Algerian foreign policy: from revolution to national interest

Abstract

In the immediate aftermath of independence, Algeria pursued a militant anti-imperialist policy of Third World solidarity under presidents Ahmed Ben Bella and Houari Boumediene. The 1976 National Charter sets forth the rationale for such a foreign policy which was marked by Algerian leadership in the Group of 77, the Nonaligned Movement and the effort to create a New International Economic Order in North-South relations. During the 1980s, President Chadli Benjedid gradually shifted the focus of Algerian diplomacy from Third World leadership to a regional policy focused on the Maghreb and the establishment of the Union du Maghreb Arabe. The severe internal crisis of the 1990s led to a further retrenchment of Algerian foreign policy. Despite his role in the revolutionary years, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has continued the evolution of the state's foreign policy towards national interest pragmatism.

Keywords:

• Algerian foreign policy
• third world leadership
• regionalism
• pragmatism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The quotation is from the 1956 Soummam Platform as found in the wartime El Moudjahid, no. 2.

2. The text of Boumediene's address to the opening session can be found in El Moudjahid (Algiers), 11 October 1967.

3. El Moudjahid, 13–14 September 1970.

4. Le Monde (Paris), 10 September 1973.

5. Le Monde (Paris), 11 September 1973.

6. Le Monde (Paris), 17 April 1975.

7. New York Times, 14 September 1975.

8. Grimaud (1984). See especially Chapter 11 of this comprehensive analysis of the period 1962–78.

9. The quotation is from Bouteflika's speech to the National Assembly as excerpted in Le Monde, 17 June 2000.

10. Headline in Le Monde, 17 June 2000.

11. The citation is from his campaign document, Election présidentielle du 15 avril 1999: Programme, 89.

12. Algeria was designated as a pivotal state in Robert Chase, Emily Hill and Paul Kennedy, “Pivotal States and US Strategy”, Foreign Affairs, 75, 1 (January–February 1996). The article, widely discussed at the time, can be seen as a contribution to a renewed emphasis on regional politics in the international politics literature.

13. ‘Washington has much to learn from Algeria on ways to fight terrorism' declared Burns. New York Times, 10 December 2002.

14. The best analysis of Algeria's hesitant steps towards NATO is Mesbah (2013). A similar chapter appears in L'OTAN et le Maghreb (Saidy, 2014, 95–111).

15. Addi (1999) also comments on the power of the president in relation to that of the army in Addi (2012, 109–118).

16. In 1964, as Ben Bella's foreign minister, Bouteflika was involved with Modibo Keita, then Mali's president, in an initiative within the OAU to deny recognition to Moise Tshombe who had become prime minister of the Congo. Both Algeria and Mali considered Tshombe to be a puppet of the West.

17. Interview of Ramtane Lamamra with Jeune Afrique accessed online on 3 January 2014.

18. El Watan (Algiers), 18 February 2014.