The Moroccan State between Centralization and Regionalism

This study interrogates the role played by advanced regionalism in reinforcing the centralization of the Moroccan state and reproducing its great reform dilemma: its desire to modernize (to some extent) while retaining a unitary centralized structure via the adoption of a vertical power structure vis-à-vis the regions. This parallels the failure to democratize and to develop a new social contract, keeping state resources firmly in the hands of the central state without meaningful participation by the regions. This strategy is implemented via the centralization of territorial control and the monopolization of resources, creating a regional division based on geographic, economic and developmental factors. It disregards the regions' cultural, historical and economic homogeneity, which might serve as the basis for a reconsideration of the state's unitary character, and feeds off the control of public space at a time when rural protest has been creating new social mobilization dynamics. The study also considers the effect of the geopolitics of the desert on the adoption of regionalism and the restructuring of the Moroccan state via control of the requirements of representation, mobilization and mediation in the desert. The legitimation of self-rule and the integration of desert elites into the state's central structure has underlined the risks elated to the reformation of the state through a strategy of local government re-formation in the desert that ultimately reinforces the state's legitimacy and centralized character without affecting the vertical organization of power.

Outcomes of Chinese Rural Protest

There are many protests about loss of village land in rural China. By following both short-term and long-term outcomes of one such protest, in Wukan, Guangdong, this article illustrates the strategies Chinese governments employ to appease protesters, and the consequences of a local protest for individuals, the protest group, and the broader society.

Mbeki, Govan

Govan Mbeki was a South African politician, writer, long-term political prisoner, and father of President Thabo Mbeki. His political career was distinctive among African leaders of his generation in two respects. First, he combined sustained efforts at rural mobilization and a leading role in building a militant urban organization. His long-held belief in the political importance of rural people carried little weight in the African National Congress (ANC), an overwhelmingly urban nationalist movement. Second, he was both an activist and an intellectual, leaving a body of writing produced over six decades, including a remarkable set of prison writings and a landmark study of rural protest. An ANC member from 1935, he emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a senior leader of both the ANC and the underground South African Communist Party (SACP) and also their armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), formed in 1961. He was sentenced at the Rivonia Trial in June 1964 to life imprisonment, together with Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and five others. Mbeki spent twenty-three years in prison on Robben Island, during which time significant tensions emerged between him and Mandela. He was active in encouraging other prisoners to study academically and was central to an ambitious program of political education. Mbeki was released in November 1987 and died in August 2001, by which time his oldest son, Thabo, had succeeded Nelson Mandela as the country’s president.