Algerian Democracy: An Oxymoron or Usurped Opportunity?

ABSTRACT

The Algerian state represents a contradictory mixture of opportunity and failure born of a lengthy colonial past, a violent revolutionary independence struggle, and a failed effort to institutionalize a legitimate system of rule since independence in 1962. As the two authors make clear, both the anti-colonial struggle and the post-independence effort at institution-building were usurped by a military-dominated elite class whose political socialization and insurrectional experience prioritized centralized authority over democratic decision-making. The “curse” of ample hydrocarbon resources reinforced this authoritarian impulse over the democratic imperative resulting in an enduring combat between an autocratic state and a democratically oriented civil society. Both books highlight the macro and micro dimensions of this failed experiment in socialist engineering guided by an autocratic military-industrial complex. Each effort at populist revolt whether in 1968, 1988, 1992, or 2019, has been brutally repressed by a determined army high command. Despite a surface appearance of a stable and ordered political entity, Algeria today remains more political precarious and economically insecure than ever before.