Synopses & Reviews
This is an up-to-date and insightful account of modern politics in three crucial North African countries--Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, known together as the Maghreb. It examines the ways in which the outward forms of democratic governance can be emptied of content, specifically through a conjunction of a power-hungry leader and a quiescent civil society that allows him to wield this power.
Synopsis
"The painstaking research, rigorous analysis and clearly defined conclusions make this book an excellent teaching tool, widely relevant beyond Tunisia and the Maghreb."--Clovis Demers, President, Human Rights Internet This is an up-to-date and insightful account of modern politics in three crucial North African countries--Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, known together as the Maghreb. It examines the ways in which the outward forms of democratic governance can be emptied of content, specifically through a conjunction of a power-hungry leader and a quiescent civil society that allows him to wield this power.
Synopsis
This book provides an analytically original and empirically rich study of the Maghreb's highly erratic encounter with democratization in recent years.
It is an illuminating study of the complex and very diverse encounters between civil society and the authorities in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, as opposition has built up in each society and those in power have confronted the pressures for democratization.
The author provides a significant contribution to political sociology's understanding - via the development of a dynamic systems model that incorporates the existence of fundamental conflict - of how democratic institutions can become institutionalized, and of the constant possibility of any democratic transition being reversed.
Synopsis
This is an up-to-date and insightful account of modern politics in three crucial North African countries -- Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.
About the Author
Lise Garon is Professor of Political Communication, Laval University, Quebec. She chairs the International Political Science Association's Research Committee on Political Processes in North Africa.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface by Clovis Demers
Introduction
Part 1: The Public Arena in the Maghreb: Convergences and Divergences
Setting the Stage
1. Tunisia: The Domination of Plato's Cave
The Tunisian Transition to Democracy Did Not Take Place
'I am the State'
A Police State
A Legal System in Captivity
Alternation in Office Impossible
2. Tunisia: The Submission to Plato's Cave
Tunisian Civil Society before Its Collapse
The Fatal Alliance
The Destruction of Al-Nahdha
The Undermining of the Tunisian League for Human Rights
3. Tunisia: Locking Up Plato's Cave
Disadvantaged Media
How the Tunisian Media Were Neutralized
Survival Strategies
The Happy Agenda
Relations with the Foreign Press
Banning International Human Rights Monitoring
4. Algeria: The Children of Jocasta
The Birth of Civil Society
The Oedipus Temptation
The Unfinished Business of Remaking the Public Arena
The Press and Its Role in Political Developments
Between Open Dissidence and 'Moderate' Opposition: Prospects for a Rebirth
5. Morocco: The Slow Ascent of Sisyphus
The Amaoui Affair
A Long Pluralistic Tradition
A Moroccan Model for the Construction of a Civil Society
Facilitating Factors and Obstacles
6. Conclusion: The Public Political Arena in the Maghreb
Part 2: The Aftermath of Dangerous Alliances: Transformations and Continuities in the Political Arena
Between Cries and Whispers
7. Happy Tunisia: The Authorized Account
A Dream for Tourists and Foreign Investors
The Security Mania
The Show Democracy: Arguments and Techniques of Stage-Setting
The Quest for International Approval
Propaganda Achievements
8. The International Press and the Algerian Guardians of Democracy
The Rhetoric of Objectivity
How the International Press Took Sides in the Algerian Conflict
The Rebuilding of a Pluralistic Public Forum by the International Press
9. Tunisian Dissident Information Networks
Unarmed Prophets
In European Circles
Internal Dissidence
Discrediting Dissidents
The State of Tunisian Dissidence
10. Islam: Dismantling a Clich‚
Propositions:
1. Religion is a Marginal Theme in the Press
2. Islam is not the Explanation for Everything
3. Culturally, Islam is also a Product of Maghreb's Political Systems
11. Freedom or Tyranny? Perspectives in the Maghreb
Algeria
Tunisia
12. Toward a Sociology of Citizenship in a Globalizing World
A Political Systems Model
The Classical Democratic Model
A Dynamic Conflictual Model of Democracy
Democratic Transitions are Reversible
The International Media's Connivance with Dictatorships
Reversing the Spiral of Silence
Bibliography
Index