ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the structural and cultural variables touching on religion, democratisation and human rights. Since the coming into force of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent international treaties, human rights have become an independent set of norms by means of which states are judged. Economically, liberalisation implies a gradual shift from a bureaucratic and state-controlled economy to based on the law of the market. Algeria is a rentier state. The 1994 Purge Law against corruption allowed the state to confiscate “excessive private assets”. The anti-state control policy deprives the Libyans of any form of allegiance except to the family and the tribe. The construction of the state started along the modernisation model. State control over the feminine question was achieved by means of a state feminism that boasts the emancipation of women from the yoke of tradition thanks to the Code du Statut Personnel.
