ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to retrace the evolution of the political system put in place in postcolonial Algeria and assess whether it has fulfilled the social contract between rulers and governed. It discusses the socioeconomic and political continuity and change since independence. The party, armed forces and high bureaucracy constituted the three pillars of the political system. But of the three, the military was, and remains, the most organised and most influential. In the period 1962–65, Ahmed Ben Bella had sought the predominance of party over state institutions: Boumedienne reversed this relationship, thus making the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) subordinate to the army. President Bouteflika, brought to power by military had solid credentials, such as having served as Boumedienne's foreign minister during the golden age of Algeria's foreign policy. Bouteflika and his cohorts have conveyed the impression that should they leave power, country would either fall into the hands of some undefined forces or would once again face civil war.
