Why Now and What's Next: the Ef Bruary 20Th Movement’S Challenge to the State Marina Balleria SIT Study Abroad

SIT Graduate Institute/SIT Study Abroad SIT Digital Collections Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection SIT Study Abroad Spring 2011 Why Now and What's Next: The eF bruary 20th Movement’s Challenge to the State Marina Balleria SIT Study Abroad Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection Part of the Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Inequality and Stratification Commons, Peace and Conflict Studies Commons, Political Science Commons, and the Politics and Social Change Commons Recommended Citation Balleria, Marina, "Why Now and What's Next: The eF bruary 20th Movement’s Challenge to the State" (2011). Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection. 1003. https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/1003 This Unpublished Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the SIT Study Abroad at SIT Digital Collections. It has been accepted for inclusion in Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection by an authorized administrator of SIT Digital Collections. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Balleria 1 WHY NOW AND WHAT IS NEXT: The February 20 th Movement’s Challenge to the State Marina Balleria SIT Morocco: Multiculturalism and Human Rights May 8, 2011 Balleria 2 Acknowledgments I would like to thank my advisor Taieb Belghazi for not only providing me with guidance but also conducting the module that inspired me to do this project. Thank you to Mohammad Madani, Mohammad Reda Bouaya, Said Benjabli, Omar Radi, Rid Fadwa, Khalid, along with many protesters and citizens whose names I don’t know, for their honesty, patience and time. Abdelhay and Lachen must be thanked for providing connections, support, creating this unique opportunity and for their general attitude to just go out there and see what you find. Nawal, of course, is the best so thank you. Also, thank you to the rest of the staff of the CCCL for allowing us to run wild. Thank you, Youssef for always telling it like it is. Also, thank you to the man who gives me pastries whenever I walk by, they proved instrumental in the completion of this ISP. Thank you to the crack team of Peter Russell, Pat Olson and Alexis Obernauer. Thank you Nina Coates for making me a sandwich on the day ISP was due. Thank you Sadie Gilpin Mohler for the guidance on combining theory and practice. Thank you Anna Ackerman for the inspiration to climb every mountain. And, thank you, Mom and Dad. And, I guess, thank you, Carlo, though for what I’m not quite sure. Finally, thank you, admiration and good luck to the organizers of the February 20 th movement and all of those working towards freedom in Morocco. Balleria 3 Table of Contents Abstract…..4 Literature Review…..5 The Case of February 20 th …..11 Evolution of a Movement: Timeline…..16 Methodology and Limitations…..26 Why Now and What is Next: Field Research…..27 Conclusions….48 Works Cited….52 Balleria 4 ABSTRACT The Moroccan state takes a nuanced place among autocracies and democracies—the regime features fundamental democratic institutions and while the central power of the monarchy is maintained through a constellation of political, economic, social, and cultural institutions. In this case, David Brumberg’s classification of “liberalized autocracies” is useful, which defines these states as using a mixture of “guided pluralism, controlled elections and selective repression” to maintain and centralize power 1 This political structure of liberalized autocracy creates sufficient political opportunity for various protest movements to emerge but until recently few have successfully enacted change. The February 20 th protest movement, inspired by the Egyptian and Tunisian example and organized on Facebook, is organizing in ways to directly confront the paradigm of liberalized autocracy. Their demands, which are a mixture of a call for universal human rights such as democracy along with answers to longstanding economic issues, do not adhere to any ideology and as such it has been successful in garnering support from all corners of Moroccan contentious politics. The movement has evolved fluidly through the Internet, with a loose, nonhierarchical organizational structure and a globally informed rhetoric that is a hallmark of Langman’s “Internetworked Social Movements.” 2 Through its methods, organizational structure, rhetoric and actions, February 20 th is attempting to change the political structure of Morocco and create an active political society. At this juncture, a few months after the beginning of the movement with no end in sight, a conclusion about its attainment of this goal is impossible. Still, two questions remain, why now and what next? The second half of this 1 “The Trap of Liberalized Autocracy,” 56. 2 “From Virtual Public Spheres to Global Justice.” Balleria 5 paper consists of interviews of an array of people close to the movement—an organizer, a government official, an activist and an academic—attempting to answer these questions. By analyzing the rhetoric of each of these actors and applying these existing theories, we can begin to see overlaps in the theory of social movements and autocratic states and their application. This study attempts to capture singular opinions about the February 20 th movement and put them in dialogue with greater theories of social and political change. LITERATURE REVIEW As of late, there have emerged various theories and strategies on how to categorize regimes that are not exactly democratic while not complete autocracies. Different categorizations have floated around, from “democratization” to “liberalization” and even attempts to describe the “regressive” action of shifting towards authoritarianism. Matthjis Bogaards explores the distinctions between the terms are drawn among scholars, explaining that no consensus has been reached 3 (476). Liberalization is seen as improvements made by authoritarian regimes, as defined by David Brumberg, and is a part of the larger process of democratization. Democratization can also refer “completing democracy” of already existing democracies by increasing freedoms.4 As Bogaards points out, this makes democracy a dichotomous category, a conception which has been used by scholars to define nations as “free,” “unfree” or occasionally “partially free.”5 Measures of democracy, although they have their flaws, allow for a comparative analysis 3 “Measures of Democratization,” 476. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. Balleria 6 of democratization across states and time. It also recognizes the existence of states between democracy and authoritarianism. Autocracy has become accepted as the de facto political structure across the Arab world. The Arab world include total autocracies such as Saudi Arabia that subsist on, according to Brumberg, oil money, “harmonic” legitimacy based on the defense of the unity of the Arab or Islamic nation and the enshrined hegemonic state institutions that repress dissent. 6 More common, however, are liberalized autocracies that are the antithesis of total autocracies in that they do not depend on one uniting ideology, they allow some groups to be establish as institutions outside of the state and do not depend on one economic resource, class or interest. This creates dissonance in the society that benefits the ruling class because through this “divide and rule” strategy, the state can maintain it’s central power. 7 While these states may have certain facets of democracy, such as elections, the results always favor the rulers. The power of these states stem from different forms of legitimacy. Monarchies in the Arab world usually meld traditional and religious legitimacy, using long dynasties and ancestry from the Prophet to explain their power. Presidents claim legitimacy through sometimes-rigged elections or by calling off elections for years because of an emergency state. By allowing a strategic degree of openness, the state gives the appearance of representing their citizens while actually reinforcing their power. The power relationship between state and society are not static, as Brumberg points out, there exists “…a protracted cycle in which rulers widen or narrow the 6 “The Trap of Liberalized Autocracy,” 58. 7 Brumberg, “The Trap of Liberalized Autocracy.” Balleria 7 boundaries of participation and expression in response to what they see as the social, economic, political, and geostrategic challenges facing their regimes.” 8 These regimes must allow changes beyond their control because this extends the longevity of the regime. By allowing some changes they appease the people sufficiently to avoid truly threatening their legitimacy. This balancing act between democracy and autocracy creates space for some political discourse through usually not significant structural changes. Political opposition groups are not always openly repressed, but protesting usually amounts to expressing grievances while there is no structure in place to address the complaints. States will claim they are involved in a process of “democratic transition” when in reality it is “an involuted gradualism whose small steps trace the sad contours of an unvirtuous circle rather than the hopeful lineaments of a real path forward.” 9 The key to dismantling liberalized autocracies, Brumberg explains is opening the political space enough to redefine the relationship between citizen and state so that there is an active political society. He advocates achieving this through “a policy of democratic of democratic gradualism [that] must not only push for the creation of effective

Load more