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The Origins, Cross-Regional Dynamics, and Future of Microprotest in the Maghreb
Abstract
While protest spikes and waves have been relatively well studied in the Maghreb when they crest into full view, the Arab Spring and the latest hiraks being the most apparent, since 1999 Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia have together experienced an average of over 20,000 microprotests annually that influence and interact with the larger waves and each other in interesting and not well documented ways. They also set some of most significant terms of evolving state society relations in all three countries. While there have been a few excellent country-specific studies of these phenomena, including on this panel, there has not been much valuable analysis on microprotest beyond the most prominent waves and spikes and how they incubate and inform evolutions in state-society relations and dynamics. When they are studied, they are often studied through distorting, often exterior lenses, such as “bread riots,” “intifadas,” “uprisings,” or dress rehearsals for revolutions that never occur. Amazigh and environmental activism, among many other examples, also fall into the category of microprotest that dialogues regionally and globally with often hyperlocal modalities and dividends. Housing, employment, education, health, social service, utility, water, and other microprotests cross-pollinate and interact in interesting ways with other forms of identity and rights-orientations, again with global, regional, and hyperlocal characteristics. National and regional governmental concessions and state largesse are also more feasible with regards to micro-protest than they are with national calls for revolutionary or systemic change. These dynamics also related closely to the problem of broken politics: weak and ineffectual parliaments, coopted and coerced political parties, sycophantic and insufficiently independent civil society organizations, become the best or even only way for local citizens to articulate demands and win concessions. The paper will also look at microprotest during the covid pandemic, including in relation to mandates and lockdowns. The paper will look at a variety of studies on these phenomena, most notably the regional and more abstract work of Hugh Roberts and the groundbreaking work on microprotest in Algeria of Robert Parks. But most of the data will be empirical, based on thousands of past interviews with protest participants and direct observation in all three countries and ongoing online interactions with microprotest organizers and state and social stakeholders. Overall, this research will examine how both state and society evolve and adapt to articulate demands and win and distribute concessions within a context of increasingly dysfunctional politics.
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Maghreb
Sub Area
Maghreb Studies