Recent History of the Maghreb: A Sociological Approach

Abstract

In the Maghreb, the struggle for independence was the starting point for a new relationship between people and institutions. Three different ways of developing a new state – in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco – are the result of a new social and political landscape that is being designed in the Mediterranean basin: from a monarchy in Morocco legitimised by religion, to a liberal republic in Tunisia and a socialist-populist regime in Algeria. During the 1970s and 1980s, both the internal and the international situation forced these countries to confront the difficulties of economical and political central control. The lack of liberties, the economic crisis, the fight for power among the political and social forces inside these countries, and the Western Saharan conflict limited the development of the area. Two decades after independence, in the 1990s, we witness a political, cultural, economic and social crisis considered by scholars to be the catalyst of social processes such as the rise of Islamic fundamentalism or migration to Europe. The civil war in Algeria and the fight against Islamic terrorism are alibis for the authoritarian policies implemented by these regimes. Nowadays, limits on civil jobs, control of the Islamic presence in the political arena and new economic adjustment programmes related to European Union policy in the area, are all attempts to solve the critical situation.