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Begin New Search Topic Social Movement Publishing Institution Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)

11. Algeria: Inventing New Political Rules

Author:
Rachid Tlemçani
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
As of 22 February 2019, a new chapter of Algeria’s history is being written, one which will establish a new relationship between Algerian citizens and their state. On that day, against all odds, tens of thousands of Algerians, regardless of gender, age, social or professional background, converged on cities and villages to voice their rejection of a fifth term for Abdelaziz Bouteflika in the forthcoming presidential elections. To the call of General Ahmed Gaïd Salah, the army’s chief of staff, to remove President Bouteflika as per Article 102 of the Constitution, and Bouteflika’s subsequent resignation on 2 April, Algerians responded with an even stronger mobilization and their own call, “Système, dégage!”
Topic:
Social Movement, Democracy, Protests, and State Building
Political Geography:
Africa, Algeria, North Africa, Mediterranean, and Algeris

12. The Fall of al-Bashir: Mapping Contestation Forces in Sudan

Author:
Magdi El-Gizouli
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
What is the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) anyway, perplexed commentators and news anchors on Sudan’s government-aligned television channels asked repetitively as if bound by a spell? An anchor on the BBC Arabic Channel described the SPA as “mysterious” and “bewildering”. Most were asking about the apparently unfathomable body that has taken the Sudanese political scene by surprise since December 2018 when the ongoing wave of popular protests against President Omar al-Bashir’s 30-year authoritarian rule began. The initial spark of protests came from Atbara, a dusty town pressed between the Nile and the desert some 350km north of the capital, Khartoum. A crowd of school pupils, market labourers and university students raged against the government in response to an abrupt tripling of the price of bread as a result of the government’s removal of wheat subsidies. Protestors in several towns across the country set fire to the headquarters of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and stormed local government offices and Zakat Chamber1 storehouses taking food items in a show of popular sovereignty.
Topic:
Mass Media, Food, Social Movement, and Protests
Political Geography:
Africa, Khartoum, and Sundan

13. Algeria’s Uprisings in Context: An Interview with Prof. El Mouhoub Mouhoud

Author:
El Mouhoub Mouhoud
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
With ongoing protests in Algeria and wide calls to boycott the presidential poll in July, Algerians’ demands for radical regime change remain relentless. The army’s announcement it is considering all options to resolve the current crisis does not resonate well in a country where the army has been closely tied to regime interests. In this interview, Professor Mouhoud provides a much-needed context to better understand how the protests started and the potential scenarios that may unfold in Algeria over the coming months.
Topic:
Social Movement, Arab Spring, Military Intervention, and Protests
Political Geography:
Africa, Algeria, North Africa, Mediterranean, and Algeris

14. Challenging the Legal Ideology of the State: Cause Lawyering and Social Movements in Egypt

Author:
Ahmed Ezzat
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
Egyptian cause lawyers have constituted a strong socio-professional group and successfully used “strategic litigation” to challenge the state’s policies and counter its conservative narratives. With President El-Sissi in power and the security grip over legal institutions and courts, doubts were raised as to whether it still makes sense to go to court against the state over matters of rights and freedoms. By reviewing several emblematic cases, the author analyzes the impact of cause lawyering on mobilization and social movements and how it contributed to reshaping the public sphere, as well as the challenges the cause lawyers’ movement faces under El-Sissi.
Topic:
Human Rights, United Nations, Social Movement, and Legal Theory
Political Geography:
Africa, North Africa, Egypt, and Mediterranean

15. Sudan’s Power-Sharing Agreement: Towards Transition or a Game of Tajility?

Author:
Magdi El-Gizouli
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
With Sudanese protesters still shouting “Madaniyya” (civilian), only time will tell if the recently signed power-sharing accord will be a true step in the direction towards democratic transition or simply another manoeuvre in Sudan’s longstanding tradition of “tajility” and unfulfilled promises.
Topic:
Social Movement, Democracy, Protests, and State Building
Political Geography:
Africa, Sudan, North Africa, and Khartoum

16. Decentralization in Morocco: Promising Legal Reforms with Uncertain Impact

Author:
Lamia Zaki
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
In the wake of the Arab Spring, Morocco witnessed street protests demanding, among other things, for the “King to reign but not to rule”. Adopted by referendum on 1 July 2011, the latest Moroccan Constitution was prepared through a year-long participatory process led by a consultative commission. Although it did not fundamentally change the balance of powers at the highest levels of the State, it gave a new impulse to the decentralization process. Article 1 of the new Constitution states “the territorial organization of the Kingdom is decentralized”. It also enshrines the two principles of “free administration” of Local Governments (LGs) and subsidiarity and aims at reinforcing transparency, citizen participation, and governance. The new Constitution has also introduced the principle of “advanced regionalization” to make regions, in addition to municipalities, key levels of LGs in Morocco. In 2015, three Organic Laws (OLs) were issued to specify and operationalize the spirit of the Constitution at the municipal, regional, and prefectural levels.1 The decentralization process has quite a long history in Morocco. It has consistently been put at the core of the policy agenda for several decades and represented an important research topic for many observers of the political scene. Three different analytical perspectives have been put forward (in conjunction with contextual factors) to explain why and with what consequences decentralization has been put at the core of the policy agenda. The first points to the authoritarian management of LGs, based on the alliance built after independence between the monarchy and rural elites to counter the influence of urban and partisan elites.2 Using sophisticated tools (including postponing elections, successively reorganizing electoral maps, increasing the role of deconcentrated authorities), this approach led to the creation of domesticated local elites. Behind the decentralization reforms initiated through municipal charters of 1960 and 1976, researchers have pointed at the centralized and often brutal management of the Moroccan territory and of cities in particular in a context of rapid urban growth.3 A second analytical perspective highlights how decentralization has been presented and used since the 1990s by the Moroccan government as a tool to implement “democratization reforms”. The relative opening up of the political field in the late 1990s and early 2000s led to the emergence of new elites in different fields (entrepreneurship,4 real estate,5 partisan field,6 civil society,7 etc.), who have used their local base to claim rights and/or a political role at the local or national level. The third analytical perspective links decentralization to (“good”) governance reforms that focus more on the rationalization of resources, effective investment and the respect of management rules to promote local development rather than on representative democracy.8 By 2011, Moroccan municipalities were already entrusted with a wide range of mandates pertaining to the creation and management of a wide range of key services.9 Studies have shown how municipalities lack the financial and technical means to implement their missions and remain subject to the strong control of central and deconcentrated authorities.10 Yet other research has also highlighted the impact of these reforms on local notabilities and mobilization. The development of Hirak al-Rif, a protest movement born in Northern Morocco in 2016 and focused on demands for local and regional development, shows that the issue of local policies and decentralization remain at the core of the political agenda in a post-Arab Spring era. This article closely examines the recent legal reforms (2011 Constitution and Organic Laws) and looks at the technical and normative arrangements that have been developed in the wake of the Arab Spring to promote decentralization both at the municipal and regional levels. This approach has hardly been used, yet these often-neglected technical arrangements are the fruit of a bargaining process and have a direct political effect. I will show below that beyond the reforms brought by the Constitution and OLs to encourage local democracy and ensure more autonomy for LGs, important uncertainties remain as to their effective implementation on the ground. In addition to the lack of financial resources, the lack of a clear framework and implementing provisions explain that these legal changes remain largely theoretical (despite the fact that about 40 decrees and circulars that have been produced by the Directorate General for Local Governments (DGCL) at the Ministry of Interior to allow for the effective enforcement of the reforms). Contrary to many studies which consider deconcentration (i.e. administrative decentralization)11 as a way to neutralize decentralization reforms, 12 I will also argue that the deconcentration reforms simultaneously initiated with the “régionalisation avancée” (advanced regionalization) could enhance the scope and impact of the decentralization reforms in Morocco.
Topic:
Social Movement, Arab Spring, Protests, and Decentralization
Political Geography:
Africa, North Africa, Morocco, and Rabat

17. Lebanon: Anger in Palestinian Refugee Camps Gives Rise to a New Mobilization for Dignity

Author:
Marie kortam
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
Those who visited Palestinian camps in Lebanon last month could not have missed a new upsurge in the popular mobilization on Palestinian streets. Their enthusiasm can be sensed in the spirits of the youth, their chants, and round-the-clock occupation of public spaces. This upsurge in mobilization was not only the result of the Lebanese Labour Minister’s implementation of his plan1 to combat businesses employing foreign labour without a permit – after giving them one month to regularize their situation.2 It was also the outcome of an accumulated sense of frustration, injustice, humiliation, indignation, deprivation and finally, anger that crystallized in these latest rounds of collective political action. The question then remains: why have Palestinians in Lebanon reached a breaking point at this stage, and why did the movement take this shape? There is no doubt that this anger accumulated gradually. First, it arose from the political-security arrangement for Palestinians in Lebanon, along with the historical absence of a socio-political contract with the Lebanese state. Second, it is the outcome of the deprivation, oppression, racism, and discrimination against Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, which was finally exacerbated by international resolutions hostile to the Palestinian cause, threatening the refugee cause and the right of return. Moreover, the economic situation of Palestinian refugees has deteriorated and was further compounded after the USA cut off its funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). However, alone these factors are not enough to fully explain this mobilization. These latest developments are also the product of a degree of practical awareness among the Palestinian youth and their discourse which explains their involvement in a movement demanding civil rights and an arrangement in which Palestinians are an agent of change against injustice. This movement is also proof of the existence of a new paradigm of the oppressed, who no longer identifies with the oppressors and becomes dependent on them, but instead seeks to break free from their oppression, and in so doing, spontaneously and effectively imposes a new social formula and project. This paper discusses the emergence of this popular mobilization and its transformation into a social movement, the challenges it has faced, and how its actors built a common framework for action to address their status as oppressed. It relies on field interviews – formal and informal – with actors and politicians, participatory observation, the analysis of organized groups, and contributions via WhatsApp and Facebook. The paper focuses on the movement in Ain al-Hilweh camp as one of the largest Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, with its political and security context that distinguishes it from other camps.
Topic:
United Nations, Diaspora, Social Movement, Refugees, Social Media, and Repression
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon

18. Tunisia’s Upcoming Challenge: Fixing the Economy Before It's Too Late

Author:
Ishac Diwan
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
During its first years of transition to a democratic order, Tunisia's efforts were predominantly focused on addressing political challenges. The performance of the country in this regard has been generally positive, as it has managed to consolidate democratic gains despite challenges related to the polarization of politics around identity and religious issues, the rise in insecurity related to attacks by extremist groups, and even the general disenchantment of voters for the existing political elites. However, the gains on the political front came at the expense of economic setbacks. One of the main challenges for the coming period will thus be largely economic. High unemployment, unfulfilled demands for social justice, the rise in corruption, and most importantly in the short term, an unsustainable macroeconomic trajectory, all threaten to upset recent political gains. If the upcoming administration does not address them, social discontent would endanger the hard-won democratic gains.
Topic:
Religion, Social Movement, Democracy, and Economic Policy
Political Geography:
Africa, North Africa, Tunisia, Mediterranean, and Tunis

19. Twenty Days of Lebanese Protests: Between Continuity, Innovation and Uncertainty

Author:
Anis Chérif-Alami
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
This paper examines the uprisings that have been taking place in different parts of Lebanon since 17 October relying on direct observation of the protests and interviews with various participants. Acknowledging that the protest movement and the situation in Lebanon remain highly dynamic, it proposes some elements to better understand and contextualize the movement. Although Lebanon generally avoided the wave of protests that swept the Arab world in 2011, there were early attempts to criticize the sectarian system and dysfunctional public services. The paper outlines what current events owe to a recent history of protests in Lebanon, in particular, the short-lived 2011 protests demanding the fall of the sectarian regime and the 2015 “you stink” movement (Tala’at Rihatkum) which denounced the public mismanagement of garbage and called for accountability for political corruption. While the current protests have some roots in past citizens’ activism, it is also clear that there are new aspects that continue to evolve as protesters experiment day by day with new ways of doing politics.
Topic:
Corruption, Social Movement, Political Activism, Arab Spring, and Protests
Political Geography:
Middle East, Lebanon, and Beirut

20. The Rising Tide of Change in Iraq: An Assessment of the 2018 and 2019 Protests

Author:
Hashim Al-Rikabi
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
The stability and legitimacy of the post-2003 Iraqi state are undermined by the provision of poor basic services, soaring unemployment, and political paralysis. This has driven ordinary citizens towards waves of protests that peaked in August 2018 and re-surged again in October 2019, demonstrating that without addressing the underlying causes behind these protests, much larger and more aggressive protest waves may shock the system, again and again, threatening its existence. The initial phase of the 2019 protests was similar to the first period of 2018 protests (April - June) in terms of their small scale, their focus on specific issues such as unemployment, and their largely peaceful nature. But quickly, within a few weeks, the 2019 protests escalated with protesters blocking key economic facilities and attacking government buildings and political parties’ headquarters. This escalation mirrored the trajectory of the 2018 which also intensified over time, but what is striking is the speed with which the 2019 intensified and moved from socio-economic focused demands to demands for fundamental political reforms, including new elections. While the involvement of political actors was evident in efforts by politicians, such as Muqtada Al-Sadr, to try to ride the wave of protests as well as the crackdown on protests by armed elements of certain political parties, the 2019 mobilization has also shown the emergence of a new generation of protesters and the rising role of new social actors, such as professional groups. The increasing frequency of protests since 2018 and their widening and deepening scope suggest that the post-2003 Iraqi governance model, with its stalemate between the different political actors, needs a fundamental new formulation that is able to renew trust in a reformed political system. The stalemate could either develop into genuine reforms to address the ills of the post-2003 political and economic system, away from ethno-sectarian politics, or descend into violence.
Topic:
Imperialism, Social Movement, Protests, and State Building
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Baghdad