Legacies of Revolutionary Violence in Algeria

• In Event: The Origins, Outcomes, and Legacies of Armed Rebellion

Abstract

Recent literature suggests that a regime’s origins in violent revolution create the conditions for long-term autocratic resilience. Violent struggle is believed to foster military loyalty, strengthen coercive capacity, create cohesive mass parties, and minimize the risks of coups and successful counter-revolution, leading to long-lasting autocratic rule. Yet some regimes emerging from highly violent struggle have weak parties and politicized militaries. Why are some authoritarian regimes with violent revolutionary origins less durable than others? This article addresses this question through a study of Algeria, a rebel regime with a history of frequent military intervention and weak civilian control. Using novel geocoded data on violence during the Algerian War ofIndependence (1954-1962) based on rich declassified intelligence documents from the French colonial archives, it examines the long-term legacies of revolutionary violence on regime outcomes, including the ruling party’s poor electoral performance during the brief liberalization of the early 1990s. By studying the micro-dynamics of violence in a revolutionary regime and their consequences, this article sheds new light on whether and how violent struggle contributes to authoritarian robustness, while more generally engaging with scholarship on the causes of regime durability and on colonial legacies.

Author

• Jean Lachapelle, Université de Montréal