Power outside the institutions: debating the metamorphosis of non-state actors in North Africa

Abstract

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.