Enacting and contesting citizenship in Algeria beyond the Hirak:The strategic uses of exit, voice and loyalty

Abstract

This paper investigates the place of citizenship in the Hirak protest movement with the view to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the current modes of being citizen in an authoritarian regime in the Arab world. It identifies and analyses the tensions and frictions that generate change and the strategies of the ruling elites and the social movement to articulate and implement their choices. In this perspective, we frame the popular discontent that resulted from the candidature of Bouteflika to a fifth presidential mandate as a case of social mobilization giving a ‘voice’ to new projects of citizenship. We analyse key demands and propositions of this ‘voice’ strategy in relation to the ‘loyalty’ counter-narratives of the regime and its clients. Beyond the attempt at revising civil and political rights, we also link these modes of protesting and being to the experiences of lived citizenship under authoritarianism and how these fuels ‘exit’ strategies discounting formal citizenship.