Authoritarian Institutions and Political Corruption: Perspectives on Algeria and Morocco

Although political science has been making important advances in the comprehension of the phenomenon of corruption over the past two decades, its application to the Arab world is still lagging well behind. This article aims to compare corruption in the two main prevailing sub-authoritarian types in the region: the praetorian in Algeria and the monarchical in Morocco. Taking the dissimilarities between the two polities as a starting point, the analysis aims to demonstrate the following: (1) Political corruption arose from the institutional foundations of the regimes as the counterpart of the authoritarian order; (2) Contracted at “critical junctures,” the institutional arrangements underlying authoritarianism and corruption structure the organization of the state and political economy beyond the formal and discursive transformations of the political system; (3) Because the institutional paths founded on these arrangements are so difficult to alter, the reforms promised by the ruling elites after the eruption in 2011 of popular uprisings in the region will be judged according to the dismantling of institutional arrangements linking political institutions and systemic corruption.