Executive summary
Who is included in “civil society” and which function it is supposed to perform – particularly in the realm of political action – remain largely debated (Edwards 2014). On one hand, achieving political change, and democratization in particular, has become an essential element of civil society in non-democratic regimes after the so-called “third wave of democratization” (Ibrahim 2015: 46–47). On the other, the state’s increasing control of civil society’s space for action has raised attention to the fact that states rely on these spaces to stabilize a given political order (Poppe and Wolff 2017). Even in established democracies, the increasing “politicization” of civil society action has been a key driver of the restrictions on its space for action (as Hummel 2022 showed in the case of Germany, for instance).
In Morocco, the monarchy’s posture towards civil society has been ambiguous, to say the least. Beyond the analytical insights that stress the regime’s efforts to tame this sector, this paper acknowledges that civil society’s growing ability to intervene in the public sphere prompted a redefinition of the monarchy’s strategy towards this sector (Sater 2007). In this context, palace-led civil society development initiatives such as the “National Initiative for Human Development” (launched in 2005) not only testify to the importance that the state attributes to this sector of society, but also allow the state to reinforce its control over civil society at the local level (Bergh 2012). With more than 240,000 associations officially registered in Morocco, the government’s plan to develop a new official “strategy” for civil society further corroborates the state’s strong and continued interest in the structuring and control of civil society’s space for action (Wail El Karmouni 2023).
On the other hand, the monarchy’s control of civil society is far from established, and it has been subject to recurring challenges. From systematic issues to more punctual problems, bottom-up challenges to the regime have been a constant part of Moroccan politics since even prior to the 1990s “birth” of civil society, as we know it today and the revival of street-level politics in the wake of the Arab Spring. The wide-scale mobilization of the 2017 Rif Hirak movement has questioned those analyses that proclaimed that the regime managed to surf the successive waves of contestation and refocused attention on the claims of the Moroccan street (Mateo Dieste and Feliu 2023). Despite the severe repression of the Rif movements’ leaders, a wide constellation of actors continued to seize public spaces to voice their concerns. Amongst them, we can find lawyers, doctors, medical staff, secondary school teachers, and even civil servants of local governments – who act collectively either on the basis of their professional affiliation or within a loose network of associations, labor unions, and more informal coordination bodies. On top of professional categories, there have been broad issue-based mobilizations that united Moroccans across demographics. This is the case of the protest against the management of local water resources that emerged in areas of the country, including Figuig, Zagora, and Ouarzazate. But the clearest examples of contestation of state policies are the protests related to the situation in Palestine, which reached record numbers since the incessant escalation of violence that began in October 2023. Fundamentally, these protests call into question the Moroccan state’s policies towards Israel and its overall response to the ongoing conflict – or lack thereof.
Such increasing mobilization did not go unanswered by the regime. Within the broader context of an “escalation of repression”, different local and international observers raised concerns about the growing repression of those considered political opponents – including within civil society (see for instance Human Rights Watch 2022). This may not come as a surprise, especially since political parties” inability to achieve change nurtured the impression that civil society was taking up their space as vectors for political transformation (Mouna 2020: 83).
However, much less attention has been paid to how civil society actors navigate their relationship with the state. Given the highly political dimension of implementing reforms and the state’s tight grip on the country’s political priorities, this research asks: what can we learn from a decade of mobilization and civil society activism about how progressive reforms can be promoted and enacted in Morocco?
The goal of this research is to understand the key lessons from efforts by progressive civil society actors to bring about change in Morocco. ) To do so, it focuses both on the interaction of these actors with the state apparatus and on the relative influence of the broader socio-political environment where these interactions are carried out. This question will be unpacked in different stages. First, the research will review the evolution of the state’s stance towards civil society. From the early developments of civil society to the progressive liberalization of the sector in the early 1990s, this review aims to understand where the state drew the red lines for civil society’s inclusion in the political game.
In doing so, this research will review the policies that regulate the right to assembly for civil society associations, to highlight the porous borders between the actors allowed by the monarchy and its apparatus to participate in the public sphere and the ones that face persistent obstacles. This review will also be the opportunity to present a broad overview of the civil society sector in Morocco. While such an overview can only be illustrative in nature, examining the evolution of civil society and mapping its different components has the central objective of clarifying that civil society is not a homogeneous sector. Not only do civil society actors occupy different roles and perform different functions, but they also bear different relations with state authorities and other segments of society.
Fundamentally, this research will focus on the role of progressive civil society actors and their struggles to bring about change. Different case studies will shed light on the relationship between the actions carried out to promote progressive reforms, the relative positioning of the state towards these initiatives, and the broader socio-political environment in which these actions are carried out. These case studies will both unravel the strategies of these actors and their evolution in time, but they will also be an opportunity to refine our understanding of their theories of change.
This research shows that civil society actors’ posture towards the monarchy’s red lines largely impacts their strategies and room for maneuver. On one hand, the actors that accept them gain access to formal arenas for participation, including consultative bodies explicitly tasked with the development of progressive reform. This can enable them to add new issues to the public agenda and influence the narrative of the reform against conservative resistance, seeking incremental change. Yet, such institutional participation also precludes them from targeting their criticism to the core of the political game – namely, the monarchy itself. On the other hand, the actors who do not accept the monarchy’s red lines are excluded from these spaces and have to showcase their strength by seizing public spaces – both digital and physical. Such exclusion allows them to demand more radical transformations, including on domains otherwise reserved to the monarchy, but it also raises the cost of their engagement.
Crucially, this research demonstrated that trespassing the monarchy’s red lines is not an easy task. On top of the fact that civil society’s engagement in state-led reforms can contribute to consolidating the monarchy’s political pre-eminence, any direct challenge to the monarchy’s conduct can be heavily sanctioned. This is not to say that civil society did not manage to affect these red lines, but rather that this process is far from being straightforward. They are susceptible to change due to domestic considerations (such as the need to reaffirm the regime’s legitimacy or respond to broad popular demands) as well as from specific externalities (such as the wave of popular protest in 2011 or the 2023-2024 Israeli aggression on Gaza). Although the action of progressive civil society actors seems far from fundamentally changing the structure of Morocco’s political system, their persistence and continuous struggle to improve the conditions of Moroccans remains a cause for hope.
The views represented in this paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Arab Reform Initiative, its staff, or its board.
