George Joffé

The Arab Spring in North Africa: origins and prospects

The insurgencies in Tunisia and Egypt – the Jasmine and the Tahrir Revolutions – seemed to offer great hope of the outbreak of democratic change in the Middle East and North Africa in what has come to be called the ‘Arab Spring’. However, the civil war in Libya and the ongoing crises in Yemen and Syria suggest that overall regional change may prove to be more difficult to achieve. In fact there are quite specific reasons why insurgencies occurred in three North African states and not in the remaining two states and why their outcomes have been so different. The causes for the insurgency are similar – they lie in the global economic crisis and in the neo-patrimonial political natures of regional states – but the outcomes differ because two of the states concerned were liberalising autocracies and the third – Libya – had resolutely rejected any political or social domestic competitors to its hegemonic political discourse and practice. Even the liberalised autocracies face very different futures for, in Tunisia a whole system has been removed whilst in Egypt, the regime rejected its figurehead in order to preserve the regime itself. Ironically enough, the authorities in Tunisia attempted a similar course of action but were unable to impose themselves on the revolution that had occurred.

The European Union, Democracy and Counter-Terrorism in the Maghreb

Since 2001, the nature of the European Unions external action in the Mediterranean, particularly with respect to North Africa, has undergone significant change. The normative objectives of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership have become securitized in that co-operation to achieve economic and political development between South Mediterranean states has been effectively replaced by co-operation to combat a shared threat: transnational terrorism. The signifier of this process has been the way in which the approach to the issue of migration as a security concern has been modified but the consequence has been to downplay the role of norms of democratization and human rights in intra-Mediterranean political relationships.

The Role of Violence Within the Algerian Economy

Algerias economic crisis parallels and is an intrinsic part of its political crisis over the past decade. It consists, furthermore, of an interrelated crisis over control of economic rent and the activities of an informal, parallel economy originally based on smuggling and now sustained through violence which is legitimised by Islamist rhetoric. Economic reform, therefore, cannot be meaningfully achieved until appropriate institutions are constructed and a dysfunctional state has been successfully reformed.

Morocco's Reform Process: Wider Implications

The reform process in Morocco is often seen as a paradigm for the Arab world. This article argues that, at least as far as political reform is concerned, this is a mistake. Political reform was a strategy to ensure dynastic survival which sought to re-create the principles on which the pre-colonial sultanate ensured its survival. External pressure, then, influenced the timing of reform but was not responsible for the reform itself which had purely endogamous causes. Economic reform, albeit instituted in response to external pressure over debt repayment, was also used to serve similar political ends by consolidating the elite which partners the monarchy. Economic reform, however, does have a more universalistic implication, if only in terms of its failure to address the social factors that threaten the stability of the modern state.

Sovereignty and the Western Sahara

The Western Sahara conflict, now in its 35th year, is a conflict that challenges concepts of territorial sovereignty and self-determination and of the alleged linkage between them. It is also a manifestation of the struggle for regional hegemony between Algeria and Morocco and, by extension, a struggle by both regional powers to capture the attention and support of Europe and the United States. Amidst these major concerns, the interests of the Western Saharans themselves are being increasingly ignored, a situation that raises further questions about popular legitimisation of sovereignty in the contemporary world order.

National Reconciliation and General Amnesty in Algeria

Reconciliation and amnesty have become an accepted way of dealing with the process of transition after civil conflict or political repression. Algerias Charter for National Reconciliation and Peace was, however, more limited than most such initiatives in that one side in the violence of the 1990s was given blanket amnesty and immunity whilst the other was required to submit to the authority of the state. It is questionable, therefore, how successful this initiative will be in achieving genuine reconciliation. This, in turn, may have implications for future stability.

Libya and Europe

Contemporary Libyan relations with Europe are still marked by the radical origins of the Qadhdhafi regime, as they are by a much older historical record. The radicalism of the past has, however, now been subdued by commercial realities and European and American hostility. Nevertheless, despite the Libyan leaders professed desire to make Libya the ‘Kuwait of the Mediterranean’, strains in the relationship with Europe remain regardless of the resolution of the Lockerbie and UTA affairs.

The foreign policy process in Libya

The policy process in Libya is complex and intensely personalised around the figure of the Libyan leader, even if it also relies on a structured consultation process. Libyas foreign policy fits within this paradigm as well, as our research amongst Libyan policy-makers has demonstrated. Yet, despite its apparent unpredictability, it abides by three basic principles that interact with each other: opportunistic constancy, national self-interest and ideological commitment. Whilst the correlation between the first two elements is linear and progressive, their correlation with the third is inverted and retrogressive although they can condition and shape it as well. Actual relations form four inter-connected conceptual circles covering the Arab world, Africa, the West (Europe and America) and the BRICs (Russia, China, Latin America and Asia). Thus relations with the Arab world and Africa are suffused with ideological import alongside Libyas pragmatic objectives in Africa, whilst with Europe and America they are conditioned by pragmatic constancy based on oil and international acceptance. With the world of the BRICs, some of Libyas old visions of anti-imperialism have resurfaced but commercial concerns still dominate interrelationships. The personalised nature of foreign policy decisions has been powerfully reflected in recent years in Libyas bilateral relationships, as Bulgaria, Britain, Canada and Switzerland have recently discovered. They reflect a deep insistence that Libya and its leader should be taken at their own evaluation. Where this has not happened, Libyan displeasure has been manifest, the degree of displeasure being tempered only by a pragmatic and opportunistic consideration of possible adverse consequences. Overall, however, the constant and underlying theme since the 1990s has been regaining international acceptance, one which, even if its content is diametrically opposed to the patterns of that past, reflects the objectives of the 1970s and 1980s as well.

Libya and the European Union: shared interests?

Libya has always remained outside the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, although it enjoys the status of an observer. The European Union has, for some years, sought to bring it into a structured relationship similar to that of the Barcelona Process, but allowing for the objections Libya has voiced to full membership of the Partnership itself. As a result, it has been negotiating a Framework Agreement since 2007 to this end. The real purpose of the Framework Agreement, however, is to formalise Libyas role in ensuring the Unions external security and over the control of migration, as a study of its implications for Italy make clear. In the current climate, however, little progress can be made in completing the negotiations until the political situation inside Libya is clarified.

Government–media relations in Tunisia: a paradigm shift in the culture of governance?

The removal of the Ben Ali regime from power in Tunisia raised fundamental questions over the future role and structure of the countrys media. A new structural relationship with government would have to reflect changes in ownership patterns and a new narrative about the medias future function. The government too had to adjust to a new relationship with the media in a participatory political system in transition. This paper discusses how and why these concepts have developed in the way that they have. The learning processes involved have been more difficult than first imagined, especially for government, and the environment in which the media has operated has become more difficult, a factor which has affected, both the media and its relationship with government. The key events have been elections and the consequences of Ennahdas victory, the assassinations of two prominent political activists and Tunisias new constitution approved in January 2014. Connected with these events has been the worsening security environment with the growth in salafi–jihadi extremism and Tunisias declining economic fortunes. Yet perhaps the most difficult issue has been the actual development of media–government relations. Media professionals had assumed that the relationship under the former regime, in which the media served as the obedient handmaiden to government, would be abandoned and replaced by a genuinely free information space automatically encouraged by government. In reality, the coalition government, and its successor have realised the utility of a media subservient to government and have been reluctant to support proper freedom of information and communication. In short, they have repeated the practices of their predecessor, justifying such authoritarian action as an entitlement of government. In reality, they have revealed their own anxieties about media freedom and fears over the dissemination of opposition opinions. The arbitrary practices of authoritarian rule had not been eradicated and the media was still seen as a weapon in a political struggle, rather than as an essential vehicle of public participation in the construction of a new political order. This is, therefore, the major problem that must now be tackled by Tunisias new media.