Managing Instability in Algeria: Elites and Political Change since 1995, by Isabelle Werenfels, London and New York: Routledge, 2007; pp. 245. £75.00 (hb). ISBN: 9780415403443.
In the late colonial period and the immediate post-independence era (1950–70), analyses of North African politics tended towards elite studies. This movement was superseded by ‘neo-institutionalism’, which insisted on the state's autonomous and pre-eminent power within political systems. In the field of Algeria studies in the 1980s, the institutionalist or political economy approach soon became dominant, especially rentier theory. At its best, rentier theory in Algeria demonstrated the co-constitutive relationship between those state actors who control distribution of hydrocarbon revenues and the political and economic institutions that shape such distribution. In Isabelle Werenfels' Managing Instability in Algeria: Elites and political change since 1995 we have gone back to the future. As the subtitle suggests, Werenfels (a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs) is very much interested in ‘bringing the man back in’. By using elite theorisations, Werenfels seeks to explain Algeria's simultaneous emergence from civil war at the turn of the millennium and the total lack of ‘profound political change in Algeria after 1995’ (pp. 4–5). However, Werenfels' study is not a return to the old days of elite studies; her approach is hybridised and fits within the institutional turn (p. 27). ‘Control and distribution of hydrocarbon rent’, Werenfels notes, ‘not only presented the core elite with an important instrument of power but also presented a weak point in its rule, for control of the volatile oil price was not in its hands’ (p. 6).
Managing Instability is surely one of the best books yet written on Algeria's slow transition from violent armed conflict in the 1990s to the (mostly) non-violent modes of political conflict of today. Werenfels' study is also an erudite examination of the political challenges and triumphs of the first term (1999–2004) of Algeria's President, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, a man widely – although disputably – credited with taming the armed conflict. This richly detailed and expertly researched account of a critical period in Algeria's recent history is required reading for anyone attempting to understand Algeria since 2000. It will also be of interest to scholars studying the democracy problematic in developing countries or theoreticians looking for empirical data that contributes towards an understanding of the interplay between agents and structures. Although Managing Instability ends in early 2004, it is highly relevant in light of today's political manoeuvrings in Algeria and contextualises Bouteflika's third term victory in 2009.
The argument unfolds in a straightforward manner: theory (chapter one), methodology (two), historical context (three), analysis (four through six) and conclusion. The primary source data – over 100 interviews with members of what Werenfels terms ‘the politically relevant elite’ – is what sets this study apart (see p. 194, note 5). The Algerian Government is a very difficult terrain to study – bureaucratic inertia, personal security concerns, widespread conspiratorial suspicion of Western motivations are just some of the problems. At the time when Werenfels was conducting her research (c.2002), the security situation for foreigners was still considered risky by many Western governments. The fact that Werenfels' study even happened, not to mention was so successful, is impressive.
Werenfels' story is set during the darkest period of Algeria's history since independence from France in 1962. She chooses 1995 as year zero, when a civilian head of state was elected after three years of rule by a military junta. This date might seem a strange choice; most observers date Algeria's recent instability – the civil war – to either 1988 (when massive anti-regime demonstrations led to elections) or 1992 (when the military annulled those elections won handily by the Islamic Salvation Front or FIS). Although the worst atrocities of the Algerian civil war took place during Werenfels' timeframe, her account is surprisingly bloodless. There is scant mention of even the worst atrocities of the war that drew international condemnation and calls for intervention in late 1997 and early 1998. Managing Instability (p. 48) attributes the drop in violence – rather uncritically – to Bouteflika's 1999 amnesty program (Concorde civile) without exploring the obvious explanatory candidates (e.g. rising oil revenues).
However, this line of critique is unfair given Werenfels' intended framing. Managing Instability is a not a thesis on war termination but an account of established, emerging and expanding elites (each contextualised by background and attitudes) navigating the difficult transition away from the widespread political violence of the 1990s. Werenfels' sense of Algeria's instability is a more generalised understanding of a state whose regime is still far from re-consolidated. Werenfels wants us to see beyond security issues; instability, she contends, has become a kind of lubricant that allows the machine to function: ‘The situation could thus be best described with the oxymoron “equilibrium of instability”’ (p. 5).
For the most part, Managing Instability does not deviate from the basic framework for understanding the functioning of political power in Algeria shared by both foreign and domestic analysts. What makes Werenfels' contribution novel is her account and explanation of the ways in which Algeria's authoritarian regime has become more democratised (p. 155). The distension of new groups into elite circles, Werenfels argues, not only helps explain Algeria's mixed passage from ambiguous civil war to uneasy ‘peace’, but it also bodes ill for hopes that Algeria is on a path to a transparent and accountable government.