Civil Society in Algeria

Activism, Identity and the Democratic Process

Jessica Ayesha Northey

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781786725356
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: History

Are new forms of activism emerging in Algeria? Can civil society effect political reform in the country? The violence between radical Islamists and the military in the 1990s led to huge loss of life and mass exile. The public sphere was rendered a dangerous place for over a decade. Yet in defiance of these conditions, civil society grew, with thousands of associations forming throughout the conflict. Associations were set up to protect human rights and vulnerable populations, commemorate those assassinated and promote Algerian heritage. There are now over 93, 000 associations registered across the country. Although social, economic and political turbulence continues, new networks still emerge and, since the Arab revolts of 2011, organised demonstrations increasingly take place. Civil Society in Algeria examines these recent developments and scrutinizes the role associations play in promoting political reform and democratization in Algeria. Based on extensive fieldwork undertaken both before and after the Arab Spring, the book shows how associations challenge government policy in the public sphere. Algeria is playing an increasingly important role in the stability and future peaceful relations of the Middle East and North Africa. This book reveals the new forms of activism that are challenging the ever-powerful state. It is a valuable resource for Algeria specialists and for scholars researching political reform and democratization across the Middle East and North Africa.

PART I

CIVIL SOCIETY AND DEMOCRACY PROMOTION IN THE ARAB WORLD

CHAPTER 1

CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE ARAB WORLD AND ALGERIA

Political concepts such as civil society can travel across cultures, but they are only meaningful if rooted in the historical experiences which shape the collective memory of the societies to which they are applied. Recurrent violent confrontations, experienced in almost all post-colonial regimes, have undermined the potential for building sustainable civil society. Such confrontations, experienced across the Middle East and North Africa, were described by Mohammed Arkoun as ‘politically-programmed collective tragedies’.¹ With the challenges of deconstructing the colonial state, nation-building in the Maghreb has not always permitted the existence of autonomous spaces.² Today, faced with contemporary realities of rapid urbanisation, growing social exclusion and the precarious position of the middle classes, the difficult task of building civic culture is left to citizens, under the control of often unaccountable institutions. Across the Middle East and North Africa, societies have had similar political trajectories. Many have undergone liberalisation processes, whilst witnessing a strong military dominance over the state. Longevity of their rulers, violent internal conflict, failed democratic transition and incomplete reconciliation processes characterise many states. High unemployment and rural poverty exacerbate frustrations with state institutions. Lack of accountability in political life is a grievance for citizens in Algeria and across the Arab world. Although Algeria was heavily influenced by over a century of French colonial laws, and Algerians have ongoing cultural, personal and political ties with France, today the challenges facing Algerian citizens are far closer to those facing citizens elsewhere in the Arab world.

Despite challenging conditions across the Arab world, citizen activism and political engagement have increased. Reasons for this include advances in modern technology, communications and transportation, leading to increased awareness of governance failures and human rights abuses.³ Non-state actors have come to the fore, as ‘a motor for, as well as a consequence of, social and political transformation’ and this trend has been particularly prominent in the Middle East and North Africa.⁴ So how did this new associational phenomenon develop across the Arab world and what does it mean for political life? What role did these organisations and their members have in the Arab revolutions? How did civil society grow in a context of violence and how have these societal transformations been interpreted? This chapter will explore such questions, including the nature of civil society and the expectations, theories and assumptions about its role in political change and democracy. It will, first, present recent figures about the number of associations in different countries across the Arab world. Second, it will explore assumptions about civil society and democracy in the Middle East and North Africa, questioning their purported limitations in authoritarian settings and the assumptions made about the Algerian context in particular. Finally, it will explore the role of associations in post-conflict Algeria, in terms of reconciliation and rebuilding the peace.

Associations in the Arab World

Across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) there has been a surge in registered associations since the 1990s. Nowhere has this been quite as pronounced as in Algeria, where, in 2017, the Ministry of Interior reported the existence of 109,000 associations, even though half of these were described as ‘not conforming’ to regulatory requirements. In 2012, there were over 93,000 officially registered Algerian associations, compared to 10,000 in the late 1980s and to almost none under the single-party system of the 1970s.⁵ This surge made Algeria the most association-dense country in the region. However, since 2012 there has also been a massive increase in associations in Morocco, going from an estimated 40,000 to over 130,000 in a very short space of time due to specific government initiatives. The following diagrams illustrate the numbers of associations registered in MENA countries based on information from recent studies,⁶ interviews and government websites.

Even taking into account the considerable differences in population, there are significantly more associations officially registered in Algeria and Morocco than in neighbouring countries, as shown below.

Table 1.1 provides the numbers of associations in each country and indicates the reliability of the data, as well as the most recent increases. It is difficult to obtain the number of members across the different countries. In Algeria, given that the previous 1990 Law on Associations required 15 founding members, it can be estimated that at least 1.4 million people are members of an association. This represents around 7 per cent of the adult population. As many associations indicate a much higher membership, the figures are likely to be greater. Similar figures for across the region would provide an even stronger indicator of associative life. The data enable us to gain an insight into the facility with which an association can be created in each context, and the will of the population to do so. Apart from Palestine, there have generally been increases in the number of associations officially registered in most of the MENA countries.

Figure 1.1 Numbers of registered associations in MENA countries.

Figure 1.2 Registered associations by population in MENA countries.

These sources, including Ministry data, NGO monitoring programmes and academic research, show significant increases in registered associations across the region. They also indicate important legislative reforms which have enabled these developments in countries such as Algeria, Lebanon and Yemen. Algeria represents an exception in the region, with consistently high numbers of associations since the mid-1990s, despite the violent conflict. International NGO monitoring websites such as ICNL have criticised the lack of freedom to register organisations in Algeria, yet figures show that Algerian authorities have registered huge numbers, particularly of local associations, across the country. Algeria has roughly the same number of registered associations, per capita, as England and Wales have registered charities.⁷ It is important to now shed light on what they actually do, how they interact with or challenge the state, whether they constitute a new public sphere or have an influence on local democracy or civic institutions. If so, do they then impact on policy making? Do they have contacts with external actors, or have transnational or trans-regional networks? Do they constitute part of an active civil society? Or, rather, are they co-opted by the state or by external donors? What changes in state–society relations have arisen through this increasing associational activity?

Table 1.1 Associations in the MENA countries.

During the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, the role of associations in Algeria was limited. They were criticised within the country by state institutions and parliamentarians as not having prevented trouble.⁸ External actors, on the contrary, complained that they were not real actors capable of providing a coherent platform of opposition.⁹ More recently, in 2014, Charity Butcher challenges these perceptions, describing how the Arab Spring protests did in fact provide an opportunity for associations, as seen with the creation by opposition actors of the National Coordination for Change and Democracy (CNCD).¹⁰ On this platform, civil society groups and political parties from across the secular and religious divide came together to peacefully challenge the government and demand reform. Before exploring these developments in more detail in the following chapters, it is important to first explore basic assumptions and theories about civil society, political life and democracy.

Civil Society and Democracy

The concepts of civil society and democratisation entered into academic language over the course of the 1980s and 1990s. Previously, both concepts had been generally absent from scholarly debate, particularly about development policy. In international development journals, the concept of civil society started to appear in titles in the late 1980s and democratisation was increasingly included in the period around 1992. Figure 1.3 represents the number of times either concept appears in a selection of six major development policy journals over a period of 30 years.

The diagram shows a recent reduction in the use of the terms in the journal titles, particularly the concept of civil society. After the period of ‘civil society romanticism’, there appeared to be less interest from the academic community and an increasing scepticism regarding theories linking civil society and democratisation. Why was there this renewed interest in the historical concept of civil society, how did scholars define it and what did this mean?

In his discussion of civil society in the Arab world, the Egyptian American sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim defines civil society as the ‘freedom of human beings to associate’. In his 1998 article ‘The troubled triangle: Populism, Islam and civil society in the Arab world’, he describes civil society as:

the totality of self-initiating and self-regulating volitional social formations, peacefully pursuing a common interest, advocating a common cause, or expressing a common passion; respecting the right of others to do the same, and maintain their relative autonomy vis-à-vis the state, the family, the temple and the market.¹²

Figure 1.3 Civil society and democratisation in academic journals.¹¹

Civil society includes the press, trade unions, teachers, academia, intellectuals, artists and charitable associations. It incorporates the media and religious groups, all of which are regulated either by charities law or by a similar legislative framework. The arena of civil society is an independent one, primarily from the state and the market, to which Ibrahim adds the temple and the family. The associational movement, made up of formal and registered associations, represents an important part of this civil society. Charity Butcher points out that ‘political parties are not generally part of this definition of civil society’,¹³ though she recognises that the link between associations and political parties is important, particularly in Algeria, where new, mainly Islamist political parties have developed since the early 1990s.

Civil society as a concept remains ambiguous in all contexts and has been discussed over the centuries by philosophers. Hegel, in particular, discussed the relations between civil society, the macro level of the state and the micro level of the family. He stressed the necessity for the state, as a separate entity, to foster civil society, giving it a sense of community and regulating it. Civil society represented the space of differentiation where individuals sought interests within the framework of the law.¹⁴ On the left, building on Hegel’s work, Marx challenged this separation, categorising civil society as the space where the bourgeoisie dominated over the working classes. Rejecting the presumed legitimacy and autonomy inferred by previous thinkers, civil society was now seen as an expression of capitalist forces deprived of political value and independence. Further developing the discussion from the leftist perspective, Antonio Gramsci challenged the Marxist view that civil society was coterminous with the economic base of the state. Gramsci considered that civil society was located within the political superstructure, rep...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I: Civil Society and Democracy Promotion in the Arab World
• Part II: Algerian Civil Society and Relations with the State
• Part III: Donors, Democracy and the Language of Others
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• eCopyright