Plus ça Change? Observing the Dynamics of Morocco's ‘Arab Spring’ in the High Atlas

Bergh, Sylvia I.; Rossi-Doria, Daniele

doi:10.4324/9781315657868-5

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Education is still an area where Morocco is deeply suffering as a result of decades of marginalization of the rural population, especially under the reign of King Hassan II . Contrary to Bourguiba, Hassan II made the forestalling of the emancipation of rural areas, which at the time represented 60% to 70% of the Moroccan population, one of the main arms of his strategy to control this large segment of the population and keep it depoliticized and disconnected from the urban centers (Bergh and Rossi-Doria, 2015 IRD.2021.3.2(5) compared to 29.4% in the urban areas (Source: https://bit.ly/3ajTM8c). The Moroccan educational system further collapsed after the Arab Spring from 105 th /139 in 2010/11 to 120 th /137 in 2017/18.…”

Section: The Educational Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political stability and economic growth in developing economies: lessons from Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt ten years after the Arab Spring

Becheikh¹

2021

IRD

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In 2011, the Arab region has seen an unprecedented popular uprising commonly referred to as the "Arab Spring". The objective of this paper is to analyze the economic performance and institutional changes that have taken place in Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco following the Arab Spring, and understand the interconnect between the socio-political context on the one side, and economic performance and growth on the other side, in a period marked by severe turbulences, especially in Tunisia and Egypt. The analysis covers the economic, institutional, competitiveness, business environment, infrastructural, and human capital aspects in the three countries. It is based on the author's own research and knowledge of the region, the recent emerging literature on the topic, newspaper archives, and the publicly available economic and business data and reports provided by international organizations. Our analysis shows that Tunisia, the country that has ignited the Arab Spring, was the one most hit by its aftermath on the economic, social, and institutional levels. We argue that, although pure authoritarian regimes were historically a failure in the region, "Western" democracy has so far shown several limits when applied into the Arab region context as it led to neither socio-political stability nor economic growth.

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Section: The Educational Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political stability and economic growth in developing economies: lessons from Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt ten years after the Arab Spring

Becheikh¹

2021

IRD

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“…Under-and unemployment explain the large rural exodus and the growth of slums in urban areas. Social protests for better service delivery in marginalized areas have been occurring for decades, and these protests reached the major cities in February 2011, when young graduates and middle-class activists but also Islamists added political demands to the socio-economic ones (see Bergh and Rossi Doria, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democratic decentralization and local development: insights from Moroccos advanced regionalization process

Bergh¹

2021

Research Handbook on Democracy and Development

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Decentralization reforms have been undertaken around the world for about 45 years now, generating a significant body of literature. In this chapter, I will review a part of this literature and present some findings on the case of recent decentralization reforms at the regional level in Morocco. The chapter will emphasize the political economy drivers of decentralization reforms as the main explanations for the inconclusive evidence when it comes to local development.The chapter is structured as follows. This first section reviews the main definitions, typologies, drivers, promises and risk. The second section conceptualizes the links between decentralization and local development. The third section introduces the Moroccan case and reviews the main characteristics in terms of governance, finance and regional planning. It also highlights the relationship between decentralization and deconcentration reforms there and argues that the latter significantly constrains the former's potential to make a positive impact in terms of local development. The fourth section concludes. Definition and TypologyA short definition of decentralization is provided by Faguet and Pöschl (2015, p. 2; citing Faguet andSánchez, 2013 andManor, 1999): 'the devolution by central (i.e. national) government of specific functions -with all of the administrative, political, and economic attributes that these entail -to regional and local (i.e. state/provincial and municipal) governments that are independent of the centre within given geographic and functional domains'. Devolution is also known as 'political' or 'democratic' decentralization. This is because devolution usually transfers responsibilities for services to municipalities that elect their own mayors and councils, raise their own revenues, and have independent authority to make investment decisions (Litvack, Junaid and Bird, 1998, p. 6). Traditionally, the literature distinguishes between two additional forms of decentralization: deconcentration and delegation (Parker, 1995, pp. 19ff; Rondinelli, 1999, p. 2). Deconcentration is the process by which the central government disperses responsibilities for certain services to its regional branch offices without involving any transfer of authority to lower levels of government (Litvack et al., 1998, p. 4). This is often considered the weakest form of decentralization (Rondinelli, 1999, p. 2). Delegation refers to a situation in which the central government transfers respon-

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Plus ça Change? Observing the Dynamics of Morocco's ‘Arab Spring’ in the High Atlas

Cited by 2 publications

References 5 publications

Political stability and economic growth in developing economies: lessons from Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt ten years after the Arab Spring

Political stability and economic growth in developing economies: lessons from Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt ten years after the Arab Spring

Democratic decentralization and local development: insights from Moroccos advanced regionalization process

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