Islam Democracy And The State In Algeria

Modern Algeria has been, in many ways, a harbinger of events and trends that have affected the Arab and Muslim worlds. The country's bold experiment in democratization broke down in the early 1990s, largely over the question of whether the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) should be permitted to come to power following its victories in local, regional, and national elections. A devastating civil war followed. Now that order has been restored and the country has a new government, questions about governance, Islam and international relationships are once again at the top of Algeria's political agenda. How these issues are resolved will not only determine Algeria's future, but will also have important implications for other states in North Africa and the western Mediterranean. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Journal of North African Studies.

On 11 January 1992 senior military officers forced President Chadli Benjedid to resign; canceled the second round of legislative elections and annulled the results of the first round, which saw the opposition Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) achieve a major electoral victory; and imposed a year-long state of siege. Constitutional government was replaced by an army-dominated so-called Higher State Council responsive to no one but itself. In the weeks and months that followed further draconian measures were undertaken intended to subvert the incipient democratic process that Algeria had been experiencing in the several years following the deadly riots of October 1988. As part of the army's effort to regain control of state and society, it reined in the free-wheeling press, abolished the country's most popular political party (FIS), dissolved the National Assembly, and reimposed on civil society the apparatus of the omnipresent state security system (mukhabarat).

"Rarely is a collection of essays as coherent and of such uniformly high quality as is this one. This book makes a major contribution to our efforts to understand, and so competently interact with, the forces of political, economic, and social change in states where Islamic ideals form a vibrant component of the culture." —American Historical Review "Fielding a veteran team of American Maghribi specialists, this book discusses Islam and politics, human rights, aspects of political economy, and the international dimension of prospects for democratization in Islamic North African states. . . . All chapters advance useful arguments based on solid research." —Foreign Affairs In the late 1980s, misguided economic policies, bureaucratic mismanagement, political corruption, and cultural alienation combined to create a popular demand for change in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. It seemed for a time that a new and more open politics would transform the region. Instead, authoritarian states mobilized to repress the populist opposition led by politicized Islamist movements. Analyzing developments over the last two decades from the perspectives of political culture and political economy, leading American scholars provide insights into the region's continuing political crisis.

Examines political, economic, and judicial systems as well as human rights, and tools for good governance in the North African countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.

A contemporary history of Iran, focusing on the Islamic Revolution.

Algeria's democratic experiment is seminal in post-Cold War history. The first Muslim nation to attempt the transition from an authoritarian system to democratic pluralism, this North African country became a test case for reform in Africa, the Arab world and beyond. Yet when the country looked certain to become the world's first elected Islamic republic, there was a military coup and the democratic process was brought sharply to a halt. Islamists declared jihad on the state and hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in the ensuing decade of state repression. Le Sueur shows that Algeria is at the very heart of contemporary debates about Islam and secular democracy, arguing that the stability of Algeria is crucial for the security of the wider Middle East. Algeria Since 1989 is a lively and essential examination of how the fate of one country is entwined with much greater global issues.

Civil Society in the Middle East is a project of the Department of Politics and the Koverkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, New York University. Project director is Augustus Richard Norton (Boston University). While there is wide disagreement about the outcome among those who follow events in the Middle East, there is little doubt that the regimes in the region are under increasing pressure from their citizens. In rich and poor states alike, incipient movements of men and women are demanding a voice in politics. Recent political developments in Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, even the future state of Palestine, clearly show the vitality and dynamism of civil society, the melange of associations, clubs, guilds, syndicates, federations, unions, parties and groups which provide a buffer between state and citizen and which are now so clearly at the forefront of political liberalization in the region. Civil Society in the Middle East, a two-volume set of papers providing an unusually detailed and rich assessment of contemporary politics within the Middle East, and in this sense alone, quite literally peerless, is the result of a project of the Department of Politics and the Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University. Volume I contains contributions by Augustus Richard Norton, Raymond A. Hinnebusch, Laurie Brand, Muhammad Muslih, Mustafa Kamil al-Sayyid, Ghanim al Najjar and Neil Hicks, Eva Bellin, Jill Crystal, Saad al-Din Ibrahim, and Alan Richards.