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ABSTRACT
Since the accession of North African countries to independence in the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century, North African politics seems to have been shaped by an open-ended state-society conflict. The post-colonial state has successfully managed to gain an upper hand over all forms of social demands by deploying various strategies. With the advent of the Arab uprising, a new balance of power between state and society seems to be emerging in most of the Maghreb countries. Indeed the non-state actors are experiencing a slow but steady change not only in terms of the nature of their actors (young and mostly non-partisan people) but also in terms of their strategies of facing authoritarianism (proliferation of extra institutional protest, new forms of social activism).
This paper tries to make a preliminary account of the impact of this new balance of power on the capacity of the new non-state actors to influence domestic politics in the North Africa. To do so, this paper aims to critically discuss the theoretical lenses through which social scientists used to decipher the ongoing political transformations in the Arab world. This paper argues that the emergence of what is referred to as ‘New Non State Actors’ (NNSA) goes in parallel with the decline of the traditional pro state civil society. To this end, it intends to shed light on the factors that have led to this assumed decline of the traditional forms of political and civil activism and to conduct a preliminary assessment of the capacity of the NNSA to serve as real counter-forces capable of countervailing state power.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 A plethora of articles and books have been published on the positive link between civil society and democracy, showing how the former favours the latter and conditions its sustainability.
2 Some propose that civil society should better be understood in ‘neutral’ terms, in recognition that there is no straightforward relation between the ideology of civil society organizations and democracy – such movements are not, by definition, ‘good’ for democracy and democratization (Petr Kopecky and Cas Mudde, Citation2003).
3 A number of 20FM activists were members of the existing political parties and NGOs, although they were acting on their own names.
4 It is assumed that what is new is the ways young people get involved in politics.
5 Election observers reported that the polling stations with the higher ID numbers where young voters cast their ballots had lower voter turnout, as compared with those with lower ID numbers for older voters. Cited by Petré (Citation2014).
6 To justify this decision, the president argued that these officials were largely coerced into committing infractions and should thus not be held accountable for their actions. More details can be found in the link: https://fanack.com/tunisia/history-past-to-present/manich-msamah/
7 Their main demands were not only political (a democratic Constitution expressing popular sovereignty, The dissolution of the parliament, the dismissal of the current government and the establishment of a transitional administration, which primary goal will be to initiate reforms, an independent judiciary) but also cultural (The recognition of Amazigh as an official language) and socio-economic (A better quality of, and access to social welfare services (health, education, housing).
8 The constitutional reform announced by the king revolves around six axes: The confirmation of the pluralist nature of Moroccan identity, the consolidation of the rule of law, The reinforcement of the independence of the judiciary, the consolidation of the separation and balance of powers, Reinforcing the role of political parties, consolidation of mechanisms of the protection of human rights and freedoms as well as good governance.
9 More details can be found in https://radicalfilmnetwork.com/morocco/guerrilla-cinema/
10 One of their projects, ‘475 le Film,’ tells the story of Amina Filali who killed herself in 2012 after being forced to marry her alleged rapist. The name comes from article 475 of the Moroccan penal code, which stated that charges could be dropped in cases of statutory rape if the two parties get married.
11 More details can be found in http://tsoulisme-ma.blogspot.com/
12 Ibid.
14 More details in http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140414-when-governments-attack
15 The reasons behind this decision were explained in an article accessible in the link: https://www.mamfakinch.com/
16 Omar Hyani a city councillor from Rabat in an interview with Financial Times, accessible at https://www.ft.com/content/1ed8370a-6979-11e8-b6eb-4acfcfb08c11
17 The national average for all age categories is 74% and two thirds of them said they are involved in it.