Algeria: Tribe as a Political Horizon

Abstract

The honorary president of the Algerian League for the defense of human rights, Yahia Ali Abdelnour pointed out, in 2011, in the independent daily paper El Watan, the necessity of an in depth reconsideration of the political system. He was then referencing to the tribe, meaning the local nearness and the solidarities of some government members, which deserves to be questioned. Indeed, it turns out that if the tribe has no political power in Algeria, it nevertheless seems to remain a political horizon, an idealized shape (positive or negative) of a political system, which directs or justifies, very often a posteriori, the political actions, on a local scale as well as national.