• 1 . This is the reason why we have chosen, in our treatment of this subject, to reference the speeche (...)

2Admittedly, the “Arab Springs” concerned a broader geographic area than the Maghreb, with deep territorial issues in the Middle East area. Beyond the objectives of this review, there are good reasons to concern ourselves with the evolution of relations between States and political territories since 2011. First, because the region shares numerous similarities and a marked interdependence on territorial issues: the South, the borders, coastal areas, the interior... Secondly, the Maghreb stands out in the very process of the Arab Springs, because it is the space where events began and because it revealed, from the outset, their territorial dimension - demonstrating (in Tunisia and Libya) or anticipating (in Algeria and Morocco) a major crisis in relations between central and local authorities. Finally, the Maghreb makes sense from the perspective of international cooperation, for its intensification, its redeployment and weight in the transformations of the devices and the talents of actors deployed to accompany the progress in changing hierarchies of power1.

• 2 . See, on this subject, and without pretension to exhaustiveness:

4This type of issue is not new to the region. The issue of relations between the center and periphery was raised in the late 1990s and early 2000s by authoritarian regimes seeking (re)legitimization, through rearrangement (often more cosmetic than effective) of the administrative network of the territory and the promotion of geographic scale, territorial agencies and/or instances of authority, endowed (in the texts, at least) with a relative autonomy of decision with regard to central or decentralized authorities. Several academic studies appropriated the subject and carried out field work in both the Maghreb and the Middle East – the idea of “decentralization” was by then the solution of the day and prescribed by all, especially international funding organizations as the way of reform and a pathway to (regime) democratization and (social) development. The research raised questions about the induced effects of exported models of decentralization.²

• 3 . On the issue of “victim” territories brought before the “Truth and Dignity” commission in Tunisia (...)
• 4 . According to the very old Moroccan usage, there is a territorial division between a bled makhzen (...)

6If these political and human rights claims take root, not only in the present condition of territorial inequalities, they also feed on the past and justify an inventory right that forms the basis a claim for reparations on behalf of “victim regions”³. The memory can also refer to a fractional, insurrectional past, bearing with it fear of a (re)appearance of actors considered threatening for the security and unity of the nation-state (E.G., from south of the Sahel, from border zones and nomadic tribes from the bled es-Siba⁴, and various ethnic reminiscences, Berbers and others ...) which might reasonably diminish the enthusiasm for decentralization and lead to a reconsideration of the virtues of the local democracy, weighing, if necessary, on the choice of voting methods.

• 5 . For example: Boex J., Democratization in Egypt: The Potential Role of Decentralization, Policy Br (...)

7“Decentralization” is in fact more often a matter of territorial administration and political organization, drawing on the skills and capacities of local actors and the financial resources available in the community as it is an issue producing principles of justice. It must be said that framing the debate in this way would lead the ruling elites to establish clearly for whom the benefits of decentralization should accrue (and inversely, who will bear its cost). Decentralization should work toward the general good, even though the fragile political (and economic) contexts in which reformers act push them toward circumstantial alliances and conciliation of divergent interests. For fear of fanning the flames of popular dissatisfaction, the latter tend to minimize the political impact of decentralization reforms, preferring to address this issue by technical means. In doing so, they constitute narrow and closed decision-making circles with the administrative teams working on the promotion and / or implementation of this dossier which includes national and foreign expert networks. Seminars or study days on decentralization are regularly organized and these duly bring together ministerial representatives, public agencies and urban services, employees of the targeted administrations, market researchers, engineers and municipal technicians as well as foreign academics underwriters and representatives of a few carefully chosen NGOs. This mix explains how it is that an important part of the work on decentralization in the Maghreb is accomplished through working papers and policy recommendations, in other words, policy papers⁵ as opposed to academic research based on empirical work and social science analysis.

• 6 . See in particular: Bergh, S.I., The Politics of Development in Morocco: Local Governance and Part (...)
• 7 . See on this subject:
• 8 . See, in this regard, one of the latest issues of L’Année du Maghreb: Belguidoum S., Cattedra R. a (...)

8Beyond this, we must note that academic work on the decentralization reforms in the Arab world is not particularly abundant⁶. This is due to the fact that since 2011, the attention of researchers has focused primarily on national issues as matter of monitoring the activities of political and elite factions. This is true of constitutional and electoral issues (especially in regard to presidential and legislative elections), but also of partisanship. Many studies focus on the appearance of new political parties but also of Islamist parties in the countryside or in public works⁷. Our ambition in this area is therefore to contribute to the epistemology of an issue that we consider potentially “explosive” political and societal issues. We have attempted to focus our enquiry on proposing a cross-disciplinary approach, drawing from political and geographical analyses rooted largely in case studies. In doing so, we position our work as an extension of the more numerous writers working in the immediacy of the “Arab Springs”, took for their subjects, the city and the urban (rather than the more theoretical “decentralization”), making of these spaces, privileged places anything was possible⁸.

• 9 . In the sense that Makhzen, in Morocco, means as much an art of governing as it does an institutio (...)

11Also, let's face it, the state of relations between the central and the local in the Maghreb following the “Arab Springs” described in the contributions to this issue is neither obvious nor particularly homogeneous. The popular mobilizations of 2011 did not lead the States and the societies of the region along common or well-marked paths. Rather, they were so many markers of cultural differences in the reconfiguration of relations between the center and the periphery. Thus, the art of Makhzen⁹ adapted from the political game as it is played in Morocco, where autonomy announces local control, contrasts with the imperturbable Algerian centralism, as well as with the frustrated centralism of Tunisia or the affirmation of local hegemons, sometimes through the use of physical threat or direct use of force, in Libyan “anarchy”.

• 10 . Usage varies between Tunisia, which kept the term “local authorities”, and Morocco, which adopted (...)

16The spectacular rise of decentralization onto the public agenda is mentioned in several contributions. It finds its first expression in new constitutional texts. The attention reserved to local (or territorial)¹⁰ communities in previous constitutions was, in general, reduced to a minimum. Three articles in the Algerian and Moroccan Constitutions of 1996 and a single article in the Tunisian constitution of 1959 contained minimum provisions concerning the categories of public collectivities and the application of the elective principle to local assemblies – the only basis for decentralization. For the rest, researchers and practitioners were simply referred to the law. If, in Algeria, nothing changed in this matter (the latest constitutional revision of March 6, 2016, carefully avoided the issue), elsewhere the decentralization debate very quickly became fashionable. In Morocco in 2011 and in Tunisia in 2014, decentralization was proclaimed a constitutional principle. Article 1 of the Moroccan Constitution proclaims that “the territorial organization of the Kingdom is decentralized, based on advanced regionalization”. Article 14 of the Tunisian Constitution of 2014 states that “the State undertakes to strengthen decentralization and to implement it throughout the national territory, within the framework of the unity of the State”. In a more nuanced formulation, the Egyptian constitution of 2014 mentions that “the State supports administrative, financial and economic decentralization” (Article 176).

• 11 . Regions were only granted authority in this draft legislation only in matters of economic develop (...)

19For its part, Libya, the victim of chronic institutional disorder since the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi whose legacy of institutional vagueness it seeks to escape, is the country experiencing the greatest difficulty adopting a new constitutional text. A constituent assembly elected on February 20, 2014 showed, at an early stage, signs of divergence on the chapter on “local government” – producing two versions of a draft text for lack of agreement between its members: first a “regional” version, enshrining decentralization and entrusting broad powers to the country’s three major regions (Cyrenaica, Fezzan, Tripolitania); and a “governorial” version, which would subdivide the country into 32 governorates, each with administrative powers¹¹. In the end, the project – which has not yet been submitted to a national referendum – favors a unitary decentralization formula, recognizing only two relevant levels of government, governorates and municipalities. It should be noted that an entire chapter of the project is devoted to natural resources and their distribution, the Gordian knot of the Libyan crisis, with the question of whether income from natural resources (especially oil) should be returned to the producing regions as a priority. The final text seems to answer this question in the affirmative.

• 12 . A step forward confirmed by the draft law on local government filed in parliament session in Nove (...)

20As for the Egyptian constitution of 2014, it also reserves a significant place for “Local Administration”, and in a section of nine articles devoted to it, paves the way for a possible election of local executives, which is a step forward¹², even if it leaves the legislator free to decide on the scope to be given to the principle of decentralization.

• 13 . Article 15 of the 1996 constitution provides that the state will promote participatory democracy (...)

21The implementation of the new constitutional provisions governing decentralization requires the opening of major legislative projects, in the form of laws concerning local elections (on this point, see below) and the organization of local authorities. In Libya, faced with the urgent needs of the administrative organization of the territory, and without waiting for the establishment of a new constitution, the National Transitional Council adopted Law n° 59-2012 of June 12, 2012, relative to local government. This law creates two types of local communities (municipalities and provinces) and sub-provincial jurisdictions (localities) and defines their respective jurisdictions. The constitutional abstention of Algeria does not reflect that country’s legislative sluggishness. Two laws, one of June 22, 2011 and the other of February 21, 2012 were adopted, relating, respectively, to the commune and to the wilaya. These go against the regional trend toward decentralization by not reinforcing either local elected assemblies or the presidents of communal assemblies; instead, by placing them under the reinforced tutelage of the State and its representatives (the communal General Secretary and the w­ali). As a token of exchange, the principle of citizen participation at the local level is reaffirmed, without going further in defining its modalities¹³.

• 14 . On this point, the cross-referenced talks in the contribution of Bras J. P. and Signoles A. empha (...)

24One would be inclined to say that there can be no decentralization without legitimate local elected representatives, and conversely¹⁴. A space devoid of authority is a space which lacks political elites. From such a stand point, the long-lasting effect of Algerian centralism has been, in the south, to marginalize the traditional elites without allowing the emergence of new local elites (Badreddine) at the Center, management by insurrection (and cooptation) of minority claims of belonging at once to the locality and to the nation (Dufresne Aubertin), while, in the North, the partially disillusioned participation of the opposition in local assemblies (Baamara). The implementation of decentralization elsewhere, in the Maghreb however, a process engaged since 2011 has met with the same problem, namely, the constitution or reconstitution of local elites who are legitimate in the eyes of both the population and the central power.

• 15 . Beginning in 2011, the members of Special Delegations were appointed by the government with speci (...)
• 16 . See Turki / Loschi's article on this subject.

26State, Party or Palace control (as the case may have been) over local elections in the pre-spring authoritarian states had the effect of de-legitimizing local political elites, who held strong positions of intermediation with the central power. The “Arab Springs” amounted to confirmation of this in revolutionary terms (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya), to the extent that these elites were non-existent when it came to managing the local conflicts as they arose, and were immediately removed in favor of representatives of the State or of provisional structures established by the State or local populations. In Tunisia this took place via the dissolution of municipal councils in favor of Special Delegations¹⁵, or again, in Libya, via the formation of revolutionary local councils¹⁶.

• 17 . The question of the representation of the local in the legislative assembly arises all the more i (...)

28The question of representing the local among national institutions was raised, in Tunisia, forcefully and early with the formation of the High Authority for the achievement of the objectives of the revolution in March 2011 with the addition of regional representatives within the Authority. It was again raised throughout the process of voting on electoral laws for the National Constituent Assembly (ANC), and then in the Assembly of the Representatives of the People (ARP)¹⁷, whether in debates relating to the choice of voting method (the fear of the return of tribalism associated with single-member voting), the size of representative districts (where the fear of regionalism was raised for large constituencies), or the threshold of participation in the distribution of seats (national lists versus local lists). The observation was valid also for Libya where a tripartite constituent assembly was established to reflect the three regional groups of the country.

• 18 . The FFS is one of the major parties of Algeria's Independence, with the tutelary figure of Ait Ah (...)

30The situation is different in Algeria, where the status quo allows for the holding of regular elections in a timely manner. Paradoxically, as noted by Layla Baamara, the 2011 communal reform undermines the exercise of power in local communities without discouraging the participation of opposition parties, in this case, the Socialist Forces Front (FFS)¹⁸, so long as the elected representative’s mandate is exercised in a depoliticized environment, apart from national political issues – a condition that allows elected minorities some room for maneuver. The means by which the President of the People's Municipal Assembly (APC) and Wilaya (APW) are designated must also be considered in the opposition parties’ decision to participate in local elections. Henceforth, the President is elected directly by the assembly, whereas previously, the leading candidate of the party with the greatest number of elected representatives was automatically nominated, leading at times to creative bargaining and even, to the formation of coalitions “against nature “.

• 19 . On this point see the contribution of Bras J.P. and Signoles A. in this dossier, which reports on (...)

33Widespread enthusiasm for participatory democracy is palpable upon reading this dossier, an enthusiasm which can be a source of opacity for the various schemes simply by the proliferation of programs and the overlaying of projects. International donors willingly promote its instruments, finance their implementation and promote them as essential tools in the tool kit of good governance¹⁹. Civil society organizations see participatory democracy as an institutional means of strengthening their influence on the local decision-making process through interaction with the actors engaged in the international cooperation process. Municipal teams also welcome them, as implementation may lead to an affirmation of legitimacy. States are generalizing and harmonizing provisions by integrating them into national regulations, providing international visibility for their actions in favor of good local governance. Researchers pay particular attention to this: the present dossier offers three contributions specifically devoted to participatory mechanisms (Manuel Goehrs, Damiano de Facci and Joseph Désiré Som discuss participatory budgets in Morocco and Tunisia while Coline Mias reviews municipal consultation processes in Morocco) and a number of other contributions mention these. Of course, such beautiful unanimity is not without misunderstandings. But it also may be said that the Arab Springs provided a window of opportunity for the introduction of these new mechanisms of local democracy, which were not completely absent in previous periods, when they served as a façade for the regimes in communicating with international partners.

• 20 . The PJD is the main Islamic party in Morocco, created in 1997, within the Muslim Brotherhood Move (...)
• 21 . Heir to the Islamic Tendency Movement (MTI), affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, Ennahda (reb (...)

34The adoption of the instruments of participatory democracy by differentiated actors refers to objectives that do not necessarily overlap, thus generating tension among users. Therefore, the rhetoric of the depoliticization of electoral mandates is advanced as an appendage to participatory democracy, contributing to a “bottom-up” definition of the general interest. In this context, the elected representative becomes an agent for local public action, in the sense that his ability to set participatory mechanisms in motion and to accompany these to fruition derives from the activation of consultative mechanisms, the use of mediation and the search for consensus. Local public action therefore, is more a matter of policy than it is of politics, and becomes disconnected from the labels and play of national partisan politics. The argument is valid for the FFS in Kabylia, for example, which justifies electoral alliances more or less acceptable in terms of its political ideology (Baamara). The argument however, is used principally by the Islamic parties, in pursuit of strategies for conquering power “from below”, for consolidation of a land base, or for distancing their moral and/or religious rhetoric and as pragmatic justification for their 'public action. The description of how the municipal teams, dominated by the Justice and Development Party (PJD)²⁰ in Tabriquet (Mias) or by the Ennahdha party²¹ in Sfax (De Facci, Som), welcome and promote instruments of participatory democracy, says a lot about the degree of appropriation of these prerequisites of “good local governance” by the Islamic parties. However, the circumventing exercise between the national political game and the local political game necessarily has its limits, based on the narrative and not on strategies, such that power restoring provokes tensions and conflicts - as evidenced by the withdrawal of secular associations from the Sfax participatory budgeting process.

• 22 . It is the same in Tunisia with communal investment plans, as discussed in the contribution of Goe (...)

36Thus, in Tunisia, the favorable reception of the Special Delegations to the participatory budget procedure is explained, in part, by the lack of electoral legitimacy of the municipal teams appointed by the central government. They hope to find - by this means - alternative legitimacy resources, which could be useful in the perspective of future municipal elections. However, the commitment of the local authorities is also likely to be thwarted by the local administrations, who will see in the participative devices a dangerous instrument, questioning their action and their competence. As for Morocco, the establishment of mechanisms of participatory democracy is the subject of the play of strategic interests between central and local authorities – a game in which the state has a long experience. This leaves space for local initiatives and, more broadly, to local associative actors whose actions are then coopted through national devices, such as communal development and municipal action plans²².

• 23 . See, in this regard, the contribution of J.P. Bras and Signoles A. in this dossier.
• 24 . Idem.

40Decentralization however, can be discriminatory, especially since the exercise of transferred powers depends on the means placed at the disposal of the community receiving the delegation of authority and varies in intensity and quality depending on local capacity for action (infrastructure, human and financial resources). Moreover, decentralization in its current implementation, may appear all the more unfair as the previous jurisdictional exercise may have been uniform and equitable across the national territory. It is therefore fitting that international donors today should pay particular attention to the financing capacities of local authorities in the exercise of their competencies, whether new or old²³. As Lana Salman points out about the World Bank – an observation that applies equally to other international financial institutions – banks after all are banks: they fund projects that fit into development strategies; but at the same time, they are looking for new borrowing customers among local authorities in the Maghreb, a market previously not accessible to them. Beside the fact that significant direct funding of local authorities would impact relations between the local authorities and the State, it is not unreasonable to think that funds would be directed to local elites or other enablers of territorial development. The observation applies equally to decentralized cooperation, projects targeting economic attractiveness may trigger a territorial redeployment unfavorable to disadvantaged regions²⁴.

• 25 . This debate on territorial development strategies has strong analogies with the one that has seiz (...)

44Public policies do not generally offer a clear choice between these two options. The presence of both models is striking in Tunisia, and fuels the rivalries between central administrations, threatening the coherence of national planning and codification, as well as the rationality of choices regarding major infrastructure projects, such as the configuration of the motorway network. (Ben Jelloul) In fact, the two registers are not complementary and solicit State intervention in opposite procedural conditions. On the one hand, the disengagement of the State, the transfer of authority and resources to the benefit of competent local authorities with a concomitant territorialization of public debate through participatory mechanisms and local “good governance”. On the other hand, interventionist State policies based on the principle of compensatory inequality, are put into place to ensure a balance across regions of the national territory with its implicit rationale for greater state intervention, less decentralization and local democracy and more national debate²⁵.

• 26 The accidental death in October 2016 of a fish vendor in the Al Hoceima area who was trying to oppo (...)

45It remains however, that by lending new legitimacy to the imperative of territorial equity, the “Arab Springs” opened a Pandora's box that is not ready to be closed, at least not so long as populations who identify with political territories see themselves as the “forgotten” of the Republic or the Kingdom. The recent events of Al Hoceima in Morocco26 are a clear reminder of this, just as persistence of the territorial dimension does for political and social mobilizations in Tunisia and Libya.