Description: In the Arab world as elsewhere, authoritarian regimes have come under pressure for change. As yet, however, democracy has not taken root as an alternative form of governance. This book on Algeria looks at both the erosion of the authoritarian model and the difficulties of making a transition to democracy. Within the past decade, Algeria experienced one of the most promising experiments of opening up the political system and allowing a remarkable degree of freedom. That initial effort failed, however, when elections were won by an Islamist party that was unacceptable to the military, followed by political violence that has cost at least 75,000 lives. Despite this crisis there are reasons to believe that Algeria may emerge with a consensus on the need to respect pluralism and to accept the basic rules of democratic politics.

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