ABSTRACT
The intermediate actors played an important role in popular mobilization at a different historical juncture. The civil war was marked by numerous instances of civilian massacres, terrorist attacks, targeted assassinations and massive counter-insurgency operations. Popular mobilization in Algeria began in January 5, 2011 shortly after popular demonstrations started gaining momentum in neighboring Tunisia. While Algeria's elites were deeply divided in the 1980s, the victory of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) during the 1990 elections and their virulent criticism of the military apparatus forced those bitterly divided elites to agree on at least one element: their common survival. The non-participation of the local elite was the result of the ambitious redistribution policy implemented by the regime following the end of the civil war. Also the complex legacy of the civil war, which allowed for the consolidation of an inter-elite political and economic consensus that no one so far has been willing to break.
