State, Society and Democracy in Morocco: The Limits of Associative Life
2000; Middle East Institute; Volume: 54; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1940-3461
Autores Tópico(s)Islamic Studies and History
ResumoState, Society and Democracy in Morocco: The Limits of Associative Life, by Azzedine Layachi. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, 1998. ix + 108 pages. Append. to p. 113. Index to p. 120. n.p. This short book is an attempt by a scientist to apply the old European social typology of to Morocco. The concept of civil society has long inspired extensive research and debate among European philosophers and across several Western scholarly disciplines, especially in what is usually subsumed under the rubric of policy and sciences. Although was an important subject to leading European writers-John Locke, Thomas Paine, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx, Alexis de Tocqueville-this idea did not enjoy a sustained, prominent career, and remained somewhat dormant until Antonio Gramsci resurrected it at the turn of the 20th century. Recent changes in eastern Europe have further added to the popularity of the concept. The most common analytical usage of society, and the one broadly adapted by the author of this book, seeks a contrast between the state and non-state structures (privately controlled, voluntarily organized, and market regulated social components) entangled in a zero-sum Opposition to, and manipulation of, each other. However, the idea suffers from multiple forms of usage and meaning, is perforated with contradictions, and its application (especially to non-European societies) is predicated on blatant eurocentricity. The author provides a brief sketch of the social and non-state social elements that facilitate a de Tocquevillian associative life and which could potentially constitute a democratic in Morocco. With diplomatic reserve, he argues that the reason why these elements do not constitute an integrated is (not surprisingly!) due to the opposition of the totalitarian Moroccan state in general and the domination (through coercion and co-option) of the elements of by the Makhzan, the reservoir of power that radiates from the Moroccan royal household. Perhaps because the author is a member of the Moroccan elite- itself an important element of the yet-to-be-realized Moroccan that has a vested interest in political stability and is vulnerable to state manipulation-he makes a less forceful case for democratization. Layachi is a partisan of democracy, that is, of the magical superiority Western scholars assign to this sentimentally favorite concept. …
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