Continuity through Co-optation: Rural Politics and Regime Resilience in Morocco and Mauritania. Mediterranean Politics. 2015.

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Continuity through Co-optation:Rural Politics and RegimeResilience in Morocco andMauritaniaMatt Buehlera

a Department of Political Science, University ofTennessee, Knoxville, United StatesPublished online: 27 Aug 2015.

To cite this article: Matt Buehler (2015): Continuity through Co-optation: RuralPolitics and Regime Resilience in Morocco and Mauritania, Mediterranean Politics, DOI:10.1080/13629395.2015.1071453

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Continuity through Co-optation: RuralPolitics and Regime Resilience inMorocco and Mauritania

MATT BUEHLERDepartment of Political Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, United States

ABSTRACT Morocco and Mauritania’s regimes differ radically in their political structuresand contemporary histories, yet they employed several similar strategies to secure survivalduring the Arab uprisings. Besides limited repression, constitutional reforms and palliativeconcessions, both regimes also used a distinct strategy of co-optation to aid authoritarianresilience. Targeting rural politicians with weak party affiliations for co-optation, regimesused it to build and reinforce loyalist political parties in the late 2000s. Once the uprisingsbegan, both regimes deployed these loyalist parties to undertake counter-revolutionaryactivities to contain and counterbalance the power of youth and Islamist movements.

In their political structures and contemporary histories, Morocco and Mauritania’s

authoritarian regimes differ radically. Morocco’s regime is a monarchy, whereas

Mauritania’s is a presidency. The former regime has dodged two military coups

since 1971, while the latter regime has experienced six successful ones since 1978.

Morocco’s army has become loyal, which increases regime resilience (Kamrava,

2000; Barany, 2011). Mauritania’s army has not – soldiers tried (unsuccessfully) to

assassinate its president during the Arab uprisings (Hirsch, 2012). Morocco’s regime

possesses few rentier resources to mollify opposition, whereas Mauritania’s regime

controls oil and precious metals. Morocco’s regime tries to integrate marginalized

ethnic groups, especially the Amazigh, to enhance stability. Mauritania’s regime

does not – over 340,000 Haratine and Afro-Mauritanians remain as slaves (Sutter,

2012). Morocco and Mauritania are ‘least-similar’ regimes, exhibiting maximum

difference on many variables deemed crucial to explaining the resilience of Arab

authoritarian regimes (Eckstein, 1975).

Beginning in 2011, Morocco and Mauritania’s regimes faced popular uprisings.

This unrest consolidated into two parallel youth movements, Morocco’s February

20th Movement and Mauritania’s February 25th Movement. The former’s protests

q 2015 Taylor & Francis

*Correspondence Address: Matt Buehler, Department of Political Science, University of Tennessee,

United States. Email: [email protected]

Mediterranean Politics, 2015

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2015.1071453

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peaked in February 2011, while the latter’s climaxed in July 2012. Other opposition

groups also protested, especially Islamists. Despite the major aforementioned

differences in the structures and histories of Morocco and Mauritania’s regimes,

they utilized several similar strategies to secure survival. Both regimes used limited

repression to disperse some protests (Bellin, 2012; Josua & Edel, 2015: 289–292).

Morocco jailed ‘scores’ of February 20th Movement activists, whereas Mauritania

imprisoned at least 20 of the February 25th Movement (Reuters, 2011). Both

regimes introduced constitutional reforms to offer minor political concessions.

Morocco’s King Mohamed VI initiated the writing of a new constitution in March

2011, while Mauritania’s President Mohamed ould Abdel Aziz finalized

constitutional revisions in March 2012 (Dalmasso & Cavatorta, 2013: 230–240;

Parolin, 2015: 31–33; Maghraoui, 2011; Bouboutt, 2014). Both regimes increased

workers’ wages as material concessions (Buehler, 2015; Marouf, 2011).

Importantly, both Morocco and Mauritania’s regimes also used a similar type of

co-optation to reinforce their rule. This study explains this distinct strategy of co-

optation, and shows how it aided regime resilience. Co-optation was one important

tool within the autocratic toolboxes of Mohamed VI and Mohamed ould Abdel Aziz.

Although this two-state comparison is limited in that it cannot explain the full pattern

of change or continuity in all Arab regimes, it can produce a ‘bounded generalization’

pertaining to Morocco and Mauritania (Bunce, 2000). It conducts a ‘parallel

demonstration of theory’ to highlight how co-optation worked (alongside other

mechanisms) to facilitate the complex, multi-causal process that led both regimes to

follow similar pathways to authoritarian persistence (Skocpol & Somers, 1980: 175).

Co-optation aided regime resilience in Morocco and Mauritania in two steps. The

first step took place in the late 2000s, and the second step occurred during the

uprisings. Multiple scholarly definitions for co-optation exist, which I discuss. Here,

I define it as a specific process in which politicians are absorbed into loyalist

political parties. This co-optation – targeted especially at rural politicians – worked

similarly in both Morocco andMauritania to enhance regime control by building and

strengthening loyalist parties. In a sense, co-optation acted as a type of party

building to reinforce loyalist parties that have historically buttressed regime

stability. This was not a new, novel strategy. Throughout Morocco and Mauritania’s

post-colonial histories, autocrats have periodically rallied rural politicians into

loyalist parties to shore up their regimes in the face of new crises or opposition.

In the late 2000s, both regimes reinvigorated and redeployed this strategy of

co-optation to bolster loyalist parties. In Morocco, these loyalist parties allied with

Mohamed VI included the Parti Authenticite et Modernite (PAM), the

Rassemblement National des Independants (RNI), the Mouvement Populaire

(MP), the Union Constitutionnelle (UC) and theMouvement Democratique et Social

(MDS) (Ottaway & Riley, 2006: 13; on the PAM, see Boussaid, 2009: 14).1 In

Mauritania, co-optation built the Union Pour la Republique (UPR), which general-

cum-president Mohamed ould Abdel Aziz founded in March 2009, eight months

after his coup (Antil, 2010: 5–6; Ojeda Garcıa, 2015: 110). By absorbing rural

politicians into loyalist parties, both regimes enhanced rural social coalitions that

have undergirded both regimes since decolonization.

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The second step occurred during the Arab uprisings. Once regimes reinforced

loyalist parties through co-opting rural politicians into their ranks, they deployed

them to contain and counterbalance the chief beneficiaries of the unrest – youth and

Islamist movements. Loyalist parties undertook counter-revolutionary activities.

These included expanding their strategy of co-optation to absorb youth leaders,

sowing divisions in youth movements. In elections, loyalist parties’ strong results

limited Islamists’ governing capacity. Finally, loyalist parties found ways to soil the

reputations of youth and Islamist leaders, undercutting their public support. While

early studies of the uprisings (e.g. Lust, 2011: 4) emphasized that loyalist parties

were of ‘limited use’ in countering opposition in Tunisia or Egypt, this point does

not apply to Morocco and Mauritania, where they were important. Although

co-optation involving loyalist parties most likely did not drive the resilience of

Arab regimes regionally, it is an important, understudied variable that aided the

persistence of authoritarianism in Morocco and Mauritania.

In two ways this study’s findings are significant for research related to the

resilience of Arab authoritarianism. First, this study elucidates the mechanisms of

co-optation, advancing efforts to uncover its ‘micro-dynamics’ in Arab regimes

(Stacher, 2012: 22). Before the uprisings, comparativists explored how the rules of

political participation (Lust, 2005) and the process of political inclusion (Wegner,

2011) could facilitate co-optation, whereas others (Albrecht, 2005) focused on the

co-optation of specific organizations. Scholars have mentioned co-optation in

research on the uprisings, including in broad surveys (Bellin, 2012; Pace &

Cavatorta, 2012: 128–129) and in specialized studies of North Africa (Storm, 2014;

Benchemsi, 2012; Maghraoui, 2011; Dalmasso, 2012). Yet the mechanisms that

make co-optation work often remain underspecified. This essay furnishes original

qualitative and quantitative evidence to identify the conditions under which a

politician’s odds of co-optation increase.

Second, this study contributes to literature on Arab authoritarian resilience

concerning the nature of autocratic coalitions. Recent research stresses that broad,

‘cross-cutting’ social coalitions bolstered autocrats best during the uprisings (Yom

& Gause, 2012: 75). Such coalitions can gather an array of social forces ‘to rally in

support’ of kings and dictators, when ‘crises come’ (Gause, 2013: 17). In Morocco

and Mauritania, however, narrow social coalitions rallied to autocrats’ aid. Through

co-optation, regimes used loyalist parties to enlist the support of the rural periphery

to counter the unrest of the urban centre.

This study has four parts. Part one discusses definitions of co-optation, and specifies

how this study defines it. Parts two and three present qualitative and quantitative

evidence to show how this type of co-optation works. Part two begins by describing

how, after colonialism, Morocco and Mauritania’s regimes consolidated their rule by

developing alliances with rural politicians and absorbing them into loyalist parties.

Utilizing field interviews, part two discusses examples of rural politicians who got co-

opted into loyalist parties to process-trace these mechanisms. Often these rural

politicians had weak party affiliations. Part three uses original statistical regression

models to demonstrate how regimes revived this type of co-optation in the late 2000s.

They co-opted rural politicians from across Morocco and Mauritania to reinforce

Rural Politics and Regime Resilience in Morocco and Mauritania 3

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loyalist parties in the years preceding the uprisings. These statistics describe the

variables broadly correlated with successful co-optation. Part four recounts how

regimes used rural-based loyalist parties as instruments to counter the urban-based

youth and Islamist movements. Finally, the study discusses how future studies could

explore whether co-optation contributed to either change or continuity of other Arab

regimes. Preliminary evidence from Tunisia begins to address the counterfactual of

how the absence of co-optation may have contributed to regime collapse.

Conceptualizing Co-optation

In both authoritarian politics generally, and in Arab politics particularly, co-optation

has been identified as contributing to the resilience of authoritarian regimes (Gandhi&

Przeworski, 2006: 1–4; Gandhi, 2008: 73–106; Gerschewski, 2013: 22–23; Svolik,

2012: 9–13; Lust, 2005: 77–78; Schlumberger, 2007: 7–18). A regime’s capacity to

co-opt real or potential opposition helps it secure survival. Because force alone cannot

sustain authoritarian regimes, they often use co-optation to build a social coalition of

citizens that provides support willingly (Huntington, 1968). In return, regimes give

citizens various clientelist benefits, but they prefer the fewest number of supporters to

preserve resources for the future. Often, loyalist political parties provide a framework

to contain such social coalitions, binding elites and citizens institutionally to a regime

(Brownlee, 2007). Integral to many authoritarian social coalitions, rural politicians –

notables – have been stalwart members of such parties. Historical examples from the

Middle East (i.e. Nasser’s Egypt and Pahlavi’s Iran) and also from Europe (i.e.

monarchical France) demonstrate that rural politicians can be counter-revolutionaries,

buttressing a ruler’s social coalition and his loyalist parties (Binder, 1978: 12–16;

Kazemi&Abrahamian, 1978: 292–293;Root, 1987). In this vein, SamuelHuntington

once quipped that ‘hewho controls the countryside, controls the country’.Meanwhile,

‘the city is the permanent source of opposition’ (1968: 292).2

Scholars ofNorthAfrica have devised definitions for co-optation. Taking either elites

or the masses as targets of co-optation, they define it as a process by which such

actors get pulled under a regime’s control and integrated into its social coalition. Early

research focused on Morocco’s makhzan system, showing how rulers ‘broke or

domesticated’ elites by co-opting them into an economic spoils system (Waterbury,

1973: 545; also Waterbury, 1970: 76–79). Some scholars see the makhzan as

‘concentric circles of power’ at varying distances from the king, who distributes

clientelist benefits based on elites’ changing levels of loyalty (Perthes, 2004: 6). Other

research explained how regimes could co-opt elites into formal political institutions,

which theymanipulated to contain opposition (Zartman, 1988: 62). Recent studies have

shifted to examining co-optation of mass organizations in civil society, like social

movements (Cavatorta&Dalmasso, 2009: 489;Variel, 2013: 33–34) and labour unions

(King, 2009: 74). For such organizations, co-optation often entailed relinquishing

radical demands for inclusion in formal politics. By allocating new rights to such

organizations once integrated into politics, the autocrat can win over their support.

Although I benefit from these definitions of co-optation, I define it more narrowly:

as a process in which politicians are absorbed into pro-regime, loyalist parties.

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Because co-optation is often difficult to observe empirically, one way to examine

it – and operationalize it quantitatively – is to examine trends in transhumance

(al-tarh_hal al-siyasiy), sometimes known as political nomadism. Specifically, I look

at instances in which politicians defect from their original parties and incorporate

into loyalist parties. Because of the authoritarian context in Morocco and

Mauritania, a politician who defects from his party and joins a loyalist party does not

simply switch parties. Rather, he signals his allegiance to the regime by enlisting in a

new or more powerful loyalist party.

The word ‘co-optation’ connotes a unidirectional relationship in which a regime

forces a politician into its realm of control. The reality is more interactive. When

regimes co-opt politicians, they benefit by attaching politicians to their loyalist

parties, thereby enhancing their social coalitions. But frequently ‘co-optee’

politicians also benefit. Thus politicians often defect to regimes’ parties willingly,

hoping to advance efforts to secure resources for themselves and their constituents.

This definition of co-optation models Brownlee (2007: 132), who found Egyptian

politicians who had run as independents defecting to Mubarak’s National

Democratic Party post-elections. Outside Arab politics, Russian politicians have

similarly defected and been absorbed into Putin’s United Russia (Reuter, 2010:

293–295). Not only do regimes’ parties gain from absorbing politicians from other

parties, but the politicians also gain from positioning themselves closer to regimes.

In Morocco, a politician who defects to a loyalist party often enhances his electoral

prospects by securing patronage opportunities, like state aid or public jobs

(Boukhars, 2011; Denoeux, 2011). In Mauritania, Jourde has labelled similar

practices defection, in which ‘renewed distribution of state patronage’ to rural

politicians and tribal leaders is exchanged for ‘unswerving allegiance’ (2005: 436;

also Marty, 2002: 103).

The uprisings inMorocco andMauritania followed Huntington’s adage. The youth

and Islamists who challenged regimes came from the city, whereas the loyalists who

anchored them came from the countryside. In the years before the uprisings, regimes

laid this groundwork by co-opting rural politicians into loyalist parties, many of

whose districts had most likely benefited from largesse. Many rural politicians had

weak party affiliations, competing previously as independent candidates, candidates

of parties that collapsed, or candidates of smaller or weaker loyalist parties. For

Morocco’s PAM andMauritania’s UPR, this co-optation helped build new, powerful

loyalist parties. For established parties, like the RNI, this process reinforced these

organizations by incorporating politicians into their ranks. Once the uprisings broke

out, the regimes deployed these loyalist parties to contain youth and Islamist

movements. Loyalist parties worked in concert to undertake counter-revolutionary

activities to limit the power of youth and Islamist movements, whose influence grew

post-uprisings.

Rural Co-optation before the Arab Uprisings

The origins of the Moroccan and Mauritanian regimes’ collaboration with rural

politicians began before independence. Unlike other colonies where French rulers

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marginalized rural politicians to consolidate control, they devolved power to them in

Morocco and Mauritania. French officials worked with rural politicians who could

direct social networks of citizens, often tribal or peasant groups, to maintain order

and control territory. In Morocco, this colonial system represented ‘collaboration

with the local elite’ according to Leveau3 (1977: 270–71l; Tessler, 1982: 37–38).

In Mauritania, it embodied colonial control based ‘on the traditional tribal system’

of cooperation with rural, tribal elites (Gerteiny, 1967: 112). Rather than uprooting

the indigenous social structure, the French consolidated their rule by co-opting rural

politicians into their system of colonial control.

After decolonization, collaboration with rural politicians migrated to party

politics. When Morocco and Mauritania’s post-colonial rulers Mohamed V and

Moktar ould Daddah faced new opposition, they rallied rural politicians and

co-opted them into loyalist parties. Through co-optation, Entelis explains, loyalist

parties were ‘encouraged to emerge, propped up, or otherwise given new life’ to

counter opposition (1980: 67; see alsoWillis, 2002: 3). During the 1960s, Morocco’s

Front pour la Defense des Institutions Constitutionnelles (FDIC) and Mauritania’s

Parti du Peuple Mauritanien (PPM) were founded. Mohamed V’s interior minister,

Reda Guedira, led the FDIC. Guedira’s FDIC, according to Clement Henry Moore,

was a ‘heterogeneous coalition of palace personalities and traditional notables’,

whereas Daddah’s PPM was a ‘revolutionary single-party fac�ade’ but retained

‘tribal leaders within the system’ (Moore, 1984: 589; Moore, 1965: 409–411).

While Morocco’s FDIC countered the Istiqlal party, Mauritania’s PPM counteracted

the Marxist kadahine movement.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Morocco and Mauritania’s regimes revived rural co-

optation to build loyalist parties. Upon Mohamed V’s death, King Hassan II

assumed the throne. In 1978, he tasked his cousin, Moulay Ahmed ‘Alawi, and his

brother-in-law, Ahmed Osman, to create the RNI by rallying rural politicians who

had been independents in the 1977 elections into the party (Zartman, 1987: 21).

Similar co-optation created the UC in April 1983. Serving as vehicles to organize

rural politicians, the RNI and UC counterbalanced the Istiqlal and the leftist Union

Socialiste des Forces Populaires (USFP). Mauritania followed a similar trajectory

when General Ma’aouya sidi Ahmed Ould Taya seized power in 1984. Replicating

Daddah’s co-optation strategy to build the PPM, Taya exploited ‘traditional

hierarchies’ of rural notable families and tribal leaders to construct his loyalist

party, the Parti Republicain Democratique et Social (PRDS) (Antil, 1997: 125–

126).

In the 1990s, the importance of rural politics seemed to wane. In Morocco,

neo-liberal reforms enhanced regime support among businessmen, inaugurating a

temps des entrepreneurs (Catusse, 2008). In Mauritania, droughts of past decades

caused sedentarization in which many citizens relinquished nomadism (Ojeda

Garcıa & Lopez Bargados, 2012: 105). Yet because 44 and 43 per cent of

Mauritanians and Moroccans lived in rural areas until the late 2000s, regime control

over rural politics mattered for stability.4 Taya’s regime continued to depend on

rural politicians, who were the ‘backbone’ of the PRDS (N’Diaye, 2006: 428).

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New crises rocked Morocco and Mauritania in the 2000s. In response, regimes

reinvigorated strategies of rural co-optation and loyalist party-building. Islamist

electoral gains threatened Morocco’s regime, so it tasked the king’s closest advisor,

Fouad Ali el-Himma, to found an anti-Islamist social movement. Himma had been

Mohamed VI’s chief of staff while he was crown prince, and had served as his

deputy interior minister. Himma’s Movement for All Democrats acted as a bulwark

against Islamists. By August 2008, he converted his movement into a new loyalist

party, the Parti Authenticite et Modernite. Himma absorbed long-time rural

politicians into the PAM. As Illyas el-Omari, the PAM’s vice president, explained:

‘The PAM, legally, is two years old. Politically, it’s much older. Our leaders

left other parties to join the PAM. Some have 30 years – even 50 years – of

experience’.5

In Mauritania, a 2005 coup ended Taya’s reign. The generals who orchestrated the

coup, including Abdel Aziz, pledged democratization. Democratization advanced

when Taya’s PRDS dissolved and reconstituted as a non-regime party, the Parti

Republicain Democratique et Renouvellement (PRDR) (Ojeda Garcıa, 2012: 32).

Optimism soared as Mauritania held democratic elections in 2006 and 2007, and an

elected president took office (Hochman, 2007: 68–69; Aghrout, 2008: 387–389;

Zisenwine, 2007: 481–497). Yet ‘ironman’ Abdel Aziz stopped democratization

and overthrew the president in a 2008 coup (for details: Ojeda Garcıa & Lopez

Bargados, 2012: 119; Foster, 2011: 183–213). Subsequently Abdel Aziz began to

consolidate his new regime. In March 2009, he copied the models of Daddah and

Taya by co-opting rural politicians – especially those from tribes allied with his

Oulad bou Sbaa clan – to build the UPR before the July presidential elections, which

he won handily (Antil, 2010: 5). As a UPR leader explained, ‘Abdel Aziz’s new

party’s support is in rural areas where the economy depends on the state. It includes

former independents and officials of Taya’s party’.6 Abdel Aziz sought to ‘resurrect

the power’ of Taya’s PRDS through co-opting rural politicians, its historic

supporters (Foster, 2011: 133).

Examples of politicians co-opted into loyalist parties illustrate how rural politics,

weak party affiliations and clientelism interact to facilitate this process. Loyalist

parties prefer co-opting local politicians who have deep clientelist ties with a

region’s residents. A member of the PAM’s secretariat general described the benefits

of co-opting such politicians: ‘Moroccans are simple; they’ll vote for someone

because he provides resources. He helps them with daily problems, pitches a festival

tent during the election, and could get an ambulance for the neighbourhood. Every

party wants a politician like that; he’ll win elections’.7 For example, in a commune

in the greater Casablanca region, former mayor Abdelwahab Shagir agreed to defect

from his party to the PAM. The PAM’s regional campaign strategist explained why

Shagir was co-opted, ‘He didn’t have party training. But, he was really good at

helping the people: getting them to the hospital, giving them money for medicine,

and buying them clothes’.8

In rural areas, with fewer resources and tighter communities, this clientelism

intensifies. The PAM sought to co-opt Abdelkarim Choukri, an opposition politician

in the rural commune of Dar Bouazza. A local aristocrat, Choukri owned two large

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plantations and employed dozens of local peasants, but as an opposition politician he

encountered difficulties attracting state resources to his region. Because of his desire

to secure more resources, Choukri welcomed the PAM’s co-optation. He informed

the PAM that he ‘wasn’t a beginner’ at rural elections, and could mobilize family

networks of his peasants to win votes.9 Choukri illustrates the interactive nature of

co-optation: The loyalist party benefits by incorporating a new politician, while the

politician benefits by acquiring perceived opportunities to access patronage.

Choukri’s story parallels that of another rural mayor, Moussa Demba Sow, who

was elected as an independent in Mauritania’s 2006 communal elections. During his

two terms, Sow’s predecessor (an opposition mayor) had encountered obstacles

securing state resources. ‘Whenever he went to the ministries for help, he had

difficulties’, Sow explained. ‘They would say: he’s in the opposition.’.10 When

Abdel Aziz created the UPR, however, Sow defected so he could acquire resources

for constituents. ‘I was one of UPR’s first seven members’, he recalled, ‘I’ve

constructed a new stadium and bus station. You have to participate in the party of the

Power to serve your constituents. Money only comes from the Power.’

Evidence of Broader Trends in Rural Co-optation

Historical and qualitative evidence indicates that Morocco and Mauritania’s regimes

have used rural politicians to create loyalist parties through co-optation (Willis,

2002: 14). Aforementioned examples of politicians who were co-opted into

Morocco’s PAM and Mauritania’s UPR show the mechanisms of this process.

Quantitative data demonstrate that this type of co-optation manifests in broader

trends, and worked to build loyalist parties in the late 2000s.

I constructed two datasets to examine co-optation of local politicians following

communal elections inMorocco (2003–09) andMauritania (2006–12) (see Table 1).

Such elections decide the leadership of city and village governments, which govern

through multiparty coalitions. These statistics highlight the variables correlated with

co-optation in the era before theArab uprisings. By using data frommonths preceding

the height of protests (i.e. February 2011 in Morocco and July 2012 in Mauritania),

I establish that loyalist parties co-opted politicians to party-build and reinforce

themselves before major unrest broke out. The statistics analyse co-optation practices

of Morocco’s five largest loyalist parties11 and Mauritania’s UPR. For Morocco, of

the 2,398 total local politicians in the dataset, 1,498 changed affiliation from their

original party to a new one, and of those who switched, 953 defected specifically to a

loyalist party. Elected in 2006, 155 of 217 Mauritanian mayors defected to the UPR.

To build the datasets, I collected statistics from the 2003 Moroccan and 2006

Mauritanian communal election results and compared them with data from 2009 and

2012, respectively. Because Morocco’s Interior Ministry has blocked web access to

the complete 2009 results, nation wide data could not be obtained. Rather,

I extracted data from a July 2009 issue of the Arabic magazine al-Nahar

al-Maghribia, which included a sample of politicians from 262 urban and rural

communes (out of 1,503 total communes). The magazine over-represents electoral

results from cities; 49 per cent of the sample data come from urban communes.

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In reality, about 18 per cent of communes are urban. More rural communes within

the sample, however, would be likely to accentuate the importance of rural politics

found in the results (see Table 2). Otherwise, the sample data are not systematically

biased and include an array of communes from all Moroccan provinces with varying

levels of illiteracy, poverty and ethnic diversity. The data are nationally

representative for Mauritania. They were obtained from the Mauritanian Mayors’

Association. Even before calculating odds ratios, descriptive statistics show a higher

frequency in co-optation of politicians in rural areas (see Table 1).

These two datasets are not identical. Both datasets examine local politicians but

Morocco’s includes city councillors and mayors while Mauritania’s contains mayors

only. This means that there is an imbalance between the datasets, with a higher

number of potentially co-optable politicians for Morocco than Mauritania (2,398

versus 217). Given the dearth of quantitative research for these countries, the

originality of these datasets outweighs this imperfection.12

Dependent Variables

To code the dependent variable, I analysed electoral rolls to record when a local

politician competed and won with one party affiliation, then subsequently defected

to a different party. Because defection from a party is an individual-level decision,

I organized the data by candidate; ‘candidate’ is the unit of analysis. I recorded

co-optation when a politician defected and incorporated into a pro-regime, loyalist

party. To ensure there were values that satisfy both conditions of the dependent

Table 1. Descriptive Statistics: Datasets of co-optation of local politicians by loyalist parties

Morocco

Yes NoDid the local politician switch parties?1,498 900Dependent Variable 1 (N ¼ 2,398)Rural Urban

Politicians who switched parties (N ¼ 1,498) 765 733

Yes NoDid the local politician defect to a loyalist party(PAM, RNI, MDS, UC or MP)?

953 900Dependent Variable 2 (N ¼ 1,853)Rural Urban

Politicians who defected to a loyalist party (N ¼ 953) 519 434Politicians who stayed loyal to original party (N ¼ 900) 309 591

Mauritania

Yes NoDid the local politician defect tothe loyalist party (UPR)?

155 62Dependent Variable 1 (N ¼ 217)Rural Urban

Politicians who defected to the loyalist party (N ¼ 155) 108 47Politicians who stayed loyal to original party (N ¼ 62) 44 18

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variable, the datasets include politicians who remained loyal to their parties after the

election, ensuring there were cases in which co-optation did and did not occur.

Initially the Morocco dataset uses two dependent variables, Party Switch (DV 1) and

RegimeCo-optation (DV2).By creating these twodependent variables, I first controlled

for the potentially complicating influence of party-switching on regime co-optation.

After coding the broader outcome of party-switching in which local politicians who left

their party received a dummy variable of 1 and thosewho remainedwithin their original

parties were coded 0, a subset of candidates who defected to loyalist parties was

established (n ¼ 953 candidates). Creating a second dependent variable, Regime Co-

optation, these local politicians were coded 1 and the remaining candidates (n ¼ 900),

who remained loyal to their original parties, took a 0. Politicians (n ¼ 545) who

switched from an opposition party to another opposition party were omitted.

Quantitatively tracking these politicians’ movements does not enhance our under-

standing of loyalist parties’ co-optation practices. The Mauritania dataset includes one

dependent variable, Regime Co-optation, in which local politicians who defected to the

UPR received a 1whereas thosewho remained loyal to their original partywere coded 0.

Traditional party-switching hardly occurred in Mauritania, with only one mayor

(omitted from the regression) joining a non-UPR party.

Because local politicians in the Morocco dataset face two options – the choice to

join a new party and the choice to defect to a loyalist party – we need to test whether

they engage in simultaneous decision making, requiring a nested logit model. A d

value of 1 indicates that the choice of switching from a party is interchangeable with

that of joining a loyalist one. Upon estimating the dissimilarity parameter (i.e. d), it

was found that d does not differ from 1, which, following Born (1990), means that a

nested model is unnecessary.

Independent Variables

Several commune-level independent variableswere created to testwhether they increase

a local politician’s odds of co-optation. To test variables pertaining to where the

politician was elected, such as the illiteracy, impoverishment and ethnicity of the

commune’s residents, statisticswere drawn from the 2004 and 2006 national censuses in

Morocco and Mauritania, respectively. Haut-Commissariat au Plan reports provided

communal-level data on poverty, illiteracy and Arabic-speakers. Illiteracy and poverty

are defined as the percentage of residents of a communewho are, respectively, unable to

readArabic or live on amonthly income of about $300.00. Rural communeswere coded

as 1, whereas urban ones received a 0. I coded a commune as ‘rural’ if government

juridical typologies defined it as rural (for Morocco) or defined it as a farming area (for

Mauritania). To gauge if co-optation clustered geographically, variables test sub-

national regions. Rabat and Nouakchott serve as baselines for regional cluster variables.

Tests for multicollinearity showed that the ‘rural’ independent variable and illiteracy

were highly correlated for both the Morocco (r ¼ 0.86, p , 0.01) and Mauritania

(r ¼ 0.60, p , 0.01) datasets. Illiteracy thus should not be tested separately.

I tested individual-level variables to gaugewhether they enhanced a politician’s odds

of co-optation. Because politicians with weak affiliations may be more likely to defect,

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variables test whether they had run as independents, as candidates of parties that

collapsed, or as candidates ofweaker regimeparties. The data, thus, consider the party of

origin. Hypothetically, a politicianmay defect from aweaker loyalist party to a stronger

one to improve his electoral chances or patronage access. Islamist politicians show party

discipline, so their odds of co-optation will be lower (Shehata & Stacher, 2006).

Results

To interpret the results of Tables 2 and 3, positive coefficients signal politician

co-optation into loyalist parties whereas negative coefficients indicate no co-optation.

Table 2. Logit results of loyalist parties’ co-optation of local politicians – Morocco

Dependent Variable ¼ Regime Co-optation, 2003–09 Model Odds

Rural 0.546* (0.164) 173Dissolved party (politician’s original party disbanded) 4.94* (0.513) 13,957Unaffiliated with party (independent) 1.95* (0.596) 700Islamist (PJD member) 22.65* (0.429) 2 7.0Regime party origin (RNI, UC, MP,or MDS in 2003)

0.513* (0.123) 167

Total poverty (percentage of vulnerable residentsper commune, 2004)

0.011 (0.013)

Change in Poverty (percent change incommune vulnerable residents, 2004–07)

0.001 (0.010)

Arab ethnicity 0.007 (0.004)

Region cluster variablesTadla-Azilal 0.751* (0.313) 212Guelmim-Es Semara 1.02* (3.15) 278Gharb-Chrarda-Beni Hssen 0.818* (0.271) 227Marrakech-Tensift-El Haouz 1.27* (0.297) 355Doukkala-Abda 0.696* (0.285) 200Grand Casablanca 0.813* (0.319) 231Fes-Boulemane 20.413 (0.293)Souss-Massa-Draa 0.352 (0.365)Taza-Al Hoceima-Taounate 0.468 (0.242)Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra 21.625 (0.983)Meknes-Tafilalet 0.438 (0.270)Oriental 0.195 (0.340)Tangier-Tetouan 20.029 (0.307)Chaouia-Ouardigha 0.454 (0.276)Oued Ed-Dahab-Lagouira 20.071 (0.575)

Constant 22.09 (0.492)N ¼ 1,853Log likelihood 210.0Pseudo R2 0.2908

*p , 0.05.Cell entries are regression coefficients; standard errors in parentheses.Source: Contact author for replication data.

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The N refers to the total number of politicians in each dataset. Odds depict how

statistically significant variables affect a politician’s propensity for co-optation.

True for Morocco and Mauritania, the chief finding is that loyalist parties anchor

themselves upon rural politicians. Representing a rural area had a positive,

statistically significant effect on whether a politician succumbed to co-optation,

controlling for all other variables. Substantively this means that politicians elected in

rural areas, where residents have high illiteracy rates, were most likely to defect to

loyalist parties. In Morocco, when a politician represented a rural area, his odds of

co-optation increased by 173 compared with those in urban areas. Likewise,

Mauritania’s rural mayors had 1,310 higher odds of co-optation. Calculating

predicted probabilities to show marginal effects, Moroccan politicians had about a

47 per cent chance of succumbing to co-optation in urban areas, but this rose to 57

per cent in rural areas. Likewise, Mauritania’s urban politicians had around a 49 per

cent predicted probability of co-optation, yet this increased to 74 per cent in rural

areas. In rural areas, where illiteracy is high and resources are low, residents may not

differentiate between parties and value a politician’s ability to secure resources more

than his party fealty. Morocco’s regime often mitigates poverty in certain rural areas

through the $1.5 billion National Initiative for Human Development fund, which has

become entangled in clientelism (Bergh, 2012). Rural politicians may defect to

loyalist parties in a bid to attract such resources.

Table 3. Logit results of loyalist party’s co-optation of local politicians – Mauritania

Dependent Variable ¼ Regime Co-optation, 2006–12 Model Odds

Rural 2.57* (1.25) 1,310Unaffiliated with a Party (independent) 4.63* (0.744) 44,389Total poverty (percentage per commune) 20.025 (0.032)Arab ethnicity 20.434 (0.601)Islamist politician (Tawassoul Party) 0.493 (0.828)

Region cluster variablesHodh el-Chargui 20.085 (1.66)Hodh el-Gharbi 21.95 (1.70)Assaba 22.60 (1.88)Gorgol 22.64 (2.13)Brakna 22.25 (2.06)Trarza 0.291 (1.18)Adrar 22.60 (2.50)Nouadhibou 0.977 (1.41)Guidimagha 22.34 (1.96)Tris-Zemmour 21.26 (1.91)

N ¼ 217Log likelihood 266.39Pseudo R2 0.4412

*p , 0.05.Cell entries are regression coefficients; standard errors in parentheses.Source: Contact author for replication data.

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If politicians had weak party affiliations, this also increased odds of co-optation.

In Morocco, politicians who had been independents or candidates of parties that

disbanded disproportionately defected to loyalist parties. In Mauritania, nearly every

mayor who had been an independent incorporated in the UPR. Similarly, in Morocco,

69percentof politicians from theUniondemocratique (UD) (a partydisbanded in2006)

defected to other loyalist parties (34 per cent to the PAM, 14per cent toRNI, 12 per cent

to MP, 6 per cent to UC and 3 per cent to MDS). Politicians of weaker loyalist parties

often defected tomorepowerful ones: 66per cent ofMDSpoliticians, particularly,were

absorbed into the PAM, RNI, UC or MP. These trends were replicated in Mauritania

because all 22 mayors who were PRDR politicians (the successor of Taya’s PRDS)

defected to the UPR after March 2009. Because affiliation with the PRDR perfectly

predicted defection to the UPR, the statistical model omitted this variable. These

findings suggest that loyalist politicians – often representing rural areas – appear to

defect from one pro-regime party to another, opportunistically searching for the party

that canbest serve their electoral interests and perhaps deliver clientelist benefits to their

constituents. While such clientelist relations are difficult to convey quantitatively, the

aforementioned examples of politicians who got co-opted into the PAM and UPR

qualitatively evidence their existence.

InMorocco, loyalist parties hadmore success co-opting politicians in some regions

than others, especiallyMarrakech. Politicians in this region had 355 higher odds of co-

optation than elsewhere. Thismakes intuitive sense because FouadAli el-Himma, the

PAM’s founder, originates from this region and had strong local influence to co-opt

politicians. If a mayor represented a commune in Mauritania’s Inchiri or Tagant

regions, this perfectly predicted defection to the UPR. Above, qualitative interviews

and statistical correlations illustrated how rural politics, clientelism and weak party

affiliations work to facilitate co-optation to build loyalist parties. Next, I show how

such rural-based loyalist parties defended regimes during the uprisings.

Co-optation and the Counter-Revolution

Beginning in February 2011, social media-savvy youths launched protests that

gained mass support. Unrest centralized in cities. Morocco’s demonstrations

exceeded 200,000 protestors in 53 cities, with the largest in Casablanca and Rabat

(16,000 and 8,000) (Akdim, 2011). Violence erupted in smaller cities like Hoceima

and Larache, where five people died and 128 were injured (Bogaert, 2014). Later,

riots in Khouribga left $13 million in damage and two dead (Dalil, 2011). Oussama

el-Khilifi, known as the Che of Sale, announced the February 20th Movement’s

revolutionary goals: ‘We live in a dictatorship. But, the dictator is not just the king;

it’s the entire regime . . . ’ (Allaoui, 2011).

Mauritania’s demonstrations started with only 2,000 protestors, but they swelled

to a 90,000-protestor demonstration in Nouakchott in July 2012 (Jedou, 2012).

Given Mauritania’s tiny population (3.4 million), this was a large mobilization.

Ojeda Garcıa estimates that protests grew gradually because only 2 per cent of

Mauritanians have internet access. Outside Nouakchott, limited internet access kept

protests small – especially in rural interior and eastern regions (Ojeda Garcıa, 2013:

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76–77). In Nouakchott, protests engulfed the university and the Institut Superieur

d’Etudes et de Recherches Islamiques. Islamist students occupied the latter,

protesting against plans to relocate it to an isolated eastern city (Ojeda Garcıa, 2013:

82). When the police repressed the students, observers noted: ‘Every time, the

regime’s reaction is identical – police muscle, tear gas, and secret detentions. The

regime has transformed universities into military camps where students must take

exams in an atmosphere of police terror’.13

Morocco and Mauritania’s protesters asserted their demands, which criticized

corruption, unemployment and poverty. As one February 20th leader declared,

‘Morocco faces Tunisia and Egypt’s problems. How can we think that Morocco is

better? Problems with bad public hospitals, black market employment, and poverty

are the same’.14 Mauritania’s February 25th Movement devised a petition of 28

demands, including wage increases, the army’s withdrawal from politics and

President Abdel Aziz’s resignation (Ghasemilee, 2011). Youth and Islamists also

demanded the dissolution of loyalist parties. They denounced Himma of the PAM

and Salaheddine Mezouar of the RNI, and, in Mauritania, the UPR.

To protect the regimes that created them, rural-based loyalist parties mobilized to

counter youth and Islamist movements. Himma of the PAM reactivated the dormant

Movement for All Democrats, holding meetings in March 2011 that sought to draw

youths away from their movement to splinter it. The PAM’s strategy succeeded. The

loyalist party absorbed one of the February 20th Movement’s leaders into its ranks,

Oussama el-Khilifi – the Che of Sale. The PAM co-opted el-Khilifi by appointing him

its top candidate in Sale for the November 2011 elections. Later, el-Khilifi regretted

defecting to the PAM: ‘The regime exploited my lack of experience to attack the

February 20thMovement . . . Myaffiliatingwith the PAMwas exploited to divide our

movement’ (Ourabai, 2012). The youth movement was further embarrassed when el-

Khilifi was arrested, intoxicated, for paying for sex with a minor (al-Maghrabia, 2013).

After dividing the youth movement, Morocco’s loyalist parties moved to contain

the Islamists – the Parti de la Justice et du Developpement (PJD). Integral to this

campaign was the G-8 alliance, an eight-party coalition that the PAM built with the

RNI, the UC, the MP and other parties. The G-8 was a ‘war coalition to face the

PJD’, which was modelled on a 1993 alliance of loyalist parties called the national

accord (al-wifa q al-watani) that undermined the leftist opposition (and included

many of the same parties) (Elhafidi, 2011; Storm, 2014: 71). Collectively the five

main loyalist parties, the leaders of the G-8 alliance, received 156 parliamentary

seats (of 395 in total). Given the PAM’s unpopularity during the uprisings, it had

unexpected success, winning fourth place (47 seats).

Like Tunisia and Egypt’s Islamists, Morocco’s Islamists won the post-uprising

elections and received first place (107 seats) (Al-Anani, 2012). The Islamists

formed a coalition government but, because of the G-8 loyalist parties’ strong

electoral results, they could not govern alone. The Islamists had to include a

loyalist party in their coalition and cede important ministries. Ministers from

loyalist parties dragged their feet in implementing Islamist-proposed reforms.

In the second cabinet formed in October 2013, the Islamists had to add another

loyalist party to their coalition, the RNI, and relinquish more ministries. By 2014

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the Islamists could no longer control their coalition, and a RNI leader became

parliamentary president (Alaoui, 2014).

Outside parliament, loyalist parties drew negative media attention to the Islamists,

soiling their public image. The PAM organized protests to commemorate the 20-

year anniversary of the murder of a leftist student, who died in street clashes in Fes

with Islamists in 1993. Illyas el-Omari, PAM vice president, analogized the

Islamists’ involvement in the murder with the assassinations of Tunisian leftists

Mohamed al-Brahimi and Chokri Belaid (Hamorou, 2013). These events climaxed

in summer 2013, with the emergence of Egypt’s rebel movement, Tamarod. The

PAM launched a parallel movement with other loyalist parties, Tamarod Maroc.

It held demonstrations that called for dissolution of Morocco’s Islamist-led coalition

government. After a brief retirement in 2011, Fouad Ali el-Himma returned to his

prominent position by 2013, leading the king’s ‘shadow government’ of advisors

that overruled the Islamist-led government.

Mauritania’s rural-based loyalist parties also worked to contain youth and Islamist

movements. Two weeks after the youth protests of 25 February, President Abdel

Aziz met with a young loyalist, Abderrahmane ould Deddi, and tasked him to build a

new youth party. Abdel Aziz’s UPR would help create Deddi’s youth party, and

would collaborate with it to buttress the regime against youth and Islamist

movements. Formerly Deddi had been a UPR campaign organizer who had rallied

youth to support Abdel Aziz’s successful 2009 presidential election (Alakhbar,

2011). Deddi’s new youth party aimed to co-opt urban and rural youth activists into

its ranks, especially February 25th supporters. On 27 April, UPR’s leaders promised

to provide support for Deddi’s new youth party. UPR leaders collected funds from

businessmen and rural notables who would finance it (al-Twary al-electroniy, 2011).

In May 2011, Deddi released the youth party’s first statement, declaring that the

party would end the ‘deprivation and marginalization’ of youth in politics, and

would ‘embody President Abdel Aziz’s program and pledges in real life’ (el-

Hourriya-1, 2011). By June, Deddi had gathered several different Nouakchott-area

youth movements that were absorbed into his party (Enass, 2011). Most important,

Deddi successfully co-opted a faction of youth protestors from the February 25th

Movement, known as ‘Youth of February 25: Route of Reform and Change’. At the

media launch, Deddi asserted that his youth party would rally around Abdel Aziz to

increase youth unity, which had been ‘hampered by fragmentation and differences’

(el-Hourriya-1, 2011). Abdel Aziz invited Deddi and representatives of the youth

party, especially those who had defected from the February 25th Movement, to his

palace. He encouraged them to electorally challenge the traditional parties

(Alakhbar, 2011). He also encouraged them to adopt the party name, al-hara kal-shaba bi min ajil al-watan (Youth Movement for the Nation).

Divisions opened within the February 25th Movement over the Abdel Aziz

meeting. Some of the youth protestors condemned it, whereas others endorsed it.

The first group of activists said that the February 25th Movement ‘had no connection

whatsoever’ with the youths who had absorbed into the Youth Movement for the

Nation. They concluded it was a ‘ridiculous sideshow’ created ‘at the behest of

the highest powers in the country’ (essirage, 2011). By contrast, the second group of

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activists praised the meeting with Abdel Aziz, but complained that they had been

excluded. Their exclusion demonstrated a ‘lack of respect for the signed pact’, and

they speculated that the Youth Movement was ‘only a game’, and not ‘true youth

desire’ to create a united youth party (el-Hourriya-2, 2011).

After sowing divisions in the February 25thMovement by co-opting some activists

and not others, the Youth Movement expanded this strategy to absorb rural youth.

It co-opted at least 5,000 new activists to enhance its power before theDecember 2013

elections (saharamedias, 2011). The Youth Movement launched recruitment

campaigns in Mauritania’s rural interior, stopping in Adrar, Kiffa, Guidmakha,

Gorgol and other regions (el-safir, 2013). Passing through each region, the Youth

Movement heard concerns of rural youth groups and then absorbed them into its

organization. During the Guidimakha and Gorgol recruitment campaigns, it met with

rural youthswhowantedmore state funding for road improvements and drought relief

(Camacho, 2011). Upon returning to Nouakchott, the Youth Movement organized a

press conference in which it implored the regime to ‘rescue rural areas’ with aid

(Alakhbar, 2011). In September 2011, Abdel Aziz asserted control over the Youth

Movement bymakingLallamint Cherif, amember of anM’Bout rural notable family,

its president. Abdel Aziz trusted mint Cherif as her father had been a rural politician

affiliated with Taya’s PRDS. Then, to signal support for the YouthMovement, Abdel

Aziz appointed mint Cherif minister of culture, sport, and youth. He declared that his

‘heart’ supported mobilized youth while his ‘mind’ was with the UPR for the

upcoming December 2013 elections (Ould ‘Amar, 2013).

As the 2013 elections approached, opposition parties of theCoordinationOpposition

Democratique organized a collective boycott that weakened the regime’s legitimacy

(Ojeda Garcıa, 2015: 110). Yet this opposition unity collapsed because Mauritania’s

Islamists broke ranks and competed in the elections, winning second place with 16

deputy seats (145 total) and 17 communes (218 total) (OjedaGarcıa, 2013: 84). Perhaps

Mauritania’s Islamists anticipated that they would secure an electoral victory – like

Morocco’s Islamists – in the post-uprising elections. In reality, the UPR and Youth

Movement worked to contain the Islamists. They forged an 11-party alliance called the

Coalition of the Majority, similar to Morocco’s G-8. The UPR won first place with 74

seats, and theCoalition of theMajoritywonoverwhelmingly (108 seats) (OjedaGarcıa,

2015: 110).Miffed that theUPR’s loyalist coalition had capped their gains, the Islamists

re-joined the opposition boycott for the 2014 presidential elections – whichAbdelAziz

wonby81per cent (OjedaGarcıa, 2015: 110). The 2013 elections showed that theUPR,

the YouthMovement and smaller loyalist parties worked collectively to counteract the

power of youth and Islamist movements.

Preliminary evidence from Tunisia and other Arab states helps to assess the

generalizability of this strategy of rural co-optation involving loyalist parties. Unlike

Morocco and Mauritania’s regimes that were anchored in the countryside after

colonialism, Tunisia’s regime consolidated upon an urban ruling party based in

Tunis (Charrad, 2001: 17–27). Tunisia’s ruling party expanded into the countryside

gradually, but this system deteriorated by 2010. Zine el-Abidine Ben ‘Ali had

over-concentrated power in Tunis among his direct kin, business contacts and other

urban allies, while rural loyalists were disadvantaged (Hibou, 2011: xv; King, 2009).

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In fact, rural politicians from Ben Ali’s party protested alongside Mohamed

Bouazizi’s family, unemployed youths and trade unionists when demonstrations

broke out in Sidi Bouzid (Penner-Angrist, 2013: 553). In contrast to Tunisia, Jordan

and Kuwait’s regimes rallied rural tribesmen to counterbalance youth and Islamist

movements. When some traditionally loyal rural tribesman began to protest,

however, this scared Jordan’s monarchy (Yom, 2014: 229–233; Katzman, 2014:

6–8). Thus, beyond Morocco and Mauritania, rural co-optation seems to be one

(among many variables) that shaped the change and continuity of Arab regimes.

Future studies examining such co-optation and, especially, its deterioration in Ben

Ali’s regime could enhance scholarly understanding of why Tunisia underwent

regime change while the regimes in Morocco and Mauritania were resilient.

Conclusion

Besides limited repression, constitutional reform and palliative concessions, Morocco

and Mauritania’s regimes employed a similar strategy of co-optation to aid resilience

during theArabuprisings. This specific type of co-optationwas not fundamentally new.

Regimes had used co-optation since the post-colonial period to make rural politicians

the core ‘security group’ that constituted loyalist parties (Sater, 2007: 36). In the late

2000s, both regimes revived this strategy of rural co-optation to build new or reinforce

existing loyalist parties. In particular, Morocco’s PAM, Mauritania’s UPR and other

loyalist parties benefited.Once protests erupted, regimes deployed these loyalist parties

to counterbalance urban-based unrest. Specifically, regimes used loyalist parties to

contain youth and Islamist movements, whose power had increased – albeit

temporarily – following the uprisings. In a number ofways, loyalist parties constrained

youth and Islamistmovements. They soweddivisionswithin youthmovements through

expanding their strategies of co-optation to target youth leaders and activists.

Collectively loyalist parties secured strong electoral results, which diluted Islamists’

victories and their capacity to manage coalition governments and implement reforms.

Finally loyalist parties undertook activities such as protests to attract negative media

attention to Islamists, which soiled their public image.

Through co-optation,Morocco andMauritania utilized loyalist parties to harness the

support of the rural periphery to counterbalance the unrest of the urban centre. Without

question, these regimes alsoused tactics of limited repression, constitutional reformand

palliative concessions to counteract unrest. Yet rural co-optation played an important

(and hitherto overlooked) role in buttressing their rule. In making this case, this

comparison advances efforts to uncover the ‘micro-dynamics of co-optation’ in

authoritarian states (Stacher, 2012). It suggests that co-optation, and especially its

interaction with rural politics, deserves deeper investigation in future studies of Arab

authoritarian resilience. While this strategy of rural co-optation may neither outweigh

the importance of military defection in causing regime change in Tunisia or Egypt, nor

trump the primacy of oil in explaining regime continuity, it nonetheless could

complement our understanding of the multi-causal process that shaped the events of

2011. From a comparative perspective, it also suggests that one factor that helped

Morocco and Mauritania’s authoritarian regimes remain far more resilient than their

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North African neighbour, Tunisia, was their successful strategy of co-optation in the

countryside – a key contributor that helped them weather the democratizing pressures

of the Arab uprisings.

Notes

1. Storm (2007) provides an excellent introduction to Moroccan parties.

2. David Waldner has used quantitative data to re-examine Huntington’s thesis in ‘rural incorporation

and regime survival’.

3. See original, full theory: Leveau R. Le Fellah Marocain: Defenseur du Trone (1976).

4. World Bank urbanization statistics, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS?

page¼1

5. El-Omari, Illyas, PAM vice president. Interviewed by author. Rabat, 3 August 2011.

6. Chamikh, Mohammed, UPR secretariat general member. Author interview. Nouakchott, 3 March

2012.

7. el-Ouadie, Aziz, PAM secretariat general member. Author interview. Casablanca, 23 July 2013.

8. Abdellatif Zahar, PAM local politician and campaign organizer. Author interview. Casablanca, 21

July 2013.

9. El-Ouadie, Aziz. Author interview.

10. Moussa Demba Sow, UPR secretariat general member. Author interview. Nouakchott, 1 March 2012.

11. Wegner’s (2011) party typology defined these parties.

12. Exceptions include the excellent, pioneering studies of Pellicer and Wegner (2012, 2013).

13. Pamphlet, Union of Progressive Forces, 14 February 2012, 1.

14. Houda Salhi, February 20th leader, Gadalinaa conference, Mohammed VI Theatre, Casablanca, 16

April 2011.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Holger Albrecht, Steven Brooke, Jason Brownlee Sarah Bush, Francesco Cavatorta, John

Entelis, Mehran Kamrava, Kevin Koehler, William Lawrence, Adria Lawrence, Tse-min Lin, Ian Lustick,

Marc Lynch, Jocelyn Mitchell, Lawrence Rubin, Frederic Volpi, Eva Wegner, Michael Willis, and

anonymous reviewers for comments. Thanks also toworkshop participants at APSA 2013, Project onMiddle

East Political Science 2015, and theUniversity ofTennessee. Thank you toAbdellahiOuldMohamedouOuld

Idriss and Dr. Abye Tasse at the University of Nouakchott for hosting my visit to Mauritania.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

The American Institute for Maghrib Studies provided funding for fieldwork.

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