The Comparative Endurance and Legacy of Morocco’s Royal Nation

Abstract

For many decades, social scientists in the West and the Arab world have assumed the irrelevance of the Moroccan monarchy, a patrilineal governing dynasty that traces its rule back to the seventeenth century and its roots to Prophet Mohammed’s bloodline. Yet, despite a lack of oil money and economic prosperity associated with today’s petro-monarchies in the Arab Gulf, the Moroccan monarchy has headed one of the Arab world’s more stable political systems. How has this happened? I offer two primary answers: (1) the association of Morocco’s nationalist anti-colonial movement with the monarchy and (2) the monarchy’s long-term self-promotion as an Islamic regime, which has provided it with a degree of prophylaxis against both Islamist violence and liberal opposition. French colonial politics had a backfire effect of contributing to the above factors. The three generations of Moroccan kings who have ruled since independence in 1956 have all stuck to the nationalist Islamist script, while allowing modest degrees of sociopolitical pluralism. This has shielded these kings from requiring the extensive authoritarian coercion deployed by many of their non-monarchical Arab peers. Simultaneously, the monarchy’s self-association with nationalism and Islam has allowed it to repress popular political opposition, when co-option seemed unlikely.