Beyond authoritarian upgrading: the re-emergence of Sufi orders in Maghrebi politics

Abstract

Sufi orders in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia have gradually reappeared in the political arena after decades of maintaining a low profile. This phenomenon has received little scholarly attention and has been addressed largely as a function of authoritarian regime strategies in response to challenges posed by political Islam. Empirical evidence from across the Maghrib, however, suggests that the renewed political visibility of the Sufi orders has resulted from the interplay of wide-ranging regime agendas with Sufi sheikhs' bottom-up interests. The ensuing dynamics correspond only in part with regime top-down intentions and ultimately reveal the limitations of authoritarian upgrading schemes. Despite variances in scope and timing, similar patterns can be discerned across the Maghrib. New distributive and selective policies and new room to manoeuver, along with the weakness of formal political institutions, have created incentives and pressures for Sufi orders to increasingly engage in the political scene. Sufi sheikhs have to a certain extent played the top-down game and come out publicly in defence of regime interests. At the same time, entrepreneurial sheikhs competing among themselves have pursued their own economic or political agendas. They have banked on the growing market for spirituality, clientelist structures, and transnational networks, and have profited from niches in state services and contradictory state policies. In doing so, they have not only reinforced, but at times also altered, subverted, and eluded the regimes' top-down strategies, in the process acquiring nuisance and bargaining power and enhancing their political visibility and relevance.