(Ebook) Why Alliances Fail: Islamist and Leftist Coalitions in North Africa by Matt Buehler ISBN 9780815636137, 081563613X

(Ebook) Why Alliances Fail: Islamist and Leftist Coalitions in North Africa by Matt Buehler ISBN 9780815636137, 081563613X

Since 2011, the Arab world has seen a number of autocrats, including lead- ers from Tunisia,Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, fall from power. Yet, in the wake of these political upheavals,only one state, Tunisia, transitioned successfully from authoritarianism to democracy.Opposition parties forged a durable and long-term alliance there, which supporteddemocratization. Similar pacts failed in Morocco and Mauritania, however. InWhy AlliancesFail, Buehler explores the circumstances under which stable, enduring alliances are built tocontest authoritarian regimes, marshaling evidence from coalitions between North Africa'sIslamists and leftists. Buehler draws on nearly two years of Arabic fieldwork interviews,original statistics, and archival research, including interviews with the first Islamist primeminister in Moroccan history, Abdelilah Benkirane. Introducing a theory of alliance durability,Buehler explains how the nature of an opposition party's social base shapes the robustness ofalliances it builds with other parties. He also examines the social origins ofauthoritarian regimes, concluding that those regimes that successfully harnessed thesocial forces of rural isolation and clientelism were most effective at resisting the pressure fordemocracy that opposition parties exerted. With fresh insight and compelling arguments,WhyAlliances Failcarries vital implications for understanding the mechanisms driving authoritarianpersistence in the Arab world and beyond.