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Political Institution in Algeria
Now, I would like to evaluate the political institution of Algeria based on the four criteria presented by Huntington, including adaptability, complexity, autonomy, and coherence, and determine whether it can stand the impact of large-scale political participation.
The adaptability of Algerian political institution is relatively high when keeping eye on the length of the period the institution maintaining, the frequency of peaceful power transfer. From 1962 to 2010, the Algerian political institution had maintained for forty-eight years before the Arab Spring. Experiencing such a long period, the process of power transfer was not so smooth and peaceful: Ben Bella, the first Algerian president after the independence, was overthrown by Boumediene through coup d'état in 1965. Bendjedid, the successor of Boumediene in peaceful way, also lost his position in a coup d'état in 1992. In 1995 Zeoual was elected as the new president, but he resigned in 1999. Although Bouteflika achieved presidential position in the peaceful way, his rein has maintained from 1999 up to now without experiencing new power transfer.38 Furthermore, the institution had survived a challenging environment where happened a seven years civil war.
About the complexity, Algerian political institution is quite similar to the typical example of stable institution raised by Huntington: shogun-emperor institution in Japan before 1986. The advantage of an institution with dual authorities is that when one of the authorities declined during the crisis, the alternative one might still maintain the order (18). Similarly, Algerian political institution also has two cores, military and civilian establishment, and its functioning can be observed during and after the civil war: During the bloody domestic conflict, the army fought against Islamist militants and kept the situation under control. After the civil war, civilian sector, especially under Bouteflika, reestablished its authority and replaced the military sector, whose reputation was undermined by its cruel repression during the harsh fights, as the main authority.
About the autonomy of Algerian political institution, we also turn our focus on the composition of Algerian political elites and observe whether most elites exclusively come from certain social forces. Here, my discussion mainly bases on the research results by Werenfels focusing on the period between 1995 and 2004, but I
38 Actually, at the time of writing, Bouteflika had won his forth president election in 2014.
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still do some update for it. Emphasizing the mobility of Algerian elites and taking “the influence on decision-making on strategic issues of national relevance” as the standard, Werenfels sketches the structure of Algerian elites as concentric circles (22-25). The first circle, “the prime decision-makers or core elite”, was consisted of president and his entourage,39 and certain key figures in the army. Until 2010, the tendency of de-militarization was obvious, but the influence of army on the Algerian politics could still not be ignored.40
In the second circle with “limited decision-making power but strong advisory power”, it was composed of the prime minister and certain ministerial positions held by figures close to or by actors co-opted by president or the army. Movement of Society for Peace (MSP, also known as Hamas), a moderate Islamist party, is within this circle. In addition, Forum des Chefs d'Entreprises composed of private sectors tycoons and their lobbies had significant power in making policy concerning about economic issues. Also, Union générale des travailleurs Algériens, Organisation Nationale des Moudjahidine, and religious brotherhoods (zaouïas) had their impact on policies relevant to their own interests due to their ability to mobilize certain electorates: labors, veterans, and Muslims, as a result, their statue enhanced before elections. Naturally, the civil-military division was reproduced in the second circle (Werenfels 62-68).
The third circle, with “indirect and often only temporary influence on decision making qua advisory, veto, bargaining or nuisance power”, witnessed a rapid increase in the number of its actors. The seats in the parliament, with the principal function to give legitimacy to the decision by the government, were held by opposite parties, such as Movement for National Reform (MRN, also known as al-Islah), the clients of the government, such as FLN and National Democratic Rally (RND) and co-opted
39 Most of them held key ministerial positions, including defense minister, commerce minister, and energy and mines minister, or advisory position. For example, Chakib Khelil had served as the president of Sonatrach and latter energy and mines minister, but in 2010 he was replaced by someone, who was believed to be close to the army, in a corruption investigation initiated by intelligence institution controlled by the army. See Entelis; Werenfels 57.
40 According Werenfels, the key military figures might include: Mohamed Lamari (Chief of Staff), Mohamed Mediène (Head of Intelligence and Security), Smail Lamari (Head of Counter-Intelligence), Larbi Belkheir (the director of presidential cabinet), and the commanders of the six military regions, to name but not exhausted. See Werenfels 56-58, note 51. However, the powerful figures in the army vanished from the key political arena recently: Not only four of six military regions’ commanders were changed in 2004, but also Mohamed Lamari resigned in August 2004. In addition, Belkheir was sent out of the power core as an ambassador to Morocco in August 2005, and Smail Lamari died in 2007.
Mediène might be one of survived the few strongmen, see Mortimer 167; Volpi, “Algeria’s Pseudo-Democratic Politics” note 43. For the fighting back of the army against the civilian establishment, see Entelis.
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opposite parties, such as MSP. In addition, Amazigh activists and human right groups had higher influence on policy-making in certain period: for example, the former during Le Printemps Noir, uprisings originating form Kabylie, in April 2001 and the latter during the civil war but before the 911 attack, when international community emphasizing war on terror but ignoring human rights (Werenfels 68-77).
In general, though the observable signs for demilitarization, the basic composition of the core elites experienced relative less changes: still, the civil-military division. However, the composition of outer circles gradually became more and more fragment.
Concerning the coherence of Algerian political institution, basically there is no evident constraint on the power of executive. One example for the unlimited power of Algerian executive was the direct denial of Sant’Egidio agreement. In 1995, to bring an end to the civil war, almost all main political parties in Algeria, including FLN, Socialist Forces Front (FFS), FIS, Workers Party, Movement for Democracy in Algeria, MRI, and Contemporary Muslim Algeria Movement, cooperated to achieve Sant’Egidio agreement in Rome, but this agreement was easily rejected by the President Zeroual (Le Sueur 66).
However, the Algerian executive occasionally needs to consider other political parties. MRN, an emerging powerful opposition party then, managed to pass the prohibition on wine importing and to promote electoral law reforms in November 2003 and January 2004 respectively (Werenfels 70-71). In addition, under certain conditions, the executive still needs to take the opinion of other political parties into account. Bouteflika’s concession on the reform of the 1984 Algerian Family Code might serve as an example. Since 1999, Bouteflika had listed promotion of women’s position as one of his priorities, and in 2003 he even constituted a commission for revising the 1984 Algerian Family Code that incurred dissatisfaction from women’s organizations. However, Boutelika did not completely fulfill his original commitment, because the reform was too risky for two reasons below: firstly, the Sharia, Islamic law, involving reform is such a sensitive issue that might lead to Islamist opposition against the government; secondly, there was a huge opposition against the reforms from political parties, including not only MRN, but also MSP (a Islamist party) and FLN, two components of Boutelika’s coalition government (Catalano). From the paradoxical examples above, other “accountability groups” is not totally without impact on decision-making of the Algerian executive, but it functions only under certain conditions.
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Generally speaking, Algerian institution did not bad in main mission Huntington expects an ideal political institution should have: solving the dispute for private interests between social forces and forming a political community. Among the four aspects of political institution, Algeria performs better on adaptability and complexity, but worse on autonomy and coherence. Also, some observers are also optimistic to the transition of Algeria. In 2005, Henry described Algerian domestic politics as below:
Now that political Islam has been partly tamed and its violent elements discredited. Specially, the military leadership has an interest in removing itself from the political arena to protect its corporate identity. The civilian leadership put in place by the military may be able to exploit this opportunity by deepening alliance with emerging forces in civil society (78).
In 2011, Entelis also gave the so-called “Bouteflika era” in Algerian history a relatively positive evaluation that Bouteflika was “strengthening civilian authority and rebuilding state institution” (660-661).