Morocco's Reform Process: Wider Implications

摘要

The reform process in Morocco is often seen as a paradigm for the Arab world. This article argues that, at least as far as political reform is concerned, this is a mistake. Political reform was a strategy to ensure dynastic survival which sought to re-create the principles on which the pre-colonial sultanate ensured its survival. External pressure, then, influenced the timing of reform but was not responsible for the reform itself which had purely endogamous causes. Economic reform, albeit instituted in response to external pressure over debt repayment, was also used to serve similar political ends by consolidating the elite which partners the monarchy. Economic reform, however, does have a more universalistic implication, if only in terms of its failure to address the social factors that threaten the stability of the modern state.