ABSTRACT
The dynamic of state-society relations has been the concern of scholars and policymakers for many years. Given the delicate status of state-society relations during a period of transition, democracy is unlikely to make a sudden appearance in the style of Eastern Europe or even Latin America. Academic attention has alternated widely from society-centered, and orientalist perspectives to state-centered, bureaucratic-authoritarian, and political economy explanations as to how power and politics operate and are maintained in the Middle East and North Africa. The "expanding society, retreating state" rubric seemed the more appropriate designation for the Algeria of the 1990s. Major constitutional reforms were undertaken along with fundamental revisions in the organization, and position of the National Liberation Front in state and society. Government reformers seemed to have run into the limits of what they started when Chadli Benjedid began to liberalize society, and polity in the early 1980s. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
