Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: This paper asks why mobilization in favor of reform within the French Empire was supplanted by demands for independence from the empire. I contend that mobilization in favor of liberal reforms constituted an alternative to nationalist demands for separation and argue against assuming a static preference for independent nation-states among political organizers in Morocco and Algeria. I propose a more dynamic understanding of resistance to French rule, one in which the preferences of Moroccan and Algerian political actors are not given, but are shaped by political opportunities and by their interactions with French administrators and politicians. The paper demonstrates the shift in collective action goals over time, and investigates the historical conditions that led people and organizations living under colonial rule to begin framing political requests in the language of nationalism

Publication Type: Extended Abstract
Abstract: Little research has been done on the web’s impact on the lives of men who have sex with men in the Arab world. Taking as its focus the Moroccan cities of Casablanca and Fès, the present paper uses ethnographic work to explore web-use by men whose sex-lives are focused on other men. (The term ‘gay men’ will be used to describe this group, even though it is not generally the term used by respondents themselves).

In Casablanca, gay men created elaborate psycho-geographies in the new quartiers built in the French colonial period, developing a repertoire of meeting places. This ‘hidden’ use of public space came under pressure in the mid-1990s, partly through the spread of rigourist Islam. From the early 2000s, increased internet access, and in particular the rise of a new semi-public space, the cyber-café, widened opportunities for literate gay men in Morocco to meet and associate. This paper attempts to develop an understanding of how web use is reconfiguring what it means to have a preference for male same-sex relationships in Morocco. What shifts in identity positions are occurring? How has inhabiting digital space had an impact on public urban space? Is the web seen as a potential medium for bringing political demands to bear? How important is the international dimension of le chat? What is the pan-Arab dimension of gay web use? At a wider level, the paper provides an element in comparative work on intercultural aspects of the web’s interactive potential.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The terrorist attacks of 16 May 2003 brought the problem of terrorism to Morocco’s leading city. Morocco immediately began an anti-terrorism program which saw the passage of an anti-terrorism law. The society also began to revisit questions like the relationship between state and faith. There have been some books and articles written in Morocco about terrorism in general, but there has been no systematic inter-disciplinary study of the society’s response to and causal analysis of terrorism. The study is designed to produce an edited volume that addresses the causes of the attacks and how the society responded to terrorism.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this study, I focus on the Moroccan women’s movement case to reform the Moudawana or Islamic Family Law. I draw from the political opportunity and social movement literature to analyze the discursive means by which Conservatives and Islamists organized opposition to the feminist activists’ reform efforts on the basis of Islamic patriarchy. These discourses had considerable social institutional strength and cultural resonance in the Moroccan public. I demonstrate how Moroccan women’s rights’ activists neutralized the seemingly fixed religious opposition to law reform and re-appropriated religious discourses, shaping an opportunity for the movement. This process of breaking through constraints in the political opportunity structure, I suggest denotes the permeability of constraints. I elaborate the theory of permeable constraints highlighting (a) the ways that Moroccan women’s rights activists strategically re-interpreted the political opportunity structure and (b) how activists transcended religious barriers opposing Islamic law reform. The analysis finds that Moroccan activists’ interpretation of religious constraints as potentially permeable led them to strategize both within religious and secular frameworks, drawing from religious principles of re-interpretation through ijtihad, and international human rights principles. The activists’ analysis of obstacles as permeable resulted in opportunities for shifting the discourse and the tide of Moudawana reform.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines voting behavior in three authoritarian and hybrid regimes of the Middle East and North Africa: Turkey, Morocco, and Egypt. It is argued that clientele politics and vote-buying approaches fail to provide a full picture of the voter profile in authoritarian and hybrid regimes. Psychological attachments to the well-established regime and opposition parties (i.e. ideology) as well as resources may explain the decision to vote in these settings. The results of the logit estimation utilizing individual level data from the last wave of the World Values survey show that party-led mobilization increases the likelihood of voting in the three countries under investigation. While citizens equipped with better social, economic, and civic qualities are also more likely to turnout, party attachment increases the chances of voting even for these individuals. Contrary to the findings of vote-buying approaches, the less educated and the poorer are not found to be more likely to vote in authoritarian and hybrid regimes.