Algerian Puzzles

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Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies

A lgerian Puzzles

W

illiam

B. Q

uandt

RSC No. 2000/53

Mediterranean Programme Series

EUI WORKING PAPERS

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European University Institute 3 0001 0034 5391 9 © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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EUI Working Paper RSC No. 2000/53

Quandt: Algerian Puzzles

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The Robert Schuman Centre was set up by the High Council of the EUI in 1993 to carry out disciplinary and interdisciplinary research in the areas of European integration and public policy in Europe. Research publications take the form of Working Papers, Policy Papers and books. Most of the Working Papers and Policy Papers are also available on the website of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies: http://www.iue.it/RSC/ PublicationsRSC-Welcome.htm. In 1999, the Centre merged with the European Forum to become the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE, FLORENCE

ROBERT SCHUMAN CENTRE

FOR ADVANCED STUDIES

Algerian Puzzles

WILLIAM B. QUANDT

EUI Working Paper RSC No. 2000/53

BADIA FIESOLANA, SAN DOMENICO (FI)

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© 2000 William B. Quandt

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Mediterranean Programme

The Mediterranean Programme was established at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute in Autumn 1998. The Mediterranean Programme has two long-term strategic objectives. First, to provide education and conduct research which combines in-depth knowledge of the Middle East and North Africa, of Europe, and of the relationship between the Middle East and North Africa and Europe. Second, to promote awareness of the fact that the developments of the Mediterranean area and Europe are inseparable. The Mediterranean Programme will provide post-doctoral and doctoral education and conduct high-level innovative scientific research.

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Algeria has never been a country that was easy for political analysts to classif Just when its socialist, radical trajectory seemed most apparent itrifhe late 191 it took a turn toward liberalization and political opening, making it the Ar world's most promising candidate for democratization by the end

Then, a few years later, pundits were predicting that Algeria would

Iran, an Islamic Republic in the Maghreb.1 2 Now, as the new millennium begins, all of those portraits of Algeria's future can be seen as flawed. It remains difficult, however, to paint a convincing picture of where Algeria finds itself in this post-Cold War, and possibly post-Islamist, era. Nonetheless, we will at least try to unravel a few of the central puzzles concerning Algerian political life.3

First there is the issue of political Islam, its radicalization and the astonishing outburst of violence in the 1990s. The puzzle here is not simply the eruption of violence after three decades of relatively peaceful development in independent Algeria. The deeper puzzle involves the sudden emergence of radical Islam as the vehicle for mobilizing the multiple sources of discontent within the country.4 Islam had been a part of the mainstream of Algerian nationalism, but one could hardly identify a distinct organizational embodiment of political Islam until the late-1980s, and then the Front Islamique du Saint (FIS) suddenly commanded the streets and claimed to represent the single largest segment of the population. Ten years later, the movement lay shattered, divided, no longer a threat to the regime.

The second puzzle involves the persistence of certain gains in liberalization and democratization in recent years, despite the violence and the reassertion of authoritarian rule.5 While Algeria has not managed a transition to democracy, there is nonetheless more liberty of expression, freedom of the press and respect for political pluralism than is found in most Arab countries. Civil society is always on the defensive, but has nonetheless proved capable of preserving some space outside the control of government. Some analysts see Algeria's semi-liberalization as little more than a safety valve offered by the “decideurs” of the regime to appease some potential critics. Others see ordinary Algerians struggling to hang onto hard-won gains made during an earlier period.

1 Giacomo Luciani, ‘T h e Oil Rent, the Fiscal Crisis o f the State and Democratization”, in Ghassan Salamé, ed., Democracy Without Democrats? The Renewal o f Politics in the Muslim

World, New York: I. B. Tauris, 1994.

2Graham Fuller, Algeria: The Next Islamic State? Santa Monica: Rand, 1996.

3 For a lengthier treatment of these issues, see William B. Quandt, Between Ballots and

Bullets: Algeria's Transition from Authoritarianism, Washington D.C.: Brookings, 1998.

4Séverine Labat, Les islamistes algériens: entre les urnes et le maquis. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1995; Luis Martinez, La guerre civile en Algérie, Paris: Karthala, 1998.

5 Yahya Zoubir, “Stalled Democratization of an Authoritarian Regime: The Case of Algeria."

Democratization, Voi. 2 (Summer 1995), pp. 109-139.

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The third puzzle stems from the considerable institutional engineering of the past decade.6 A new constitution was adopted; a new upper house of parliament was created; many new political parties were formed; a series of elections were held, some of which were reasonably competitive and fair, others not at all so. Five different individuals have held the top position of chief executive - Chadli Benjedid, who was forced from office by the military; Mohammed Boudiaf, who was assassinated in mysterious circumstances; Ali Kafi, who was head of a transitional ruling body, and then drifted off into obscurity; Liamine Zeroual, a laconic general who briefly seemed to hold out the hope of ending Algeria's troubles, but soon lost credibility and then in September 1998 announced, without explanation, his intention to resign; and Abdalaziz Bouteflika, a veteran nationalist who was elected in April 1999 in a bizarre contest in which all the other candidates withdrew just before the ballots were cast. While all of these changes were occasions for much discussion and debate, it is not at all clear what enduring impact they have had.

Finally, there is the puzzle of where power really lies in Algeria. Most would answer that it is still in the hands of the armed forces and the security services, and that would doubtless be correct. But few profess to know how decisions are made within the inner circle; few claim to know the factional lineups; and few are sure of the relationship between the assertive new president, Bouteflika, and the military men who helped put him in power. Algerian Political Islam

Where did the FIS come from and where has it gone? Simple questions, but not so easy to answer. Unlike Iran and Egypt, Algeria was not noted for great institutions of Islamic learning. Algeria's reformist Islamic movement of the 1930s had contributed to the current that resulted in Algerian nationalism, but it did not survive as an institutionalized force in independent Algeria. Religion was very much under the thumb of the state during the 1960s and 70s. No Islamic political parties emerged; no leaders of note adopted an Islamist agenda. Algerians were, of course, Muslim, and the government did decide on rapid Arabization of education, which may have increased popular political awareness of currents of opinion that were gaining ground in other parts of the Arab world.

By the 1980s, the first signs of a radical Islamist challenge to the regime could be seen. A low-level armed insurgency had taken root in the countryside. The goal was ostensibly the overthrow o f a corrupt government and its

6 Quandt, op. cit., pp. 124-145.

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replacement by one guided by sharia. It was not until 1988, however, that a mass movement was formed on the basis of Islamist principles.7

Algeria had begun to liberalize its economy in the 1980s, with the result that some Algerians were becoming quite wealthy, while others remained poor, with few prospects for employment or decent housing. The issue of corruption was on the minds of many people as they wondered what was happening to the vast oil revenues that poured into the state's coffers. When oil prices fell in 1986, economic discontent was widespread, especially among the young men who were just coming of age and looking for jobs.

This volatile socio-economic mix was exploited brilliantly by Islamist political figures, especially the co-leader of the FIS, Ali Bel Hadj. A young preacher with a gift for public speaking, Bel Hadj was able to reach the angry young men of the nation’s capital. Much like the FLN in an earlier era, the FIS was not so much a political party as a broad front that claimed to represent the entire people. (Hence the pun, “le FIS est le fils du FLN”). Anyone who disliked the regime - any many did - could rally to the call of the FIS leaders. There was little in the way of tight discipline or hierarchy. Instead, the FIS had a charismatic leader and a collective body of changing composition. It included moderates and radicals, Arabs and Berbers, young and old. The FIS was clear about its goals - “Islam is the Solution” - but vague on practical steps. Still, it proved to be an immensely popular movement in its prime. It won the local elections of 1990 by a wide margin. Its victory in the 1991 elections was cut short by the army, but by then the number of voters prepared to support it had already dropped by one-fourth compared to the previous year.8

If one sees the FIS as a broad-based socio-political front with a charismatic leader at its head, then there is little surprise that the movement began to fragment after the crisis of 1991-92 and the arrest o f its top command. Part of the FIS followership seems to have withdrawn into sullen apathy and cynicism; some went into exile; and some took up arms in the countryside, determined to emulate the FLN in its revolutionary struggle.

A recurring theme in Algerian politics is its factionalism and clannishness.9 The FLN had managed to hold together, more or less, until the moment of independence, but then split along factional lines, opening the way for the military, the best organized part of society, to take over. Similarly, the

7Ahmed Rouadjia, Les frères et la mosquée: enquête sur le mouvement islamiste en Algérie. Paris: Editions Karthala, 1990.

8 Quandt, op. cit., pp. 55-61.

9 William B. Quandt, Revolution and Political Leadership: Algeria, 1954-1968. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1969.

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FIS split into competing factions after 1992, and before long the military had the upper hand in the conflict, even though it took years and a political strategy to disarm the main group of armed FIS followers.

During the fighting of the 1990s, an armed Islamist group (GIA) broke with the FIS and began a campaign of indiscriminate killing of civilians. Some have claimed that the GIA was little more than a creation of the security services. This conspiratorial interpretation argues that the regime benefited from the radicalization of the Islamist movement. Many ordinary Algerians, faced with the alternative of the GIA, would presumably accept the lesser evil of the military regime. This interpretation, however, does not seem to be persuasive, even if there were instances of manipulation of the GIA by Military Security. More plausible is the view that the fragmentation of the FIS, the lack of any hierarchy of control, resulted in small armed splinter groups who made of political violence a way of life.10 As the GIA turned more and more to terrorism, it lost the support of many who had previously sympathized with the FIS. As these groups withdrew their assistance, the GIA turned on them with a vengeance.

The key breakthrough for the regime came in late 1997 when a truce was arranged with the largest of the Islamist armed groups, the AIS. Two years later, after a formal offer of amnesty, many of these fighters turned in their arms or joined the regular armed forces in their final campaign against the GIA. While the FIS still exists as an exile movement, it has ceased to have an organized expression inside Algeria. Whatever one thinks of political Islam, the sudden rise and fall of the FIS, all within a single decade and accompanied by tremendous violence, has been a remarkable phase of the Algerian tragedy. One conclusion to draw from the experience is the difficulty to confronting a modern military with a loosely organized movement of malcontents. In Iran it was possible to seize power in such circumstances because the military split after the Shah left Iran. Nothing similar happened in Algeria. Instead, it was the Islamist movement itself that fragmented and eventually failed.

Liberalization: Real or Smokescreen?

How does one account for the surprising persistence of Algerian liberalization throughout the upheavals of the 1990s? More than most Arab countries, Algeria shifted from being a one-party, tightly controlled system in the late 1980s to a multi-party system with a remarkably free press. Despite the canceling of the 1991-92 election and the manipulation of subsequent votes, and despite the outlawing of the FIS, Algerians have managed to preserve some of their gains

10 Martinez, op. cit., pp. 153-188.

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from the liberalization of the late 1980s. How can this be explained, especially when elsewhere in the region there has often been a noticeable retreat from liberalization?

Liberalization in Algeria has not been an exclusively top-down phenomenon. Therein lies the secret of its persistence. During the 1980s, a number of non-governmental movements began to make themselves felt. For example, the Berber minority began to assert itself, calling for greater cultural autonomy and respect for Berber language." Women began to organize, especially to oppose the reactionary Family Code. And Islamist groups began to assert themselves, some by taking up arms, others by contesting student elections and lobbying for rapid Arabization of the curriculum. Even a small communist group within the FLN tried to advance its goals. In short, Algerian society was considerably more pluralistic during the 1980s than the populist ideology of the one-party regime would have acknowledged.

After the demonstrations of October 1988, the regime gambled on a political opening that allowed the suppressed pluralism that already existed to emerge full blown.11 12 Within a short period after the new Constitution in 1989, dozens of new political movements had been formed, newspapers were being published with all points of view represented, and a vast array of civic associations came into being. Some of these proved to be quite feeble, but others seemed to have deeper roots. The press, in particular, developed a feisty independence.

One interpretation of the relative success of Algeria's liberalization is that the regime saw it as a useful safety valve, releasing some pent-up pressures but not really endangering the foundations of power. From this perspective, liberalization was tolerated because it had little impact on the broader society. It could be turned up or down depending on the whims of the rulers.

An alternative, and more convincing, interpretation was that Algerian society had become more complex over the thirty years since independence and the one-party system could no longer be made to accommodate the existing diversity. Add to this the fact that Algerians were very aware of events beyond their borders - the prevalence of satellite dishes on apartment houses showed that many Algerians were receiving much of their news and entertainment from Europe, along with some of the new Arabic channels from Europe and the Middle East. A million or more Algerians lived in Europe and were in regular

11 Lahouari Addi, L ’Algérie el la démocratie: pouvoir et crise du politique dans l'Algérie

contemporaine. Paris: Editions la Découverte, 1994, pp. 61-62.

12 M ’Hammed Boukhobza, Octobre 88: évolution ou rupture? Alger: Editions Bouchène,1991. © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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touch with their families in Algeria. A regime that tried to isolate its population, or to pretend that Algerians spoke with a single voice, would simply not be minimally credible. Liberalization, in this view, was a response to an underlying development of society.

In addition to the growing complexity of society, the ideological hegemony of the one-party model was being undermined during the 1980s. When Algeria won its independence, there were multiple fissures within the society - regional, ethnic, generational, gender, educational, and so forth. The new regime, however, insisted on upholding the notion that the entire people deserved credit for the revolution and that they would all be represented within the only legal political party, the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN). This populist, radical and vaguely socialist ideology forced all public discourse into a single mold. No internal differences among Algerians were recognized as legitimate. Opposition was tantamount to counter-revolution or betrayal.

Those who had led the revolution had forged their political ideas in the pre-revolutionary period when the multiplicity of political movements had seemed to be a weakness of Algerian nationalism.13 The French had been able to play off one against another. The FLN was formed in 1954 in order to break with the old parties and to start an armed insurrection in which the entire population would soon be implicated. The FLN insisted on the dissolution of the pre-revolutionary parties, and at the time of independence there was no thought of going back to the old multi-party system that had been discredited.

Whatever the initial degree of enthusiasm for the FLN may have been at the time of independence, its legitimacy faded as time went on and a new generation came of age that had no recollection of the revolutionary period. The FLN, to these young Algerians, seemed like a privileged caste that doled out patronage to its favored supporters but ignored the needs of many ordinary people. And as Algeria became a more developed country, thanks mostly to oil revenues, the FLN seemed to many to be shot through with corruption.

When liberalization of the political arena became possible in the late 1980s, the FLN was widely despised by Algerians. The society, in any case, was much more differentiated than the official ideology would allow, and once it became possible for diverse groups to represent themselves, there was an explosion of political activity. Although the FIS tried, with considerable success, to revive the populist rhetoric of the FLN, this time with an Islamist gloss, most Algerians seem to have been unwilling to join the new bandwagon. At its peak, the FIS was only able to persuade four million of the eligible electorate of

13 Quandt, Revolution..., pp. 66-86. © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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twelve million to vote for it. Most Algerians were either apathetic, alienated, or committed to other political parties.

One lesson from the past decade seems to be that Algeria today has to be thought of as a country with at least four strong political currents at the popular level. There is still a nationalist secular current that draws inspiration from the specificity of Algeria's struggle for independence. Today it has an old-guard, bureaucratized authoritarian wing, and a younger, more genuinely democratic one. In addition, there is still an Islamist current, despite the banning of the FIS, and perhaps one quarter or more of the population would identify with it. Several legal Islamic parties try to organize this current. Finally, there is a portion of the population that identifies itself with Berber cultural and linguistic demands, and two parties compete for its support. In the real world, of course, some people move back and forth among these tendencies, some are attracted to more than one, and the parties that claim to represent them are not all that well organized at the grass roots level. Without a pattern of genuinely free elections, it is difficult to give weights to each of these tendencies, but it seems fair to say that no single current represents the majority of Algeria today. As a result, the underlying pluralism of Algerian society is likely to force some degree of pluralism into the political arena and into the institutions of government.

Institutional Engineering

Students of politics have gone back and forth on the question of whether institutions really matter in the study of developing countries. Those trained in a legalist tradition have written at length on such issues as Algeria's constitutional development, only to be criticized for focussing on a meaningless issue. After all, each regime in independent Algeria has eventually revised the constitution to fit its own needs. Similarly, how much time and effort should one spend studying elections that are fraudulent, or ministers who are little more that ciphers. On the whole, those who have eschewed institutions and focused instead on clans and factions and the “shadow government” dominated by the military have seemed more credible than those who focus on institutions.

Still, institutions of some sorts do matter in Algeria, and some changes in recent years are likely to have long-term consequences. On the economic front, few would deny that there have been important changes in matters such as land ownership, foreign investment laws, the role of the central bank, price controls and subsidies, and macro-economic policies. These changes in economic institutions have had far-reaching consequences, not all of them welcome.

In the political arena, institutional changes are more visible but less obviously of importance. Still, on at least one occasion, in 1991-92, the electoral

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rules chosen for the parliamentary elections - two round majority voting - helped to produce the FIS landslide.14 The constitutional reform o f 1996 adopted a form of proportional representation, and the result in 1997 was the election of a legislature that was more reflective of the underlying political currents than could have been expected under the old rules. Thus, institutional change seems to have helped to entrench pluralism.

Another institutional innovation in the 1996 constitution was a second house of parliament. The constitution stipulated that legislation passed by the lower house would have to pass the upper house by a three-quarter majority. This stipulation had presumably been introduced to deal with some future takeover of the lower house by opposition forces. The upper house could then block attempts to push through the opposition agenda. The problem, of course, is that if the opposition ever managed to win more than one-quarter of the upper house, it could also block the government's program. When elections were held for the upper house in December 1997, the results were a foregone conclusion and lacked credibility. The regime, if it wished to maintain control, could not allow a significant opposition to win seats, and thus electoral manipulation was almost certainly resorted to. Whereas the lower house elections earlier in the year had been at least minimally credible, those for local and provincial assemblies and the upper house were not. The reason, in part, had to do with faulty institutional design.

Finally, however one views Algerian institutions, the presidency seems to be a position of great power, at least in theory. Certainly under Algeria's second president, that was the case. But later presidents seemed more like figureheads and could not resist when the military wanted to ease them out of office, as in 1992 and again in 1998. The current incumbent, Abdalaziz Bouteflika, seems to take himself seriously as president and for the first time there may be a real test to see if the presidency is more than whatever the military allows it to be. Bouteflika is a civilian, he has wide support among the parties, he has some degree of popularity, and the constitution gives him immense powers. But it is also clear that he does not have an entirely free hand and that some in the military want to keep him on a short leash. At some point there is likely to be a showdown. If Bouteflika wins, then we will have to acknowledge that institutions have acquired some degree of importance within the Algerian political system. If he is easily shunted aside by “le pouvoir”, the real holders of power, then we will be justified in concluding that Algerian politics is still the province of the military and its mysterious, clannish methods of divvying up the spoils.

14 Quandt, Between Ballots and Bullets, pp. 159-160.

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Inside the Seraglio

Algerians have devised a rich vocabulary to describe the real “powers that be” in Algeria. They talk of the “serail”, the seraglio; they refer to the “nomenklatura”, “le pouvoir”, “les decideurs”, and sometimes just SM, “Sécurité Militaire”. Less frequently do Algerians speak with any confidence about how decisions are actually made by these faceless power brokers, and few claim to know with certainly who has the upper hand at any given moment. Politics takes place behind a very opaque screen and the shadows are hard to decipher.

Most knowledgeable Algerians would agree that the military and security elements have always played a central role in Algerian politics. Some trace this back to the revolution itself.15 There is no reason to doubt the general validity of this view. But it is not entirely convincing to say that only the military has counted in independent Algeria. During the period of liberalization in late 1989, the president and his reformist prime minister were able to act for a period of time without apparent direct intervention from the military. It is too simplistic to conclude that the military has been all-powerful and all-knowing. In fact, they seem to have badly misjudged public sentiment at the time of the 1991-92 election; their turn to Boudiaf in 1992 misfired; their campaign to discredit and crush the FIS was poorly managed, especially in the early years; their choice of Zeroual as president in 1994 was uninspiring and did little to advance their corporate interests; and now, having installed Bouteflika as president, they may find it difficult to control him.

The inner circle, as of 2000, seems to consist o f the chief o f staff of the armed forces, Mohammed Lamari, and the head of Military Security, Tewfik Mediène. One “retired” officer, Khaled Nezzar, and a former Minister of the Interior, Larbi Belkheir, are also believed to wield considerable influence. Other names certainly deserve to be added to this list, but these four represent the durable influential core that has survived the shifts and turns o f the past decade. Almost certainly, these are among the powerful figures who will determine the course of the Bouteflika presidency.

Bouteflika's Prospects

Our analysis of four puzzles in Algeria's political life can be summarized as follows:

• Political Islam has become an enduring, but not dominant, part of Algeria's politics, and derives much of its support from social

15 On the influence of Abdelhafid Boussouf in particular, see Addi, op. cit.

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categories that have been ignored by the mainstream parties. It most radical wing of the Islamist movement has been marginalized and has little mass support.

• Liberalization has made significant gains and Algerian politics today is more open and pluralistic than in the early days of independence. This has been the result of the loss of hegemony of the one-party model and the inevitable growth o f complexity within the society at large. Liberalization has had strong impulses from below and is more than a façade behind which the real holders of power carry on without concern for popular opinion.

• Institutional change has not resulted in a legitimate political order. Nonetheless, several of the political parties, the press, the parliament and the presidency have some stature in the eyes of the public. They cannot be treated as irrelevant in the game of politics, but the presidency, in particular, has yet to demonstrate its clout in the face of opposition from the military.

• A great deal of power still remains with the military and security services, but they have no standing in public opinion and seem now to prefer to exercise power from the shadows. The decision in 1999 not to run a military man for the presidency was doubtless based on an awareness of how unpopular such a move would be. For the first time, a civilian president may have a chance of outmaneuvering those who brought him to power, although this is by no means a sure bet.

The sequence of events that brought Bouteflika to power was bizarre. He was, of course, a prominent political figure from the past, having served as Foreign Minister from 1963 until the death of his patron, Houari Boumediene, in late 1978.16 At that time, Bouteflika was one of several contenders to be the next president. But the military preferred one of its own, and Bouteflika soon disappeared from the political scene. For nearly twenty years, his name was rarely heard in Algiers. He took no public positions on the issues confronting the country. In the 1980s, perhaps fearing for his safety, he left the country for the Gulf for a number of years.

Algeria's crisis deepened after the disastrous parliamentary election of 1991-92. As violence mounted, the military reportedly turned to Bouteflika in 1994 to see if he would be prepared to assume the office of president. He is

16 This section is adapted from my “Bouteflika in Perspective”, Middle East Insight, November-December 1999, pp. 13-14. © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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thought to have insisted on control over certain prerogatives that the military were unwilling to cede, so he did not run for president. Instead, in late 1995, Liamine Zeroual, a former general, was elected. Although the security situation gradually improved in the succeeding years, Algerians remained deeply alienated from their own government. Zeroual was unpopular and aloof. His officials were uncommunicative. Algerians complained of the “hogra”, or contemptuous attitude, of their leaders. In September 1998, Zeroual surprised his countrymen by announcing that he would step down from the presidency by the following spring.

Zeroual's unexplained withdrawal from politics opened the way for a remarkable political campaign for the presidency. It is rare in the Arab world to find genuinely contested elections for the highest office. In early 1999, Algeria seemed on the verge of breaking new ground with a remarkably free election campaign in which candidates from all the major political currents of the country (with some constraints on Islamist candidates) were allowed to run. Four serious candidates, all with credible claims to leadership, emerged from the pack: Bouteflika, representing a nationalist line which promised to restore Algeria to its former respected role in the international arena, while bringing peace at home; Ahmed Taleb Ibrahimi, a moderate Islamist with roots in the nationalist movement; Mouloud Hamrouche, a former Prime Minister and outspoken democrat; and Hocine Ait Ahmed, one of the genuine founders of the Algerian revolution and leader of a democratic/Berber party. Prior to the election, it seemed as if Bouteflika and either Hamrouche or Taleb Ibrahimi would confront one another in a run-off election. Bouteflika had the support of the main government political parties and it was widely believed that the military favored him.

Why exactly six of the seven candidates withdrew at the last moment is still not entirely clear. But they claim that information reached them that “the fix was in”, that the word had gone out to insure Bouteflika's election, and that the military and security services were planning to engineer that result. Most observers report only a modest turnout on election day. According to one plausible source, turnout was less than 25% of registered voters, of whom less than 30% actually voted for Bouteflika. But the opposition candidates were unable to mobilize much sustained opposition to the election results and Bouteflika soon settled into his new role. Most surprisingly, he began to act like a real president, something the Algerian people had not seen for years.

Bouteflika loves to talk - in elegant classical Arabic, so convoluted that most of his countrymen cannot understand it; in Algerian dialect, which gives a blunt and direct edge to some of his speeches; and in French, which he is unashamed to use in public, despite some criticism from Islamists. He often

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seems to be quite critical of his own people for being lazy, for tolerating corruption, for losing sight of the supreme interests of the country. But he is clearly a strong nationalist, bristling at any slight to Algeria's honor. He is intent on rebuilding ties to other countries - including neighboring Morocco and France, the former colonizing power - but he does not go into negotiations with hat in hand. Indeed, he is outspoken, feisty, sometimes arrogant, defensive - but all of his interlocutors sense in him a strong personality, a lively intelligence, and someone with a strategy for getting Algeria back on track.

His first objective has been to end the internal violence that has taken some 100,000 lives in the past seven years. To do this, he has offered his plan for “concorde civile” - essentially an offer o f amnesty to those who have taken up arms. He has also implied that he will not allow any witch-hunts to investigate the alleged abuses of human rights on the part of the generals. He clearly has been trying to reestablish the power and prestige of the state. In September, the overwhelming majority of Algerians voted in a referendum to support Bouteflika's call for civil peace, thereby giving him a boost of legitimacy that his election the previous April had not done.

Late in December 1999, Bouteflika finally named a new government. It was to be headed by a liberal economic reformer, Ahmed Benbitour, and a number of other close associates of Bouteflika showed up in key posts. But so did the previous prime minister, Ahmed Ouyahia, presumably as the military's ally in the sensitive post of Minister of Justice. With the new government in place, Bouteflika and his team would have to turn attention to the serious socio economic conditions in the country. These are the issues that will prove to be most challenging to the new regime - unemployment, housing, education, health care, the judicial system, the weak private sector of the economy. Fortunately, oil prices are now high, and that means that the revenue crunch that many have feared has been postponed. But Algeria cannot live off oil revenues alone. And most of the rest of the economy needs a severe overhaul.

Early in January 2000, Bouteflika registered an important success on the security front. The Armée Islamique du Salut (AIS), which had been observing a truce since October 1997, finally agreed to lay downs its arms. Its followers would either join the army and continue the fight against the GIA, or would return to civil society without penalty. Some Algerians were angered at the notion of these armed Islamists getting off without punishment, but most Algerians seemed hopeful that the violence would gradually come to an end and felt the price was worth paying. With several thousand armed Islamists reportedly taking advantage of the amnesty offer, the authorities claimed that only about one-thousand remained at large. Some intense fighting took place as the military tried to demonstrate that “residual terrorism” was about to be

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extinguished. Few were optimistic that the violence would end quickly, but the trend was clearly in the direction that most approved. Life in the capital seemed to be returning to normal as day-to-day security improved.

Bouteflika has done well on the international scene. He has met with many world leaders, including Bill Clinton, and has hosted a number of international conferences in Algiers, as if to show that Algeria was once again a key player on the world scene. He has to be taken seriously as a political figure, but he still has to prove that he can deal effectively with the country's long- postponed problems and can keep the powerful military figures on the sidelines. No one can say at this point whether he will succeed or not, but for the first time in many years there is a sense that Algeria's future will be better than its past.

William B. Quandt University o f Virginia © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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Working Papers of the

Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies Published since 1999

RSC No. 99/1 Giorgia GIOVANNETTI EMU and the Mediterranean Area R SC No. 99/2

Carol HARLOW

Citizen Access to Political Power in the European Union

RSC No. 99/3 Francesca B1GNAMI

Accountability and Interest Group Participation in Comitology RSC No. 99/4

Mette Z0LNER Re-Imagining the Nation RSC No. 99/5 Walter MATTLI

Fora of International Commercial Dispute Resolution for Private Parties

R SC No. 99/6 Christoph U. SCHMID

Ways Out of the Maquis Communautaire -On Simplification and Consolidation and the Need for a Restatement of European Primary Law

RSC No. 99/7 Salvatore PITRUZZELLO

Political Business Cycles and Independent Central Banks. German Governments and the Bundesbank (1960-1989)

R SC No. 99/8 Veronika TACKE

Organisational Constructions of the BSE Problem. A Systems Theoretical Case Study on the Globalisation of Risk

RSC No. 99/9 Robert SPRINGBORG

Political Structural Adjustment in Egypt: A Precondition for Rapid Economic Growth?

R SC No. 99/10

Rebecca Jean EMIGH/Eva FODOR/Ivan SZELENYI

The Racializadon and Feminization of Poverty During the Market Transidon in the Central and Southern Europe

R SC 99/11 John GOULD

Winners, Losers and the Institutional Effects o f Privatization in the Czech and Slovak Republics

R SC 99/12 Heather GRABBE

A Partnership for Accession? The Implications of EU Condidonality for the Central and East European Applicants RSC 99/13

Tibor PAPP

Who is In, Who is Out? Citizenship, Nationhood, Democracy, and European Integration in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

R SC 99/14

Karin FIERKE/Antje WIENER

Constructing Institutional Interests: EU and NATO Enlargement

R SC 99/15 Jarko FIDRMUC

The Political Economy of Restructuring of East-West Trade: Economic Winners and Losers in the CEECs and EU

RSC 99/16 Tanja A. BORZEL

Why there is No Southern Problem. On Environmental Leaders and Laggards in the European Union

RSC 99/17

Markus HAVERLAND

National Adaptation to European Integration: The Importance o f Institutional Veto Points

*out of print © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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RSC 99/18 Sabrina TESOKA

The Differential Impact of Judicial Politics in the Field of Gender Equality. Three National Cases under Scrutiny

RSC 99/19 Martin MARCUSSEN

The Power of EMU-Ideas: Reforming Central Banks in Great Britain, France, and Sweden

RSC 99/20

Yannis PAPADOPOULOS

Gouvernance, coordination et légitimité dans les politiques publiques

R SC 99/21 Anne BAZIN

Germany and the Enlargement of the European Union to the Czech Republic RSC 99/22

Mark THATCHER

The Europeanisation of Regulation. The Case of Telecommunications RSC 99/23

Daniel C. THOMAS

Boomerangs and Superpowers: The "Helsinki Network" and Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy

RSC 99/24 Giuseppe BERTOLA

Labor Markets in the European Union RSC 99/25

Grigorii V. GOLOSOV/Edward PONARIN Regional Bases of Party Politics: A Measure and Its Implications for the Study of Party System Consolidation in New Democracies RSC 99/26

Fritz BREUSS/Andrea WEBER

Economic Policy Coordination in the EMU: Implications for the Stability and Growth Pact?

RSC 99/27 Thomas MAYER

The ECB's Policy: The View from the Market

RSC 99/28

Arnold J. HEIDENHEIMER

Political Parties and Political Corruption in Comparative Historical Perspective

R SC 99/29

Lufs Manuel MACEDO PINTO DE SOUSA Corruption and Parties in Portugal

RSC 99/30

Jean CARTIER-BRESSON

Corruption et partis politiques en France sous la Ve République: une première réflexion sur la relation entre les financements occultes et l'enrichissement R SC 99/31

Giovanna ZINCONE

Citizenship: Between State and Society R SC 99/32

Adrian FAVELL/Andrew GEDDES European Integration, Immigration and the Nation State: Institutionalising Transnational Political Action?

R SC 99/33 Jonathan ZEITLIN

Americanization and Its Limits: Reworking US Technology and Management in Postwar Europe and Japan

R SC 99/34 Gerda FALKNER

Interest Groups in a Multi-level Polity: The Impact o f European Integration on National Systems

RSC 99/35 David R. CAMERON

Unemployment in the New Europe: The Contours of the Problem

-;i;-

-;j;-RSC 2000/1 Gunnar TRUMBULL

Contested Ideas of the Consumer: National Strategies of Product arket Regulation in France and Germany

R SC 2000/2

Jacques MÉLITZ/Frédéric ZUMER Interregional and International Risk Sharing and Lessons for EMU

R SC 2000/3 David D. LAITIN

Culture and National Identity: "The East" and European Integration

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RSC 2000/4 Bruno DE WITTE

Politics Versus Law in the EU’s Approach to Ethnic Minorities

RSC 2000/5 Imco BROUWER

US Civil-Society Assistance to the Arab World - The Cases of Egypt and Palestine R SC 2000/6

Rainer EISING/Nicolas JABKO

Moving Targets: Institutional Embeddedness and Domestic Politics in the Liberalization of EU Electricity Markets

RSC 2000/7 Sandra LAVENEX

Security Threat or Human Right? Conflicting Frames in the Eastern Enlargement of the EU Asylum and Immigration Policies

R SC 2000/8 Malcolm ANDERSON

Border Regimes and Security in an Enlarged European Community: Implications of the Entry into Force of the Amsterdam Treaty RSC 2000/9

Eberhard BORT

Illegal Migration and Cross-Border Crime: Challenges at the Eastern Frontier of the European Union

RSC 2000/10 Peter BUGGE

Czech Perceptions of the Perspective of EU Membership: Havel vs. Klaus

R SC 2000/11

George W. BRESLAUER

Russia, the Baltic States, and East-West Relations in Europe

RSC 2000/12 Rachel A. CICHOWSKI

Choosing Democracy: Citizen Attitudes and the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union

RSC 2000/13 Romain GARBAYE

Ethnic Minorities, Cities, and Institutions: A Comparison of the Modes of Management of Ethnic Diversity of a French and a British City

R SC 2000/14

Nils BJÔRKSTEN/Miika SYRJÀNEN How Problematic are Internal Euro Area Differences?

R SC 2000/15 Fiona ROSS

Framing Welfare Reform in Affluent Societies: Rendering Retrenchment More Palatable?

RSC 2000/16 Antoin E. MURPHY

The 'Celtic Tiger' - An Analysis of Ireland's Economic Growth Performance

RSC 2000/17 Claus D. EHLERMANN

The Modernization of EC Antitrust Policy -A Legal and Cultural Revolution

R SC 2000/18 Stefano ALLIEVI

Nouveaux protagonistes de l'islam européen - Naissance d'une culture euro-islamique? Le rôle des convertis

R SC 2000/19 Ewa MORAWSKA

Transnational Migrations in the Enlarged European Union: A Perspective from East Central Europe

R SC 2000/20

Lykke FRIIS/Anna MURPHY

Negotiating in a Time of Crisis: The EU's Response to the Military Conflict in Kosovo R SC 2000/21

Sevket PAMUK

Turkey's Response to the Great Depression in Comparative Perspective, 1929-1939 R SC 2000/22

Martin VAN BRUINESSEN Transnational Aspects of the Kurdish Question

R SC 2000/23 Stephen CLARKSON

"Apples and Oranges". Prospects for the Comparative Analysis of the EU and NAFTA as Continental Systems R S C 2000/24

Umit CIZRE

Politics and Military in Turkey into the 21st Century *out of print © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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RSC 2000/25 Michelle CINI

Organizational Culture and Reform: The Case of the European Commission under Jacques Santer

RSC 2000/26 Rainer EISING

Bounded Rationality and Policy Learning in EU Negotiations: The Liberalization of the Electricity Supply Industry

RSC 2000/27

Carsten DETKEN/Philipp HARTMANN The Euro and International Capital Markets RSC 2000/28 - Michael J. ARTIS/ Marco BUTI

"Close to Balance or in Surplus" - A Policy Maker's Guide to the Implementation of the Stability and Growth Pact

RSC 2000/29

Daniel VAUGHAN-WHITEHEAD Economic and Social Gaps, New Hidden Borders in the Enlarged Europe? RSC 2000/30

Christopher HILL

The Geo-political Implications of Enlargement

RSC 2000/31 Lieven DE WINTER

Political Corruption in the Belgian Partitocracy: (Still) a Endemic Disease? RSC 2000/32

Andrew MARTIN

Social Pacts, Unemployment, and EMU Macroeconomic Policy

RSC 2000/33 Massimo MOTTA

Economic Analysis and EC Merger Policy RSC 2000/34

Lars-Erik CEDERMAN

Nationalism and Bounded Integration: What It Would Take to Construct a European Demos

RSC 2000/35 Michelle CINI

From Soft Law to Hard Law?: Discretion and Rule-making in the Commission's State Aid Regime

RSC 2000/36

Ronald L. JEPPERSON

Institutional Logics: On the Constitutive Dimensions of the Modem Nation-State Polities

RSC 2000/37 Michael FUNKE

Macroeconomic Shocks in Euroland Vs. the UK: Supply, Demand, or Nominal? RSC 2000/38

Michael J. ARTIS/Michael EHRMANN The Exchange Rate - A Shock-Absorber or Source of Shocks? A Study of Four Open Economies

RSC 2000/39 Catherine PERRON

Views of Czech Local Politicians on European Integration

RSC 2000/40

Jekaterina DORODNOVA EU Concerns in Estonia and Latvia: Implications of Enlargement for Russia's Behaviour Towards the Russian-speaking Minorities

RSC 2000/41

Ramunas VILPISAUSKAS

Regional Integration in Europe: Analyzing Intra-Baltic Economic Cooperation in the Context of European Integration RSC 2000/42

Susan SENIOR NELLO

The Role of Agricultural Cooperatives in the European Union: A Strategy for Cypriot Accession?

RSC 2000/43 Michael KEATING

Rethinking the Region. Culture, Institutions and Economic Development in Catalonia and Galicia RSC 2000/44 Sidney TARROW Transnational Contention RSC 2000/45 Dietrich JUNG

State Formation and War: The Case of Palestine © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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R SC 2000/46 Jens STEFFEK

The Power of Rational Discourse and the Legitimacy of International Governance R SC 2000/47

Kris DESCHOUWER

The European Multi-Level Party Systems: Towards a Framework for Analysis R SC 2000/48

Didier CHABANET

Quand les 'Sans' se mobilisent: les Marches européennes contre le chômage, la précarité et les exclusions

RSC 2000/49 Carolyn Marie DUDEK

Can the European Union Influence the Functioning of Regional Governments? R SC 2000/50

Jânos Mâtyâs KOVÂCS

Approaching the EU and Reaching the US? Transforming Welfare Regimes in East- Central Europe

R SC 2000/51 Ellen VOS

European Administrative Reform and Agencies

R SC 2000/52 Nils BJÔRKSTEN

Economic Cathcing Up in the Enlarged Euro Area: Implications for the Common Monetary Policy RSC 2000/53 William B. QUANDT Algerian Puzzles © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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