Civil-Social Activism:N Africa

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

The purpose of this class is to discuss and investigate different forms of civil-social activism, particularly civil society actors and social movements in North Africa. In fact, decades of civil resistance, mobilization, disobedience, dissent, and contestation of the post-colonial political order all over North African countries (i.e. Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia) preceded the wave of 2010-2011 popular uprisings that shook the region. Civil-social activism emerged as a result of restrictive public space and limited political opening under resilient authoritarianism. While the co-optation and infiltration of civil society by North African autocratic regimes have weakened activism; however, oppression developed a culture of opposition and resistance that challenged and ultimately eroded the state's legitimacy. Given the different levels of organizations within North African societies, each society experienced its own trajectory of civil-social activism. The widespread arbitrary violence inflicted by security apparatus on citizens combined to the retreat of the state from its social role, subsequently to the implementation of a chaotic neoliberalism, and the rise of kleptocratic nepotism have strengthened civil-social activism in these societies. Human rights activists, union workers, lawyers bar associations, journalists, political leaders, women activists, and youth among other actors contributed to a greater extent to the development of vibrant public space for social and political struggles in countries where democratic mechanisms of power contestation and regulation have been absent. Arguably, civil-social activism has opened the public space to more polarized and divided social actors due to ideological rivalry and cultural identities. Notwithstanding the difficulties in overcoming these divergences, civil-social activism through a pluralistic engagement and formal and informal networks of organizations and movements that arose before and during the 2010-2011 popular uprisings across North African societies could lead to the growth of authentic and legitimate activism as a mode of socio-political expression, and a potential generator of democratization process.