Democratisation reconsidered: The transformation of political culture in Algeria

Journal of North African Studies

Volumn 3, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 25-45

  Stadler, Constance N ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEMOCRATIZATION; HEGEMONY; POLITICAL SYSTEM; RELIGION;

ALGERIA;

EID: 0032231793     PISSN: 13629387     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13629389808718336     Document Type: Article

References (78)

1. An excellent discussion of the problematic of theoretical polarisation and consequential lacunas in the field of comparative political theory may be found in A. Barlas, State, Class and Democracy: A Comparative Analysis of Politics in Hindu-Muslim Society in Colonial India (unpublished dissertation, University of Denver 1990).
2. P.C. Naylor, 'Algeria and France since 1962: Post-colonial Decolonisation and Discourse' (unpublished paper 1990).
3. L.W. Pye, 'Political Science and the Crisis of Authoritarianism', American Political Science Review 84/1 (1990) pp.3ff.
4. This is a particularly important point in light of recent literature highly critical of 'Arab democratization'. Cf. B. Korany, 'Arab Democratization: A Poor Cousin?', PS: Political Science and Politics 27/3 (1994); he writes (p.511): 'The present process is not yet political democracy, nor even polyarchy, but at best a limited and shy process of organisational political pluralism (ta'addudiyya)' that is inherently 'defensive, truncated and tactical.' Two points may be made in a brief response: the question of the relevance of the 'defensive' genesis of the processes of democratisation; and second, the underscored need to look at socio-historical circumstances of emergence and development of democratisation in the particular nation-state to better understand the inter-relationship of new indigenous political institutions within their political cultures.
5. L.J. Canton, 'Democracy, Islam, and the Study of Middle Eastern Politics', PS: Political Science and Politics 27/3 (1994), pp. 515-16.
6. See I. Gendzier, Managing Political Change: Social Scientists and the Third World (Boulder CO: Westview Press 1985);
7. see also C. Pateman, 'The Civic Culture: A Philosophic Critique', in G.A. Almond and S. Verba (eds.), The Civic Culture Revisited (Boston: Little Brown and Company 1980).
8. See, for example, the debate between M.C. Hudson ('The Political Culture Approach to Arab Democratization: The Case for Bringing It Back In, Carefully')
9. L. Anderson ('Democracy in the Arab World: A Critique of the Political Culture Approach') in vol. 1 of R. Brynen, B. Korany and P. Noble (eds.), Political Liberalisation and Democratisation in the Arab World (Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner 1995).
10. M.C. Hudson, 'After the Gulf War: Prospects for Democratisation in the Arab World', Middle East Journal 45/3 (1991) p.414.
11. Particularly as evidenced by the adoption of the highly restrictive 1984 Family Status Code.
12. B. Cheriet, 'The Resilience of Algerian Populism', Middle East Report 174/22 (1992) p.9.
13. Middle East Report Ibid. p.11.
14. J.P. Entelis, Algeria: The Revolution Institutionalised (Boulder CO: Westview Press 1986).
15. For a fuller discussion on the implications of political 'Caesarism', see W.L. Adamson, Hegemony and Revolution: A Study of Antonio Gramsci's Political and Cultural Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press 1980) pp.196-201.
16. Hegemony and Revolution: A Study of Antonio Gramsci's Political and Cultural Theory Ibid. p.200.
17. H. Roberts, 'The Algerian State and the Challenge of Democracy', Government and Opposition (Autumn 1992) p.448.
18. D. Vandewalle, 'Ben Ali's New Era: Pluralism and Economic Privatisation in Tunisia', in H. Barkey (ed.), The Politics of Economic Reform in the Middle East (New York: St. Martin's Press 1992).
19. The term 'specific socialism' was coined by the Algerian sociologist Boutheina Cheriet (note 10).
20. Q. Hoare and G. Nowell Smith (eds. and trans.), Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (New York: International Publishers 1971).
21. See, for example: P. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. R. Nice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1977)
22. Ce que parle veut dire: l'économie des échanges linguistiques (Paris: Fayard 1981);
23. R. Williams, The Sociology of Culture (New York: Schocken 1982);
24. C. Geertz, 'Ideology as a Cultural System', in D. Apter (ed.), Ideology and Discontent (Chicago: Free Press 1964)
25. The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books 1973);
26. F. Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1981);
27. S. Hall, 'Rediscovery of Ideology', in Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers on Cultural Studies 1972-77 (London: Hutchinson 1980).
28. As in Alfred Stepan's application: 'Regime A, for example, could be hegemonic in the Gramscian sense in that there is a "consent given by the great masses of the population [as to] the general direction imposed on social life by the group". Regime B, on the other hand, may have little hegemonic acceptance of its policies in civil society, and therefore has to rely heavily on the domination imposed by the apparatus of state coercive power.' - A.C. Stepan, The State and Society: Peru in Comparative Perspective (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1978) p.72.
29. See Hoare and Nowell Smith (note 18), esp. pp.108-10.
30. B. Dillman, 'Transition to Democracy in Algeria', in J.P. Entelis and P.C. Naylor (eds.), State and Society in Algeria (Boulder CO: Westview Press 1992) p.31.
31. On the emergence of Islamic militancy, specifically the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and the military wings of the FIS, see for example S. Labat, 'Islamism and Islamists: The Emergence of New Types of Politico-Religious Militants', in J. Ruedy (ed.), Islamism and Secularism in North Africa (New York: St. Martin's Press 1994) pp. 103-21.
32. Pye (note 3) p.5.
33. M.A. Seligson, 'Democratisation in Latin America: The Current Cycle', in J.M. Malloy and M.A. Seligson (eds.), Authoritarians and Democrats: Regime Transition in Latin America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press 1987) pp.5, 6.
34. E. Hermassi and D. Vandewalle, 'The Second Stage of State Building', in I.W. Zartman and W. H. Habeeb (eds.), Polity and Society in Contemporary North Africa (Boulder CO: Westview Press 1993) p.22.
35. Roberts (note 15) p.435.
36. E. Hermassi, 'The Political and the Religious in the Modern History of the Maghrib', in J. Ruedy (ed.), Islamism and Secularism in North Africa (New York: St. Martin's Press 1994).
37. Adamson (note 13) p.178.
38. J.P. Entelis, 'Introduction: State and Society in Transition', in J.P. Entelis and P.C. Naylor (eds.), State and Society in Algeria (Boulder CO: Westview Press 1992).
39. Hermassi and Vanderwalle (note 26) p.36.
40. For a fuller discussion on the formation and role of an organic intelligentsia and the political ramifications of language use in Algeria, see J. Kaye and A. Zoubir, The Ambiguous Compromise: Language, Literature and National Identity in Algeria and Morocco (London and New York: Routledge 1990), esp. part II, pp.106-18. What emerges from their analysis of Algerian literature is the recurrent theme of cognitive struggle. In their discussion of the work of the poet Abderrahmane Lounès, for example, the authors single out that his work has been seen as a 'triumph for democracy' as 'its originality lies in the fact that his language corresponds exactly to that of the illiterate majority in Algeria' (pp.107-8, emphasis added). This paradox of democratised literature is traced to the efforts of the noted Algerian playwright Kateb Yacine, and his focus on unwritten theatre. As the authors explain, 'The best evidence for the fact that Kateb's theatrical experience is meant for the common people and not just for the elite is that whenever it is considered academically it is impossible to quote anything; it is as if his drama cut itself off from intellectuals' (p.115).
41. M. Berrada, 'The New Cultural and Imaginative Discourse in Morocco: Utopic Change', in H. Barakat (ed.), Contemporary North Africa: Issues of Development and Integration (Washington, DC: Centre for Contemporary Arab Studies 1985) p.243.
42. Dillman (note 22) p.48.
43. The debate between Algerian intellectual women on the question of women's rights, and in particular the origin of feminist oppression, is another example of the difficult ongoing struggle concerning self-identity, civic rights and the manifold meanings of the democratisation process for Algerians. Marnia Lazreg, another Algerian scholar, has advanced a view in virtual diametric opposition to Cheriet's contentions. In condemning the 'Islamic paradigm' of female subjugation, Lazreg takes an aggressive feminist stance: 'The overall effect of this paradigm is to deprive women of self-presence, of being. Because women are subsumed under religion presented in fundamental terms, they are inevitably seen as evolving in non-historical time. They have virtually no history.... The repetitive nature of the prevailing paradigm stifles the mind and dulls the senses.... However, its ultimate effect is to preclude any understanding of Algerian women in their lived reality: as subjects in their own right. Instead, they are reified, made into mere bearers of unexplained categories.' - M. Lazreg, 'Feminism and Difference: The Perils of Writing as a Woman on Women in Algeria', Feminist Studies (No. 1, spring 1988) pp.86, 94.
44. M. Cheriet, 'Islamism and Feminism: Algeria's "Rites of Passage" to Democracy', in J.P. Entelis and P.C. Naylor, State and Society in Algeria (Boulder CO: Westview Press 1992) p.15.
45. W. Jansen, Women Without Men: Gender and Marginality in an Algerian Town (Leiden: E.J. Brill 1987);
46. P. Knauss, The Persistence of Patriarchy: Class, Gender and Ideology in Twentieth Century Algeria (New York: Praeger 1987); Entelis (note 30).
47. Compare for example the position taken by Abassi as to the reliance on shura (community consensus) in The Crisis of Modern Thought and the Islamic Solution (in Arabic Azmat al-fikr al-hadith wa mubarrirat al-hall al-islami; Algiers: Maktabat Ribat 1989) to Ali Belhadj's far more conservative views.
48. Several of Belhadj's published 'position papers' are reprinted in M. al-Ahnaf, B. Botiveau and F. Frégosi, L'Algérie par ses islamistes (Paris: Karthala 1991).
49. In their identification of the nation-state as an instrument of repression, M. Seurat has argued against the very idea of proactive, programmatic policy formation on the part of radical Islamists such as Belhadj - see his L'État de Barbarie (Paris: du Seuil 1989).
50. Roberts (note 15) p.440.
51. Ibid.
52. A. Rouadjia, Les fréres et la mosquée. Enquête sur le mouvement islamiste en Algérie (Paris: Karthala 1990).
53. Labat (note 23) p.117.
54. Cf. Adamson (note 13): '...an historical bloc is in one sense an effort to infuse this hegemony throughout society' (p.176).
55. Dillman (note 22) p.45.
56. Sec 'The Democracy Agenda in the Arab World', Middle East Report (Jan.-Feb. 1992), p.5.
57. J.L. Esposito and J. P. Piscatori, 'Democratisation and Islam', Middle East Journal 45/3 (1991), p.438.
58. D. Vandewalle, 'At the Brink: Chaos in Algeria', World Policy Journal 4 (1992) pp.705-17.
59. Cf. Labat (note 23).
60. Dillman (note 22) p.40.
61. Ibid. p.38.
62. The term 'metapolitics' is borrowed and adapted from Stephen Krasner, who distinguishes the concept from 'relational politics', which denotes the 'efforts of players within an established framework to affect political outcomes'; see his Structural Conflicts: The Third World against Global Liberalism (Berkeley: University of California Press 1985) p.14.
63. Susan E. Waltz uses the concept extensively in her analysis of the impact of human rights concerns in Maghribi politics; see her Human Rights and Reform: Changing the Face of North African Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press 1995).
64. L. Garon, 'The Press and Democratic Transition', in R. Brynnen, B. Korany and P. Noble (eds.), Political Liberalisation and Democratisation in the Arab World Vol 1 (Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner 1995) p.161.
65. The High State Council replaced the office of the Algerian President in the aftermath of the military takeover in January 1992. For a discussion of the various factional reactions to the policies of the current ruling elite, see the series of articles commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the beginning of the Algerian revolution in Le Monde, 1-8 November 1994.
66. See Le Matin, 31 March, 4 and 6 April 1993. Civil participants included the leaders of the moderate Islamic party Hamas, the National Association of Imams, the Islamic Supreme Council, the National Union of Public Enterprises, the Association of the Friends of Algiers, the Culture and Progress Circle, the National Syndicate of Algerian Jurists and the Rally for Culture and Democracy.
67. In the aftermath of the President's 5 May 1994 purge of 'French school' officers and officials, one observer commented: 'Zeroual clearly shares the view of the 'conciliators', and he is ideally equipped to translate it into an effective policy.' - Roberts (note 15) p.26. While this might be an overstatement, upon consolidation of his power Liamine Zeroual made a number of attempts to reopen dialogue with Islamists whose platform permitted reintegration into the state.
68. The magnitude of Zeroual's election victory over the Islamist 'candidate' Mahfoudh Nahnah cannot be interpreted at face value. Despite a large voter turnout, a more detailed demographic analysis of factors such as urban vs. rural participation and the largesse of the Islamist boycott of what they believed to be inherently unfair electoral procedures suggests interpretations other than a 'secular mandate'.
69. Dillman (note 22) p.49.
70. This equation is being frequently used in the analysis of the decline of authoritarianism in developing areas: see, for example, Seligson (note 25).
71. Discussion of this point may be found in B. Korany, 'Arab Democratisation: A Poor Cousin?',
72. C.R. Wickham, 'Beyond Democratization: Political Change in the Arab World', both in PS: Political Science and Politics 27/3 (1994).
73. On 13 January 1995 the joint Platform for a Peaceful Solution of Algeria's Crisis (National Contract) was signed in Rome by representatives from a broad political spectrum ranging from the secular FLN to the FIS. In affirming the principles of political pluralism, universal suffrage, secular sovereignty, religious tolerance and civil rights, the roots and orientation of the counter-hegemonic coalition were publicly declared in an international forum. A complete text of the document appears in English in Mideast Mirror (London), 16 January 1995. For an in-depth discussion of the Rome Accord see H. Roberts, 'Algeria's ruinous impasse and the honourable way out', International Affairs 71 (1995) pp. 247-67.
74. Roberts (note 60) p.261.
75. E.H. Chalabi, 'Crise de la démocratie ou crise du système politique en Algérie', NAQD: Revue d'Etudes et de Critique Sociale No 6 (March 1994) p.56. As I discussed at length with one of its editors in late 1994, the very existence and continuation of publications such as NAQD is eloquent testimony to the vitality of counter-elite resistance.
76. M.C. Hudson, 'Democratisation and the Problems of Legitimacy in Middle East Politics', Middle East Studies Association Bulletin 22/2 (1988) p.165.
77. J.P. Entelis, 'Islam, Democracy and the State: The Re-emergence of Authoritarian Politics in Algeria', in J. Ruedy (ed.), Islamism and Secularism in North Africa (New York: St. Martin's Press 1994) p.248.
78. Vandewalle (note 47) pp.713, 715.