Recent years have witness a global phenomenon of mass mobilizations for either policy or system change in established democracies and not-so democratic ones and in economically developed country and developing ones. Last year, they spanned many continents, going from Chile to Hong Kong, and including the Gilets Jaunes in France, and the Catalonia independence mobilization in Spain. This Global Protest Wave of 2019, as it is known, has also affected many parts of the Middle East and North Africa, including Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Lebanon and Iraq. Most comments on, and accounts of, these social movements tended to focus on what triggered the protests, who the protesters are and what their goals are. This paper will take these as givens and will instead focus on what happens to the most sustained movements in North Africa, Algeria’s Hirak movement, and Morocco’s Rif movement. The key question the paper will address is: To what extent these social movements have forced—or are likely to force-- a restructuring of the existing political and economic order? Another way of asking the question may be: Are these movements likely to be simply an “ineffective interlude in the status quo”? The answer to these questions will be informed by examining past social movements pursuing similar aims, such as the 10 cases studied by the Civic Research Network, and by theoretical works on social movements, especially those on the cycles of protest. This paper will analyze the protesters’ action choices, including that of holding out until the main goals are achieved or opting for a satisfacing compromise. Both are risky as the governing systems, short of repression, try to stifle the movements with a few concessions, cooptation or some guarantees that end up dividing and weakening the social action. As the Algerian and Moroccan protest movements show, protesters face a series of decisions, including increasing the protest efforts, changing tactics, or slowly dispersing after some demands are met, but not the main ones. Regardless of the immediate outcome, it is important to also look into the impact these contentious confrontations have on state-society relation, on the defining characteristics of the governing regime, and on the structured and unstructured political opposition. The findings of this research, which will include field work, might inform us on whether the outcome will result in another regime adaptation, some transformation, or permanent crisis.