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This chapter deals with the volatile dynamics between disparate interest groups vying for power over state resources in Algeria. These interest groups consist of a wide range of institutional actors each of which has an impact on political decision makers. By defining the Algerian regime as a dominant coalition within a number of competing groups, the chapter examines the different tactics employed by these actors to maintain and expand their sphere of influence in a political landscape marked by the uncertainty of president Bouteflika’s future in office. Both domestic and regional security and energy issues are used by the respective actors to leverage their position though changing alliances, while grappling to maintain or contest status quo without tipping the bedrock on which they all stand. Against the backdrop of recent changes in the security apparatus, this chapter argues that a continuation of the political status quo is likely, combined with an increased role for the military.

This chapter argues that moderate Islamist political parties in Algeria have carved out significant room in parliamentary politics under president Abdelaziz Bouteflika. By adopting a strategy of inclusion, pragmatism and moderation they have surpassed the political modus operandi that dominated in the 1990s defined by repression-radicalisation dynamics. The chapter includes the perspectives of moderation theory, juxtaposing its main tenets with contemporary developments in Algerian society. Providing a comprehensive catalogue over the moderate Islamist actors within the current Algerian political landscape, the chapter points to the ways that Bouteflika’s regime has successfully split the Islamist electorate that remained active after the repression of the FIS between demobilised militias, Sufi brotherhoods, and the moderate Islamist parties. Consequently, and despite gaining traction, moderate political Islamist party politics is unlikely to constitute an alternative to the existing political elite and order in the short run, the chapter concludes.

This chapter examines the re-emergence of nonviolent contentious politics under president Bouteflika’s rule. Arising with the exhausting of violent rebel politics of the late 1990s, non-violent contentious politics has evolved into an important channel for citizens to present specific policy claims relating directly to the redistributive nature of Algeria’s rentier-based political economy. The government’s lenient and often accommodating responses to certain socio-economic and welfare-related demands has made this an effective means for achieving quick political results. While revolutionary contention exists on the margins, the majority of contentious events that Algeria has witnessed over the past decade have shied away from challenging the existing political order. Instead the civil society has demanded that the state performed better within the broad policy areas of welfare and identity. The chapter argues that a long-term drop in financial revenue from the petro-export sector, which finances the perpetuation of the current political order, could trigger a transformation of the well-established repertoire of contention from its current system-sustaining nature to a more transgressive or revolutionary one.

This chapter examines the social mechanisms that contribute to the construction of representations guiding public action in Algeria, which continue to place the hydrocarbons sector at the heart of economic and social development. This leads to excessive state interventionism, the chapter argues. By delving into the concept of rentier states and “resource curses”, the chapter seeks to explain the inner workings of the patronage networks and interrelationships between dominant actors defending their interests, seeking to uphold the status quo in Algeria’s political and economic spheres. The chapter argues that the economic policies of Abdelaziz Bouteflika reflect an inability to reshape Algeria’s economic foundations, defined by an urge to maintain an essentialist reading of Algerian state identity and the energy sector forming the basis for the entire social structure.

This chapter analyses the management and implementation of Algeria’s security policies at a time when the country’s security apparatus is adapting to the changing regional political landscape. The chapter demonstrates how the volatile security situations in neighbouring Mali and Libya highlight the need for parting ways with the conventional Algerian security policy of non-intervention. By mapping key actors and the political restructuring of certain executive organs in the upper echelons of state administration dealing with security, the chapter exposes the driving factors behind current Algerian security policies. Furthermore, this chapter sheds light on the incremental changes in Algeria’s regional alliance affinities, defense procurement choices and domestic military planning with regards to border security on the operational level. It argues that differences of opinion between the Sahelo-Maghrebian countries on the role of extra-regional actors will continue to hamper efforts to stabilise the region.

This chapter analyses the ways that young Algerians in Bab el-Oued bypass conventional forms of political engagement and contestation. A new generation of this urban youth perceives Algerian politics as a closed sphere, filled with self-serving individuals who have done little to improve the lot of the average Algerian. The chapter sheds light on how the majority of young people who do not engage in outright political activities are bringing their own, more subtle, challenges to authority by re-negotiating their role as active participants in a society marred by distributive inequality with political agency in their own right. The contradiction facing Algeria today, the chapter argues, lies in the coexistence of two driving forces behind attitudes to politics: the desire for social justice and a knowing cynicism in the ability of revolts and rebellions to bring about lasting political change.