Dangerous Alliances: Civil Society, the Media and Democratic Transition in North Africa
* Acknowledgements * Preface by Clovis Demers * Introduction * Part 1: The Public Arena in the Maghreb: Convergences and Divergences * Setting the Stage * 1. Tunisia: The Domination of Plato's Cave * The Tunisian Transition to Democracy Did Not Take Place * 'I am the State' * A Police State * A Legal System in Captivity * Alternation in Office Impossible * 2. Tunisia: The Submission to Plato's Cave * Tunisian Civil Society before Its Collapse * The Fatal Alliance * The Destruction of Al-Nahdha * The Undermining of the Tunisian League for Human Rights * 3. Tunisia: Locking Up Plato's Cave * Disadvantaged Media * How the Tunisian Media Were Neutralized * Survival Strategies * The Happy Agenda * Relations with the Foreign Press * Banning International Human Rights Monitoring * 4. Algeria: The Children of Jocasta * The Birth of Civil Society * The Oedipus Temptation * The Unfinished Business of Remaking the Public Arena * The Press and Its Role in Political Developments * Between Open Dissidence and 'Moderate' Opposition: Prospects for a Rebirth * 5. Morocco: The Slow Ascent of Sisyphus * The Amaoui Affair * A Long Pluralistic Tradition * A Moroccan Model for the Construction of a Civil Society * Facilitating Factors and Obstacles * 6. Conclusion: The Public Political Arena in the Maghreb * Part 2: The Aftermath of Dangerous Alliances: Transformations and Continuities in the Political Arena * Between Cries and Whispers * 7. Happy Tunisia: The Authorized Account * A Dream for Tourists and Foreign Investors * The Security Mania * The Show Democracy: Arguments and Techniques of Stage-Setting * The Quest for International Approval * Propaganda Achievements * 8. The International Press and the Algerian Guardians of Democracy * The Rhetoric of Objectivity * How the International Press Took Sides in the Algerian Conflict * The Rebuilding of a Pluralistic Public Forum by the International Press * 9. Tunisian Dissident Information Networks * Unarmed Prophets * In European Circles * Internal Dissidence * Discrediting Dissidents * The State of Tunisian Dissidence * 10. Islam: Dismantling a Clich' * Propositions: * 1. Religion is a Marginal Theme in the Press * 2. Islam is not the Explanation for Everything * 3. Culturally, Islam is also a Product of Maghreb's Political Systems * 11. Freedom or Tyranny? Perspectives in the Maghreb * Algeria * Tunisia * 12. Toward a Sociology of Citizenship in a Globalizing World * A Political Systems Model * The Classical Democratic Model * A Dynamic Conflictual Model of Democracy * Democratic Transitions are Reversible * The International Media's Connivance with Dictatorships * Reversing the Spiral of Silence * Bibliography * Index
The New Institutionalism in the Study of Authoritarian Regimes
In recent years, we have seen the rise of a “new institutionalism” in the study of authoritarian regimes that takes seriously previously neglected pillars of non-democratic governance: nominally democratic institutions, such as legislatures, multiple parties, and elections, that form integral parts of most authoritarian regimes. Drawing together previously disconnected pieces of research, the paper provides an analytical topography of new institutionalist studies of dictatorship. It discusses four central issues: (a) institutional imperatives: the fundamental challenges authoritarian institutional designers address, (b) institutional landscapes: the fundamental institutional choices authoritarian rulers face, (c) institutional containment: the strategies of control they may deploy in various institutional arenas, and (d) institutional ambivalence: the tension between regime-supporting and regime-subverting roles authoritarian institutions tend to introduce.
From a = b to a = a
In this paper I compare and contrast the alternative treatments of the Other as they appear first in the radical geography of 1968, then in the political geography of 1998. While in the Hegelian sixties both the master and the slave recognized that they are defined in terms of each other (a = b), the politically correct of the nineties are claiming that the right to define who you are is yours and yours alone (a = a). But whoever argues that the only acceptable truth lies in the statement “I am who I am” is in effect adopting the same conception of power that the Old Testament JHWH reserved for himself.