Democratisation in the Maghreb

The book offers fresh insight into the recent political development and contrasting experiences of four Maghreb countries: Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania. The Arab Spring affected them in different ways. Tunisia underwent profound change as Ben Ali was overthrown in a fortnight. Yet in Algeria, President Bouteflika won an unprecedented fourth term in office despite being too ill to campaign. What explains these variations? Why did Ben Ali's regime fall and Bouteflika's survive? Why has Morocco not gone the same way as Tunisia? And what of Mauritania, the often forgotten other Maghreb country?

This book addresses these and other questions by using Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way's celebrated model for examining regime transitions to analyse and compare the political development of Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania over the last ten years.

J. N. C Hill is Reader in Postcolonialism and the Maghreb in the Defence Studies Department at King's College London. He is the author of Identity in Algerian Politics: The Legacy of Colonial Rule (2009).