites autocrats
made core, long-term advisors within ruling coalitions. Whereas Tunisia’s first autocrat retained elites as ministers due
to biographical similarities, capacity to represent influential social groups, and competence, its second autocrat did not.
He became more likely to dismiss types of elites retained under the first autocrat, purging his coalition of ministers
perceived to be potential insider-threats due to their favored status under his predecessor.
Political Research Quarterly , 2016
Article Studies from both the developing world and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) identi... more Article Studies from both the developing world and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) identify a neutral judiciary as a key contributor to democratic governance. Since the 1990s, authoritarian regimes of the MENA have implemented reforms to judicial institutions, while they have reinforced autocratic rule and resisted democratization (N. Brown
Morocco and Mauritania's regimes differ radically in their political structures and contemporary ... more Morocco and Mauritania's regimes differ radically in their political structures and contemporary histories, yet they employed several similar strategies to secure survival during the Arab uprisings. Besides limited repression, constitutional reforms and palliative concessions, both regimes also used a distinct strategy of co-optation to aid authoritarian resilience. Targeting rural politicians with weak party affiliations for co-optation, regimes used it to build and reinforce loyalist political parties in the late 2000s. Once the uprisings began, both regimes deployed these loyalist parties to undertake counter-revolutionary activities to contain and counterbalance the power of youth and Islamist movements.
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Dec. 2014 This article investigates how public empl... more British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Dec. 2014
This article investigates how public employee unions mobilised to take advantage of Morocco’s Arab uprising. Leveraging their positions as operators of public institutions, these unionists exploited the unrest to strategically advance their interests. Two points emerge from this account of state—labour relations in Morocco. First, a spike in labour contestation began in early 2010, presaging the unrest that rocked Moroccan cities in 2011. Second, the unions secured their demands through traditional tactics of labour mobilisation—joining street protests, exaggerating material demands, and threatening negotiation walkouts. This strategy, however, became more efficacious during the Arab uprising. Fearing urban riots that had historically grown from labour protests since the 1980s, regime elites conceded to union demands, many of which they had previously rejected in the 2000s.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13530194.2015.973189
Across the Islamic world, Islamist groups have chosen to join popular protests stemming from the ... more Across the Islamic world, Islamist groups have chosen to join popular protests stemming from the 2011 Arab Spring. In Morocco, however, an exception emerged. The country’s main Islamist opposition political party – the Justice and Development Party (hizb al-'adala wa al-tanmia) – declined invitations to join demonstrations organized by the February 20th Movement for Change. Under what conditions do Islamist movements support Arab Spring uprisings? Why did the PJD choose to stay outside these protests demanding greater reform? The PJD, some scholars argue, did not support Arab Spring unrest because it is a co-opted Islamist movement. In contrast, I argue that the PJD refused to join the protests because it thought it could leverage them to its advantage. By threatening the Moroccan regime to leave formal party politics for the street, the Islamist party used the unrest to increase its bargaining power, sideline its rivals, and win its policy demands. This threat to “un-moderate” empowered the PJD to get what it wanted from the regime during the Arab Spring.
What purpose do elections serve in authoritarian states? Scholars often describe these elections ... more What purpose do elections serve in authoritarian states? Scholars often describe these elections as “safety valves” to contain opposition groups. Though we often use this safety valve terminology, it remains an abstract concept without sufficient empirical testing. In a study of the 2009 local elections in Morocco, I show how this safety-valve process played out in real politics. This article makes the case that the Moroccan regime undertook activities in an effort to weaken the Justice and Development Party (PJD), an Islamist opposition party. Using 20 original interviews and over 100 Arabic primary documents, I delineate the ways in which regime elites manipulated electoral rules and formal institutions, especially loyalist political parties, in an attempt to undermine the Islamists’ power between 2007 and 2010. I also examine how Arab Spring unrest turned back many of these efforts, empowering the PJD to secure a sweeping victory in the 2011 parliamentary elections. I conclude by discussing how scholars may reconsider safety-valve elections in authoritarian regimes as sequenced processes rather than one-time events. This case study of Morocco generates a new theory of safety-valve elections testable in other contexts.
Contact me for a copy of this article.
Summary Reports by Matt Buehler
Book Teaser, 2018
This book is a multi-disciplinary analysis of the social phenomena unfolding in the Maghreb today... more This book is a multi-disciplinary analysis of the social phenomena unfolding in the Maghreb today. The contributors analyse the genealogies of contemporary North African behavioral and ideological norms, and offer insights into post-Arab Spring governance and today’s social and political trends. The book situates regional developments within broader international currents, without forgoing the distinct features of each socio-historical context. With its common historical, cultural, and socio-economic foundations, the Maghreb is a cohesive area of study that allows for greater understanding of domestic developments from both single-country and comparative perspectives. This volume refines the geo-historical unity of the Maghreb by accounting for social connections, both within the nation-state and across political boundaries and historical eras. It illustrates that non-institutional phenomena are equally formative to the ongoing project of post-colonial sovereignty, to social construction and deployments of state power, and to local outlooks on social equity, economic prospects, and cultural identity.
Summary Report 23, 2018
Social Currents in North Africa is a multi-disciplinary analysis of the social phenomena unfoldin... more Social Currents in North Africa is a multi-disciplinary analysis of the social phenomena unfolding in the Maghreb today. The contributors analyse the genealogies of contemporary North African behavioral and ideological norms, and offer insights into post-Arab Spring governance and today’s social and political trends. The book situates regional developments within broader international currents, without forgoing the distinct features of each socio-historical context. With its common historical, cultural, and socio-economic foundations, the Maghreb is a cohesive area of study that allows for greater understanding of domestic developments from both single-country and comparative perspectives. This volume refines the geo-historical unity of the Maghreb by accounting for social connections, both within the nation-state and across political boundaries and historical eras. It illustrates that non-institutional phenomena are equally formative to the ongoing project of post-colonial sovereignty, to social construction and deployments of state power, and to local outlooks on social equity, economic prospects, and cultural identity.
book reviews by Matt Buehler
Syracuse University Press, 2018
Since 2011, the Arab world has seen a number of autocrats, including leaders from Tunisia, Egypt,... more Since 2011, the Arab world has seen a number of autocrats, including leaders from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, fall from power. Yet, in the wake of these political upheavals, only one state, Tunisia,
transitioned successfully from authoritarianism to democracy. Opposition parties forged a durable and long-term alliance there, which supported democratization. Similar pacts failed in Morocco and
Mauritania, however. In Why Alliances Fail, Buehler explores the circumstances under which stable, enduring alliances are built to contest authoritarian regimes, marshaling evidence from coalitions
between North Africa’s Islamists and leftists. Buehler draws on nearly two years of Arabic fieldwork interviews, original statistics, and archival research, including interviews with the first Islamist prime
minister in Moroccan history, Abdelilah Benkirane. Introducing a theory of alliance durability, Buehler explains how the nature of an opposition party’s social base shapes the robustness of alliances it builds
with other parties. He also examines the social origins of authoritarian regimes, concluding that those regimes that successfully harnessed the social forces of rural isolation and clientelism were most
effective at resisting the pressure for democracy that opposition parties exerted. With fresh insight and compelling arguments, Why Alliances Fail carries vital implications for understanding the mechanisms
driving authoritarian persistence in the Arab world and beyond.
Revista de Estudios Internacionales Mediterráneos, 2020
Los levantamientos populares de 2011 mostraron la posibilidad de colaboraciones interideológicas ... more Los levantamientos populares de 2011 mostraron la posibilidad de colaboraciones interideológicas entre las distintas fuerzas políticas de oposición de los países del norte de África y Oriente Medio. Fueron especialmente relevantes los ejemplos de cooperación entre los actores islamistas y la izquierda, dos de las oposiciones tradicionales a los regímenes de la región, y que, sin embargo, arrastraban un amplio historial de enfrentamientos. Estas experiencias, no obstante, no lograron los mismos resultados en todos los países. Mientras que en algunos casos fueron exitosas, en otras se rompieron antes de alcanzar sus objetivos y, en un tercer caso, las coaliciones ni siquiera llegaron a conformarse. Si todos los países de la región experimentaron movilizaciones populares que exigían mayores niveles de democratización, ¿por qué fueron tan diferentes los resultados de las alianzas entre la izquierda y los islamistas? Esta es la pregunta que se realiza Matt Buehler en "Why Alliances fail? Islamist and Left Coalitions in North Africa", la cual le sirve de marco para realizar un análisis comparado entre las distintas coaliciones surgidas en el norte de África.
En concreto, Buehler analiza los casos de Túnez, Marruecos y Mauritania. Mientras, que en el primero, la coalición entre fuerzas islamistas y de izquierdas (la alianza entre el partido islamista Ennahda y los partidos Congreso para la República, y el Foro Democrático para el Trabajo y las Libertades) se movilizó exitosamente contra Ben Ali y desempeñó un papel fundamental en el proceso de democratización de Túnez, la coalición lanzada en Mauritania entre la izquierda y los islamistas no logró sobrevivir a las revueltas y sucumbió al anuncio de reformas por parte del presidente del país, Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz, y la convocatoria de nuevas elecciones; mientras que en Marruecos la alianza entre la Unión Socialista de Fuerzas Populares (USFP) y el Partido de la Justicia y el Desarrollo (PJD), rota ya en 2009, no llegó a producirse. Este escenario permite a Buehler formular su pregunta de investigación, "¿bajo qué condiciones tienen éxito o fracasan las alianzas entre la izquierda y los islamistas?" (pg. 4). El resultado es un análisis comparado comprensivo, basado en casi 200 entrevistas realizadas en árabe y la incorporación de nuevas bases de datos cuantitativas y, en especial, de información de carácter cualitativo. La investigación
Politics and Religion, 2020
Perspectives on Politics, 2019
International Journal of Middle East Studies
Journal of North African Studies, 2018
L’Année du Maghreb, 2020
This study examines the Islamist political party in Mauritania, the National Rally for Reform and... more This study examines the Islamist political party in Mauritania, the National Rally for Reform and Development (Tawassoul) which ran candidates in the local elections of 2006 and 2013, respectively, both as a banned party and unbanned party (after legalization in 2007). Drawing on original data collected during fieldwork, and also using Arabic interviews with Tawassoul politicians, this study compares variation in Islamists’ electoral strategies during their period of illegality compared with their period of legality. As a banned party competing in 2006, Mauritania’s Islamists focused on running candidates in districts of their traditional supporters, urban and religious voters. However, after the Islamist party gained legalization, its candidates for the 2013 elections concentrated less exclusively on urban urban areas, becoming statistically neither more nor less likely to compete in urban districts than rural ones. Moreover, Islamist candidates became statistically more likely to try and gain a brand-new, unprecedented political foothold in rural districts. This study concludes by positing a potential explanations, focusing on the party’s desire to attract support form marginalized social groups based in rural areas, especially Haratine voters.
https://journals.openedition.org/anneemaghreb/6808?lang=en
Review of Middle East Studies, 2019
To deal with the growing migrant crisis in North Africa, several states have considered granting ... more To deal with the growing migrant crisis in North Africa, several states have considered granting amnesty to foreign displaced persons (both economic migrants and potential refugees) who have entered their territories clandestinely. Morocco has taken the lead in this policy approach, launching two successful amnesty campaigns in 2014 and 2017 that regularized the status of approximately 40,000 displaced persons in total. While policymakers in many North African states increasingly see this policy as a viable solution, it is less understood how ordinary citizens view such regularization policies. Hence, this article inquires: under what conditions do ordinary native citizens support regularizing clandestine migrants and refugees? Further, what factors correlate with either higher or lower levels of public support for (or opposition to) regularization campaigns? Drawing on an original representative public opinion poll from Morocco's Casablanca-Settat region completed in 2017, this article finds that more than 59 percent of native citizens of Morocco support these regularization campaigns. Particularly, Moroccans who were wealthier, female, and ethnic minorities (black Moroccans) endorsed regularization more strongly. By contrast, Moroccans opposed regularization when they had concerns about whether displaced persons hurt the economy, undermine cultural traditions, and reduce stability.
Political Research Quarterly , 2018
Why do autocrats retain some elites as core, long-term members of their ruling coalitions for yea... more Why do autocrats retain some elites as core, long-term members of their ruling coalitions for years, while others are
dismissed in months? How and why might the type of elites retained within coalitions vary across time and different
autocrats? Although what constitutes an authoritarian regime’s ruling coalition varies across countries, often including
the military and dominant parties, this article focuses on one critical subcomponent of it—an autocrat’s cabinet and
his elite advisors within it, his ministers. Because coalitions function opaquely to prevent coups, scholars consider
their inner-workings a black box. We shed light through an original, exhaustive dataset from the Middle East of all 212
ministers who advised Tunisian autocrats from independence until regime collapse (1956–2011). Extracting data from
Arabic sources in Tunisian national archives, we track variation in minister retention to identify which elites autocrats
made core, long-term advisors within ruling coalitions. Whereas Tunisia’s first autocrat retained elites as ministers due
to biographical similarities, capacity to represent influential social groups, and competence, its second autocrat did not.
He became more likely to dismiss types of elites retained under the first autocrat, purging his coalition of ministers
perceived to be potential insider-threats due to their favored status under his predecessor.
Political Research Quarterly , 2016
Article Studies from both the developing world and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) identi... more Article Studies from both the developing world and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) identify a neutral judiciary as a key contributor to democratic governance. Since the 1990s, authoritarian regimes of the MENA have implemented reforms to judicial institutions, while they have reinforced autocratic rule and resisted democratization (N. Brown
Morocco and Mauritania's regimes differ radically in their political structures and contemporary ... more Morocco and Mauritania's regimes differ radically in their political structures and contemporary histories, yet they employed several similar strategies to secure survival during the Arab uprisings. Besides limited repression, constitutional reforms and palliative concessions, both regimes also used a distinct strategy of co-optation to aid authoritarian resilience. Targeting rural politicians with weak party affiliations for co-optation, regimes used it to build and reinforce loyalist political parties in the late 2000s. Once the uprisings began, both regimes deployed these loyalist parties to undertake counter-revolutionary activities to contain and counterbalance the power of youth and Islamist movements.
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Dec. 2014 This article investigates how public empl... more British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Dec. 2014
This article investigates how public employee unions mobilised to take advantage of Morocco’s Arab uprising. Leveraging their positions as operators of public institutions, these unionists exploited the unrest to strategically advance their interests. Two points emerge from this account of state—labour relations in Morocco. First, a spike in labour contestation began in early 2010, presaging the unrest that rocked Moroccan cities in 2011. Second, the unions secured their demands through traditional tactics of labour mobilisation—joining street protests, exaggerating material demands, and threatening negotiation walkouts. This strategy, however, became more efficacious during the Arab uprising. Fearing urban riots that had historically grown from labour protests since the 1980s, regime elites conceded to union demands, many of which they had previously rejected in the 2000s.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13530194.2015.973189
Across the Islamic world, Islamist groups have chosen to join popular protests stemming from the ... more Across the Islamic world, Islamist groups have chosen to join popular protests stemming from the 2011 Arab Spring. In Morocco, however, an exception emerged. The country’s main Islamist opposition political party – the Justice and Development Party (hizb al-'adala wa al-tanmia) – declined invitations to join demonstrations organized by the February 20th Movement for Change. Under what conditions do Islamist movements support Arab Spring uprisings? Why did the PJD choose to stay outside these protests demanding greater reform? The PJD, some scholars argue, did not support Arab Spring unrest because it is a co-opted Islamist movement. In contrast, I argue that the PJD refused to join the protests because it thought it could leverage them to its advantage. By threatening the Moroccan regime to leave formal party politics for the street, the Islamist party used the unrest to increase its bargaining power, sideline its rivals, and win its policy demands. This threat to “un-moderate” empowered the PJD to get what it wanted from the regime during the Arab Spring.
What purpose do elections serve in authoritarian states? Scholars often describe these elections ... more What purpose do elections serve in authoritarian states? Scholars often describe these elections as “safety valves” to contain opposition groups. Though we often use this safety valve terminology, it remains an abstract concept without sufficient empirical testing. In a study of the 2009 local elections in Morocco, I show how this safety-valve process played out in real politics. This article makes the case that the Moroccan regime undertook activities in an effort to weaken the Justice and Development Party (PJD), an Islamist opposition party. Using 20 original interviews and over 100 Arabic primary documents, I delineate the ways in which regime elites manipulated electoral rules and formal institutions, especially loyalist political parties, in an attempt to undermine the Islamists’ power between 2007 and 2010. I also examine how Arab Spring unrest turned back many of these efforts, empowering the PJD to secure a sweeping victory in the 2011 parliamentary elections. I conclude by discussing how scholars may reconsider safety-valve elections in authoritarian regimes as sequenced processes rather than one-time events. This case study of Morocco generates a new theory of safety-valve elections testable in other contexts.
Contact me for a copy of this article.
Book Teaser, 2018
This book is a multi-disciplinary analysis of the social phenomena unfolding in the Maghreb today... more This book is a multi-disciplinary analysis of the social phenomena unfolding in the Maghreb today. The contributors analyse the genealogies of contemporary North African behavioral and ideological norms, and offer insights into post-Arab Spring governance and today’s social and political trends. The book situates regional developments within broader international currents, without forgoing the distinct features of each socio-historical context. With its common historical, cultural, and socio-economic foundations, the Maghreb is a cohesive area of study that allows for greater understanding of domestic developments from both single-country and comparative perspectives. This volume refines the geo-historical unity of the Maghreb by accounting for social connections, both within the nation-state and across political boundaries and historical eras. It illustrates that non-institutional phenomena are equally formative to the ongoing project of post-colonial sovereignty, to social construction and deployments of state power, and to local outlooks on social equity, economic prospects, and cultural identity.
Summary Report 23, 2018
Social Currents in North Africa is a multi-disciplinary analysis of the social phenomena unfoldin... more Social Currents in North Africa is a multi-disciplinary analysis of the social phenomena unfolding in the Maghreb today. The contributors analyse the genealogies of contemporary North African behavioral and ideological norms, and offer insights into post-Arab Spring governance and today’s social and political trends. The book situates regional developments within broader international currents, without forgoing the distinct features of each socio-historical context. With its common historical, cultural, and socio-economic foundations, the Maghreb is a cohesive area of study that allows for greater understanding of domestic developments from both single-country and comparative perspectives. This volume refines the geo-historical unity of the Maghreb by accounting for social connections, both within the nation-state and across political boundaries and historical eras. It illustrates that non-institutional phenomena are equally formative to the ongoing project of post-colonial sovereignty, to social construction and deployments of state power, and to local outlooks on social equity, economic prospects, and cultural identity.