Recent moves toward multi-party competition for elected legislatures in numerous Arab countries constitute a significant departure from earlier practices there and create the basis for democratic activists to gradually chip away at persistent authoritarian rule. This article explores the institutional mechanism by which incumbent authoritarian executives seek to engineer these elections. It documents examples for rulers changing electoral systems to ensure compliant legislatures and demonstrates the prevalent use of winner- takes-all electoral systems which generally work to the regimes advantage. The author then reviews various strategies of opposition forces--boycotts non- competition agreements election monitoring and struggles over election rules-- and the dilemmas that these entail. Surmounting differences in terms of ideologies as well as short-term political goals and prospects is a central challenge. The future should see greater electoral participation among opposition activists along with cleaner elections. As vote coercion and ballot box stuffing is restricted by opposition pressures electoral institutions will take on greater importance and struggles for proportional representation are likely to increase. (authors)

/pdf/multi-party-elections-in-the-arab-world-institutional-3599wp3uev.pdf

Multi-Party Elections in the Arab World: Institutional Engineering and Oppositional Strategies

Most analysts agree that the recent proliferation of Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) is largely the result of exasperation with multilateral trade liberalisation through the World Trade Organisation and a defensive response to the large-scale adoption of PTAs by major economies. The spread of PTAs, however, suggests that there are motivations other than economic that are inspiring these trade deals. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the use of PTAs to gain or reinforce strategic benefits, or to forestall strategic disadvantage, has been a major but largely unacknowledged driver of the recent trend towards PTAs. Three profound shifts in the international system over the past 15 years have led to the declining utility of traditional security institutions and thus the search for new forms of strategic deal-making: an enduring crisis of security institutions; the rise of new great powers; and the arrival of non-state security threats. In response, both large and small powers have resorted to a ran...

The strategic effects of preferential trade agreements

The increasing injection of security imperatives into migration policy has presented countries with a new form of sovereignty assertion. In this regard, the politics of ‘securitization’ provides a useful theoretical bridge across two literatures – one focusing on the character of sovereignty and the other devoted to understanding international labor migration, more often situated in the international political economy subfield. Approaching migration politics with a ‘security mentality’ is part of an effort by policymakers and citizens to respond to dynamics that are perceived to threaten a country's sovereign status and societal security. Whether it has served to truly enhance border control and deepen sovereignty claims is a matter of sharp debate, but the symbolic politics associated with the injection of security has gone far to enhance sovereignty claims and justify border control. The case of the Moroccan–Spanish ‘migration system’ illustrates the manner in which post-Franco Spain has used m...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/25261935

Sovereignty and international labor migration: The ‘security mentality’ in Spanish–Moroccan relations as an assertion of sovereignty

This article focuses on the horizontal coherence between EU trade and foreign policy, from the perspective of EU trade instruments Drawing from different strands of literature, it puts forward the argument that synergetic coherence between the trade and foreign policy spheres of the EU is not likely to be realised due to the constraining impact of institutional-ideational factors within the EU, more specifically the continuing institutional compartmentalisation and cross-pillar divides of the EU system of external policy, with DG Trade being a highly autonomous sub-system The establishment of synergetic coherence in the trade-foreign policy nexus has been further impeded since the mid-1990s by the emergence of three interrelated factors: legal restraints imposed by the World Trade Organization, growing export-oriented interests of EU businesses and the ideological pro-liberalisation bias of the EU This argument is empirically illustrated through an analysis of various EU trade initiatives, including the Global Europe agreements, the Economic Partnership Agreements, the Generalised System of Preferences, and the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas with the countries of the European Neighbourhood Policy

EU external policy coherence in the trade-foreign policy nexus: foreign policy through trade or strictly business?

This paper focuses on competing appropriations of international women’s rights standards in the framework of the Moroccan Equity and Reconciliation Commission (ERC) and its follow-up projects I argue that, even if the ERC’s gender approach has been introduced as part of international models of transitional justice, it is geared toward earlier women’s rights and human rights activism, as well as to established state practices of at least selectively supporting women’s rights Like political reform in general, the ERC and its gender approach are an outcome of internal, long-time dynamics of change Within the ERC’s politics of gender, there exists a tendency to depoliticize women’s rights activism in the process of reconciliation by making women a target for welfare measures and “human development” Yet, at the same time, the officially recognized gender approach also allows for strategies to broaden the basis for women’s rights activism by making women’s experiences of violence during the “Years of Lead” (the period of fierce repression under the rule of Hassan II), an issue of concern in the framework of its new politics of memory The implementation of the ERC’s gender approach can be interpreted as an example of how women’s rights activism may be able to push its agenda while adjusting to both transnational discourses and national politics

Remembering Violence, Negotiating Change: The Moroccan Equity and Reconciliation Commission and the Politics of Gender

In June 2004, the United States signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Morocco. FTAs are typically thought of as economic agreements, but the agreement with Morocco has an explicit security component. Indeed, US officials have cast the agreement as an opportunity to support a close ally in the region, and its signing coincides with Morocco's denomination as a non-NATO ally of the US. Yet even if the FTA achieves its stated economic goals - a very tall and ambitious order - it remains to be seen whether or not the benefits will extend to a society divided by enormous social cleavages. As a result, the US-Moroccan FTA and Morocco's new found stature in US security policy paradoxically run the risk of deepening societal resentment within Morocco toward the government and, by extension, the US. Step by step, the Administration is working to build bridges of free trade with economic and social reformers in the Middle East. Our plan offers trade and openness as vital tools for leaders striving to build more open, optimistic, and tolerant Islamic societies. - US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, at the signing of a Free Trade Agreement with Morocco, June 15, 2004 On April 23, 2002, seven short months after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, King Muhammad VI of Morocco visited Washington to meet with President George W. Bush. The visit was the occasion for the announcement of the intention to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Morocco. Although Morocco is a longstanding ally of the US, the statement was nonetheless a remarkable development. At the time of its announcement, a Free Trade Agreement with Morocco would have been only the fifth free trade agreement between the US and a trading partner, after Israel (1985), Canada and Mexico (1993), and Jordan (2001). After several months of repose - during which time under federal law Congress had the opportunity to "comment" on the proposal - formal negotiations began in January 2003. Discussions proceeded for 15 months through 9 difficult rounds in Washington and Rabat, with a set of negotiations also conducted in Geneva during the Iraq War in March 2003. Ultimately, on March 2, 2004, US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Taieb Fassi Fihri signed a US-Moroccan Free Trade Agreement. Zoellick and Fassi Fihri signed the treaty in Washington on June 15, 2004, and both houses of Congress ratified the treaty in July 2004.1 The Bush Administration has explicitly portrayed the FTA with Morocco as an effort to build strategic, economic, and political ties with a moderate, friendly regime in the region that will serve, in turn, as a model for other countries. The obvious question: Will it work? The advent of the agreement presents a paradox. In addition to its obvious economic goals, the agreement has clear security and strategic goals as well. Yet if the FTA does not generate long-term economic growth and is not perceived by Moroccan society as beneficial to the country, it threatens to undercut Morocco's already shaky domestic stability and exacerbate anti-US sentiment in the country. FTAs are typically thought of as economic issues - more the domain of international political economy - with negotiators having to take into account their own country's economic interests as well as the political and economic constraints confronting their counterparts.2 This FTA is no exception; it certainly has a significant economic component. Despite the fact that the overall volume of trade between the two countries is quite small, negotiators had to bargain hard to get concessions and understandings about the full scope of the agreement. To cite a quick example, examined more fully below, Rabat was keen on securing safeguards that its agricultural sub-sector of wheat would not be affected adversely by imports of low-cost, highquality US grain. Morocco's agricultural sector employs nearly half of the country's population, and roughly 75% of the sector is devoted to cereal production. …

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/4330186

Free Trade as a Strategic Instrument in the War on Terror?: The 2004 US-Moroccan Free Trade Agreement

The 1996 constitutional referendum in Morocco was unprecedented in its establishment of a directly elected Chamber of Representatives. For the first time, a chamber of Parliament will be open to direct suffrage. To be sure, the conduct of future elections will be the true test of the government's commitment to political liberalization. Nonetheless, the 1996 referendum is a significant development and is a further indicator of the gradual political opening that the government of King Hasan II is pursuing in the 1990s. The referendum of 13 September 1996 to change the Moroccan constitution and create a directly elected Chamber of Representatives was an important development in Morocco, despite the fact that as the referendum approached, the outcome became more or less certain. The fact that the Ministry of Interior reported that 99.6 percent of the electorate approved the measure gave the appearance that this change had been mandated from the top. This article argues that the referendum was significant not because of the apparent unanimity of voter approval, but because of the debates and developments surrounding it. The creation of a bicameral legislative body, the Majlis al-Nuwwab (Council of Deputies), by means of direct suffrage, satisfied longstanding demands by King Hasan II's opposition. The two principal opposition parties, the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) and the Istiqlal Party, had argued for years for a popularly elected chamber that would permit accountable and competitive government. Having finally achieved its objective, the opposition may find itself longing for the old system. In the past, opposition parties had derived significant political capital from their ability to criticize government policies. Under the new system they may find themselves the recipients of criticism. In the last four decades, the legitimacy of the government has been challenged both domestically and internationally.' The palace is opening up the country's political system slowly to counter criticisms by domestic opposition groups and parties that the monarchy is undemocratic and violates civil and human rights. By gaining the opposition's support for the reforms, Hasan hopes to counter or perhaps even co-opt the opposition, a tactic he has used in the past. The referendum was also pivotal at the level of international opinion. Although the juridical legitimacy of Morocco is hardly in dispute, international recognition of the stability of the government remains of paramount importance to the monarchy.2 Specifically, the government wants to emphasize the fundamental importance of Morocco's relationship with Europe. Hasan's son, the Crown Prince Muhammad, recently published his doctoral dissertation on the significance of that relationship.3 Furthermore, the signing in November 1995 of a Partnership Agreement with the European Union (EU) cemented Morocco's ties with Europe. Mediterranean countries such as Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey have been cast in competition with each other in their attempts to attract foreign investment and expand trade ties with the West. Consequently, Western opinion regarding a given country's political climate is a crucial factor in attracting those investments. The European Parliament's approval of the Partnership Agreement, on 5 June 1996, came only after a lively debate and a request by the Parliament that the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, provide an annual report on the status of Morocco's human rights record. Thus, the perception of the Moroccan government as a stable, democratizing regime is of the utmost importance for Morocco's future economic development. In sum, the referendum satisfied a key demand of the opposition and may have opened a new era in Moroccan politics. The true test, however, will be in the conduct of elections to the Majlis scheduled for 1997 and in the content and efficacy of policy that emerges from the new body. …

The advent of electoral democracy in Morocco''s constitutional monarchy? The referendum of 1996: 171

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Free Trade as a Strategic Instrument in the War on Terror?: The 2004 US-Moroccan Free Trade Agreement

The advent of electoral democracy in Morocco''s constitutional monarchy? The referendum of 1996: 171