Revolution and authoritarianism in North Africa

This book analyses how the Arab uprisings, the sudden wave of leaderless protests that broke out in 2011, could produce regime change in a region until then characterized by authoritarian resilience. It investigates the factors that shaped the trajectories of the uprisings in four North African countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. Using an interactionist perspective, it analyzes the three stages of regime change and authoritarian resilience during this wave of uprisings. The first stage corresponds to the implosion of the ruling authoritarian system. This episode is defined by a sharp increase in mobilization of protesters against the regime and the accompanying decrease in the capabilities of the ruling institutions. The second stage corresponds to the reconstruction of practices and discourses around the demands of the protesters and the counter-propositions of the regime to halt the process of deinstitutionalization. This period is marked by the diffusion of new social and political behaviors that challenge and replace preexisting mechanisms of governance or, alternatively, that are subsumed under them. The third stage is the reconstruction of routinized behaviors around a new consensus on governance. This period is characterized by a formal recognition of these new arrangements at home and abroad and by political demobilization.