Development and the State In Post-Colonial Algeria

Abstract

This article analyses the role of Algerian bureaucracy in development. It shows that the Algerian state owns the significant means of production and has used the bureaucracy to implement its statist model of development. In doing so it has emphasized the development of heavy industry and the use of the most advanced technology available to promote it. It was hoped that with this model of development and the help of a skilled and trained bureaucracy, rapid industrial growth would transform the country's socio-economic structure sufficiently to absorb the masses of peasant labour and allow Algeria to produce anything it chooses. This model, however, failed to create jobs for the bulk of the Algerian population, led to heavy reliance on foreign capital, and created large pools of unemployed and under-employed. For two decades these problems were staved off when high oil prices shaped the relationship between bureaucracy and development. When oil prices went down drastically in the 1980s, they caused unrest and turmoil in Algeria and created an economic crisis which the State and its bureaucracy are currently trying to manage.