FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A new Atlantic Council report warns that although the Algerian government has effectively maintained the status quo and avoided its own Arab Spring, it risks future instability if it does not commit to serious political and economic reforms. 

In “No Arab Spring for Algeria,” Mohsin Khan and Karim Mezran, senior fellows at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, examine the conditions that have helped Algeria to avoid the upheavals that rocked neighboring countries in North Africa, and assess whether it can remain immune to the pressures that brought down governments in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt.


The authors explain how Algeria’s authoritarian regime has been able to minimize the adverse economic conditions felt in other Middle East nations, but maintain this is a short-lived sense of security. The brief provides specific recommendations for political and economic reforms that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and his government must take if Algeria is to prosper, grow, and maintain political stability. Khan and Mezran recognize there is arguably more space to implement economic reforms in Algeria, and less incentive to undertake serious political reform.

Click here to download the issue brief.

The Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East brings North American and European voices together with experts from the Middle East, fostering a policy-relevant dialogue about the future of the region at a historic moment of political transformation. The Hariri Center provides objective analysis and innovative policy recommendations regarding political, economic, and social change in the Arab countries, and creates communities of influence around critical issues.

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The Atlantic Council is a nonpartisan organization that promotes constructive leadership and engagement in international affairs based on the central role of the Atlantic community in meeting global challenges.

Related Experts: Karim Mezran and Mohsin Khan