Morocco's domestic crisis of (derailed) democratisation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4931364 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Silvia Colombo (0000-0003-1138-4364, NATO Defense College, Rome, Italy, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1492-1514 |
| Publication date | 2023-11-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of North African Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1362-9387 • E-ISSN: 1743-9345 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13629387.2023.2207229 |
| OpenAlex | W4376566103 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 22 |
In the North African context, Morocco is a clear example of democratic backsliding. Since popular protests broke out in 2011, institutional reforms were implemented under the leadership of the monarchy, leading the Moroccan polity to change without altering its defining features. The previous decade had indeed seen Morocco trailing a thin line between social moderation and repression and between political openings and counter-revolution. Between 2011 and 2022 the process of democratic backsliding accelerated, thus turning Morocco into a 'hybrid regime'. By tracing continuities and changes in the past decade mainly at the political and institutional levels, this article explores the pattern of democratic backsliding undertaken by Morocco by empirically contextualising it within the deterioration of the main features of citizenship understood according to the categorisation introduced by Marshall and Bottomore (1987) that distinguishes between civic, political and social rights. To explain this pattern, the article argues that external factors linked to the deterioration of the regional context (the conflict with Algeria over the Western Sahara and the spill-over of Libyan instability) as well as the rising tensions with the European Union (EU) have not only underpinned Morocco's geopolitical reorientation but also sustained its domestic crisis of (unfinished) democratisation
Context (archaeology · Democracy · Democratization · Development economics · Economics · Geography · Geopolitics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Polity · Sociology · African Studies and Ethnography · African Studies and Geopolitics · Law · Multiculturalism, Politics, Migration, Gender
How Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan and even Egypt became IMF "Success Stories" in the 1990s
The Covid-19 pandemic and authoritarian consolidation in North Africa
Elections 2007
The European Union and Political Reform in Morocco
Surfing the Democratic Tsunami in Morocco
The Monarchy vs. the 20 February Movement
Moroccan Youth and the Forming of a New Generation
The Arab state and neoliberal globalization
Understanding Moroccan Politics
More than Repression
Rituals of Power and Political Parties in Morocco
Between Ballots and Bullets
United States Recognizes Morocco's Sovereignty Over Western Sahara
Public space security and contentious politics of Morocco’s Rif protests
Authoritarian resilience and democratic representation in Morocco
Changing Politics from Below? Women Parliamentarians in Morocco
Political parties in the Maghrib
Democratisation as a learning process
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |