Reform and the politics of inclusion in the Maghrib

EU Democracy Promotion and the Arab Spring

“…For instance, Morocco's level of socio-economic development remained comparably low throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Structural adjustment programmes adopted in response to the economic crisis in the 1980s did not generate sustainable economic growth and effectively increased socio-economic inequalities (Joffé 2009;Layachi 2000). After his succession to the throne in 1999, Mohammed VI made poverty reduction and 'human development' a priority of his reign (Layachi 2000: 28), not least because…”

“…During the last years of his reign, Hassan II started to tackle the regime's disastrous human rights record and initiated its first political reforms. Constitutional amendments in 1992 and 1996 allowed for greater pluralism and political and civil rights (Campbell 2003;Desrues and Moyano 2001;Layachi 2000) and led to Morocco's first 'alternance' in the 1997 parliamentary elections (Willis 2009: 230-231). The succession of Mohammed VI to the throne in 1999 further strengthened this impression of opening up as he promised further measures of political liberalization.…”

“…It allows them, for example, to contain Islamist opposition movements by skilfully co-opting and moderating political Islam or excluding more radical groups from the political process (Brumberg 2003a(Brumberg , 2006Entelis 2005;Willis 2006). Other strategies include 'social pacts' (Heydemann 2007a) with the broader population, where the regime promises welfare and economic inclusion in exchange for popular support (Layachi 2000), but also coercive measures to repress any attempt at contestation (Gerschewski 2013;Schlumberger 2007a). Authoritarian regimes can also seek external support for handling both international and domestic challenges to their authority.…”

“…Brumberg 2003b). While the regime successfully built a 'façade democracy' (Durac and Cavatorta 2009: 15), it ultimately relied on 'political exclusion' in order to inhibit political contestation (Layachi 2000).…”

From Peak to Trough: Decline of the Algerian “Islamist Vote”

“…Even though some efforts have been made to interpret the rise of one particular party such as the Turkish Welfare Party (Onis 1997;Akinci 1999;Gülalp 2001), Turkish Justice and Development Party (Sezer 2002), Egyptian Freedom and Justice Party (Farag 2012;Elsayyad and Hanafy 2013), Algerian FIS (Chhibber 1996), etc., there is a lack of comprehensive theoretical frameworks which could be generalized to more cases. Among the descriptive scholarships that focus on specific parties, one common perspective is that socio-economic grievances drive Islamic political parties to popularity while lack of grievance hinders their growth (Gülalp 2001;Layachi 2000;Garcia-Rivero and Kotzé 2007;Chhibber 1996). The assumption is that Islamic political parties are called for as an alternative when the there is a wide spread discontent about unemployment, housing shortages, poverty and other problems which could not be resolved efficiently by the regime.…”