Foreign Relations of North Africa

Abstract

The North African states—Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya—occupy an island and are therefore preoccupied above all by relations among themselves. Torn between pressures to work together—community—and to distinguish themselves from each other—differentiation—they are caught up with the need to develop a sense of rank and relation among themselves and to carry their competition into the power vacuum of the poorer states that surround them. Although Tunisia and Libya may seek to achieve relations on the model of integration and Algeria may prefer a pattern of central-state dominance, the result is a checkerboard pattern of competition of limited rivalries, preferred by Morocco but played by all. Relations with the Arab and African worlds are determined by the North African states' bids for leadership, their need for support on security issues, and their extension of intra-Maghribi relations onto the two wider fields. The same intra-Maghribi purposes guide North African states' relations with Europe, especially France, and also with the two superpowers.

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References

Richard Parker , North Africa (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985).

2. For a thorough analysis of Maghribi domestic politics, see I. William Zartman et al. , Political Elites in Arab North Africa (New York: Longman, 1982; Washington, DC: Johns Hopkins SAIS African Studies Program, 1986).

3. See I. William Zartman , “Maghribi Politics and Mediterranean Implications,” in The Mediterranean Region, ed. Giacomo Luciani (New York: St. Martin's, 1984).

4. John Damis , “Prospects for Unity/Disunity in North Africa,” American-Arab Affairs, 6(6):34-38 (Fall 1983). The issue, devoted to North Africa, contains other good articles on the region.

5. See I. William Zartman and A. G. Kluge , “Heroic Politics: The Foreign Policy of Libya,” in The Foreign Policies of Arab States, ed. Bahgat Korany and Ali Dessouki (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985).

I. William Zartman , Ripe for Resolution: Conflict and Intervention in Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), chap. 2.

John Entelis , Algeria: The Revolution Institutionalized (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986).

Paul Balta, “Foreign Policy in North Africa,” ibid., pp. 238-251.