The Justice and Development Party in Moroccan Local Politics
This article analyzes the performance of the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) in Moroccan local politics from 2003 to 2009, using a variety of data sources including interviews, municipal budgets, and audit reports. We find that the PJD’s campaign and candidates were significantly different from Moroccan political norms. The outcomes of audits and budget patterns show governance in towns where the PJD was elected differed only in those where the party had high electoral support in 2003, allowing it to govern with a small coalition.
Democratization in the Arab World? Depoliticization in Morocco
����� �� In the 1950s, Morocco was one of the rare newly independent states to embark on a path of political pluralism and market economics. The following decades saw successive governments enact reforms establishing a relatively open political and economic system. And yet, almost half a century on, the country remains authoritarian. Why? Though favorable to democracy on the surface, Morocco’s liberal reforms have actually worked against it by depoliticizing the public sphere. By “depoliticization” I mean the marginalization of questions of legitimacy or sovereignty and—in the Moroccan case especially—the concomitant political primacy given to economic issues. Having unremittingly framed economic questions in strictly technical terms, the monarchy has succeeded in sidestepping a fundamental debate on the sources and distribution of power in the Moroccan political system. Parties that might have spearheaded democratic reform have meanwhile diluted their demands and embraced the monarchy’s claim that the country simply needs better economic management. Morocco’s trajectory over the past five decades sheds light on both the slow advance of democratization throughout the Arab world and the relationship between political and economic reform in the region— indicating that hopes placed in gradual liberalization there may be misplaced. Throughout the region, one can find widespread support for the rationalization of economic relations (particularly among business representatives and technocratic elites), economic justice and equity (among nationalist parties, trade unions, and Islamic groups), or civil Abdeslam M. Maghraoui, a Moroccan political scientist, is a visiting professor in the department of politics at Princeton University. Previously, he was a research fellow at Princeton’s Transregional Institute and taught Middle East politics at Georgetown University and the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor.
(033) A CHANCE TO REFORM: HOW THE EU CAN SUPPORT DEMOCRATIC EVOLUTION IN MOROCCO
There may not have been a revolution in the Kingdom of Morocco, but it has not been left untouched by the “Arab Spring”. Like many of its neighbours, Morocco has seen the growth of a protest movement demanding dignity, democracy and an end to corruption. Since 20 February 2011 – the date that gave the alliance of students, leftwing activists and non-parliamentary Islamists leading the protests its name – demonstrations have taken place in several Moroccan cities. The demand for social and political change is likely to continue to grow louder still as the internet, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and even rap music spread the demonstrators’ message to a much wider audience.