Dangerous Alliances: Civil Society, the Media and Democratic Transition in North Africa - Tapa dura

'The painstaking research, rigorous analysis and clearly defined conclusions make this book an excellent teaching tool, widely relevant beyond Tunisia and the Maghreb.' Clovis Demers, President, Human Rights Internet 'One of the best investigations ever offered on the three countries that make up the Maghreb: Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.' Robert Menard, Director, Reporters Sans Frontieres 'Analyses the web of concealment, distortion, and misinformation which anaesthetizes citizens' awareness not just in the Third World, but also and especially in the West.' Jacques Zylberg, Laval University, Canada

This book provides an analytically original and empirically rich study of the Maghreb's highly erratic encounter with democratization in recent years. It is an illuminating study of the complex and very diverse encounters between civil society and the authorities in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, as opposition has built up in each society and those in power have confronted the pressures for democratization. The author provides a significant contribution to political sociology's understanding - via the development of a dynamic systems model that incorporates the existence of fundamental conflict - of how democratic institutions can become institutionalized, and of the constant possibility of any democratic transition being reversed.