• How much do political parties matter for governance in MENA? This broad question is the starting point for an assessment of electoral dynamics in North Africa and guides the course.
Interest in the role of political parties and elections in North Africa is a rather recent phenomenon brought about by the changing reality on the ground. First authoritarian regimes liberalised progressively their political systems with the introduction of multi-party politics and regular elections. Later, processes of democratisation led to the setting up of genuine competitive politics, providing further empirical evidence on parties and elections. The course first traces the history of party politics in the region (Catusse and Karam, 2010; Hinnebusch, 2017) in the context first of authoritarian upgrading (Heydemann, 2007) and authoritarian elections (Schedler, 2002 and 2006) and later of democratisation (Resta, 2023). It focuses on the role and functions of political parties in North Africa (Storm 2013) and the way in which elections are conducted and for what purposes (Lust, 2006). Second, and following on from this broad debate on the relationship between parties, elections, authoritarianism and democratization, the course examines party families. First of all, it looks at the nature (Schwedler, 2006; Schwedler 2011; al-Anani 2012; Kandil, 2015), policy preferences (Kienle, 2013; Wegner and Cavatorta, 2019) and electoral strategies (Hamid, 2011; Pellicer and Wegner, 2014; Masoud, 2014) of Islamist parties. Second, the course explores the rise and fall of leftist parties and movements (Jebari, 2020) as well as the reasons behind the current failure to make electoral inroads (Resta, 2018; Sallam, 2022), linking this discussion to the broader literature on the recent failures of the left in Europe and elsewhere (Hopkin, 2020). Third, we look at former single parties and how they operate in liberalised environments (Koheler, 2020) as well as Salafi parties, a relative novelty on the political scene (Lacroix, 2016; Amghar and Cavatorta 2022), linking it to the broader literature on rising populism. Fourth, we examine voter-party linkages and the how specific social constituencies participate (or do not participate) parties. “Finally, the course explores the case of Tunisia in some detail because it represents the way in which political parties and elections have ‘performed’ during authoritarianism, democracy and back to authoritarianism (Koehler, 2023).