Degeneration and the demos in North Africa: towards a ‘critical’ study of democratisation?

ABSTRACT This article frames the problematic explored in the Special Issue, namely, the Maghreb and North Africa's ‘crisis of democratization.' Across cases, the crisis is multi-layered, involving first, counter-revolution since the 2011 (and 2019) uprisings and revolutions; second, the breakup of states, particularly those mired in violence (e.g. Libya); and third, setbacks even among states that have to an extent transcended the democratic threshold (e.g. Tunisia). We lay the groundwork for localized and contextualized exploration of ‘degenerations of democratizations' playing out in the region. This involves rethinking the teleological ambit of transitology studies as well as the ‘reverse transitology' scholarship on democratic backsliding. We propose an alternative ‘critical democratization' frame that emphasizes emancipation and attends to the demos. This people-centered approach is fitting for exploring democratization and its setbacks in the context of popular uprisings and revolution. It allows for investigations of local democratic learning and un-learning; local-global and local-regional interactions; entrenched socioeconomic and military structures and disparities; and popular forces of resistance (al-hirak) challenging democratic setbacks. Critical study of democratization necessitates case-by-case explorations probing regional commonalities as well as country-level specificities to investigate how ‘degeneration’ manifests in the Maghreb, North Africa, and the wider Arab region.