Current Sociology

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Mobilizations in a hybrid regime: The 20th February Movement and the

Moroccan regime
Thierry Desrues
Current Sociology 2013 61: 409 originally published online 17 April 2013
DOI: 10.1177/0011392113479742
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2013

CSI61410.1177/0011392113479742Current Sociology Monograph 2Desrues

Article

CS

Mobilizations in a hybrid
regime: The 20th February
Movement and the Moroccan
regime

Current Sociology
61(4) 409423
The Author(s) 2013
Reprints and permissions:
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DOI: 10.1177/0011392113479742
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Thierry Desrues

Instituto de Estudios Sociales Avanzados/Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientficas, Spain

Abstract
In the context of the wave of protests that shook the Arab world, Morocco is
a particularly interesting case to address the problem of collective action and
transformation of hybrid political regimes. This article describes the historical trajectory
of recent protests in the country, the emergence and structuring of the 20th February
Movement (M20F) and the neutralization strategy pursued by the Moroccan political
regime. Taking up the idea that the success of collective action to transform a political
regime is related to the ability of its promoters to legitimize their cause beyond their
original base, the main argument is that both the nature of the 20th February Movement
marked by a profound heterogeneity and dualism and the hybrid configuration of the
Moroccan political regime which offers a variety of repertoires of legitimation for the
management of the protests favoured the failure of the protest movement.
Keywords
Arab Spring, authoritarian regimes, hybrid regimes, mobilizations

Introduction
The wave of protests that shook the Arab world in early 2011 has held the attention of the
media, the public eye and analysts outside the region due to the protests ability to challenge authoritarian regimes that had endured for several decades. The fact that Islamist
movements were not the instigators of the protests also contributed to increasing that
interest and projecting an image of a departure from the exceptionalism by which the
Corresponding author:
Thierry Desrues, Instituto de Estudios Sociales Avanzados (IESA/CSIC), Campo Santo de los Mrtires, 7,
14004 Cordoba, Spain.
Email: tdesrues@iesa.csic.es

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region is commonly characterized by Orientalist assumptions. The extent and intensity

of the protests have varied from one country to another, and each regime has responded
with its own survival strategies using repression and/or reforming some aspects of their
governance. The case of Morocco illustrates these different dynamics. The protests carried out by the 20th February Movement and the handling of them by the Moroccan
political regime offer the opportunity to reflect on such mobilizations within the framework of hybrid political regimes (Diamond, 2002), which is to say political regimes
where there are institutional arrangements that are based on principles of democratic
legitimacy as well as civil rights and civil liberties, but which are distorted by a series of
legal restrictions and subordinated to an authoritarian configuration and exercise of
supreme power.
The case of Morocco raises several issues, among which the conditions for the possibility of collective action within authoritarian regimes and the reciprocal influence
created by the interaction between collective action and the political regimes responses
are prominent. Many researchers have addressed these issues by analysing different
movements within the framework of various types of regimes (Tilly and Tarrow, 2006),
but few have approached them with a focus on the hybridization of political regimes
(Camau and Massardier, 2009).
In political regimes where those who hold political power do not consider the possibility
of competing with opposition forces, and where both laws and discretionary measures supported by alliances with the security forces allow expressions of dissent to be suppressed,
hybridization is embodied by the coexistence of this configuration of limited access to and
wielding of power with a pluralist and selective opening up towards certain actors and the
use of the legitimacy they bring to manage policies or public problems. This kind of pluralist opening up that can be found in the case of Morocco renders obsolete the perception of
many regimes as being monolithic. Instead of a vision of a monopolistic state, as Camau
and Massardier (2009) underline, a reality emerges that is made up of partial regimes with
state regulation that allow for specialization through and competition between various representative and participatory institutions at different territorial levels as well as the incorporation of multiple non-governmental actors into public policies. The supreme power tries
to control the access to and the hierarchy and decisions of these institutions at the same
time as seeking from above a subordinate legitimation from below that is based on its
own repertoires of representative democracy, indirect government through the spokespeople for interests and certain other groups, and the knowledge of experts.
Furthermore, this hybridization benefits from being labelled good governance by the
international financial institutions and western governments that many of these countries
depend on to gain access to credit. The reward for the hybridization process is aid programmes, and those offering international cooperation seek a certain legitimacy through
supporting projects aimed at consolidating civil society that could in turn translate into
giving it greater control over public institutions.
Morocco represents a particularly interesting case to address the issue of collective
action in the context of authoritarian political regimes and helps to answer the question
of how the hybridization of these regimes functions when they have to make adjustments
under the pressure of protests. On 20 February 2011, thousands of ordinary citizens,
activists and groups speaking out for multiple causes gathered in many different parts of

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the country to demonstrate. They were responding to a call from a group of young people
to demand a series of reforms relating to, among other things, democratizing the political
regime, governance of public affairs, recognizing social and identity pluralism and
access to health services, education and employment for the population. The 20th
February Movement that emerged as a result of this call caused a proliferation in the
number of protest demonstrations over the following year, to which the Moroccan
authorities responded with different repertoires of action. The analysis of both phenomena and the interaction between them requires contextualizing them within the recent
historical development of social and political mobilizations in Morocco. Through doing
so the potential continuities and discontinuities they present can be examined. In addition
to confirming the unprecedented nature of the phenomenon as well as the heterogeneity
of its initial composition, the structural dualism of the grassroots of the 20th February
Movement, between the young people that drove the protest and the organizations that
joined the demonstrations, raises a number of questions about the true nature of the
movement.
The leading role played by young people in driving the 20th February Movement and
the political inexperience that has been attributed to them caused high expectations for
the regeneration of Moroccan society in terms of political and social participation
within it to be attached to the initial demonstrations. An initial hypothesis is proposed
here that argues that the structural dualism characterizing the composition of the 20th
February Movement is a reflection and product of an intergenerational gap that has
resulted in distinct cultural and political practices, which have had an impact on shaping
the movements identity. Despite starting out from differing premises, perspectives and
terminologies, numerous analysts have converged in stressing the relationship that exists
between the success of collective action in transforming a political regime and its ability
to put an end to the sectionalism of its social base that is, to de-sectionalize it (Dobry,
1986, 2000), to obtain the certification of other groups or institutions (Tilly and Tarrow,
2006) or to project an inclusive identity (Della Porta and Diani, 2011). In other words,
for the arguments made by a collective-action movement to gain legitimacy beyond its
proponents it is usually necessary for the movement to successfully overcome the original organizational and identity affinities of its participants by developing a new identity.
Actions are therefore not legitimated as attempts at social transformation in the interest
of particular groups, but rather in the interest of society as a whole (Tejerina, 2010).
Moreover, both the discrepancies within the 20th February Movement which are
also to be found in Moroccan society between those who support, albeit reluctantly,
reforms backed by the Monarchy and those who advocate a process of change that rejects
the influence of the Monarchy in the configuration of the future regime, and the opening
of a constitutional review process led by the King have weakened the potential for the
demonstrations to become more widespread. This leads on to a second hypothesis that
argues that the hybridization process of the Moroccan regime has allowed the King to
take the initiative in launching a series of reforms and has contributed to the demobilization of social and political actors who have a role to play within the mechanisms of political representation and participation in public policy.
In short, this article is based on the premise that the Moroccan political system is
fundamentally hybrid in nature. To manage the protests that this hybridization tolerates

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within certain limits, the regime has many resources to ensure its survival, the use of
or access to which rely on different types of repertoires of legitimation. From this formulation three propositions can be made: first, that the diversity of repertoires made
available by the hybrid configuration of the Moroccan political regime explains the
method for managing the protests that was chosen at a given critical juncture; second,
that this hybridization has contributed to satisfying sectional interests through its
effects on political representation and this representations ability to articulate those
interests; and third, that the heterogeneity and structural dualism of the 20th February
Movements grassroots are phenomena that have stifled the desectionalization of
its different causes and replicated the tendency for its representatives to become
sectionalized.
This is not to underplay the contingent nature of the emergence of collective action
and the management of it, or the heterogeneous and diverse reasons that push the actors
involved to adopt a particular form of behaviour in unfolding critical situations either
continuing to mobilize or accepting the solutions provided by the system. These situations provide opportunities for the different actors involved to take action, but these
actors have limited possibilities to innovate. This is because, on the one hand, they usually base their actions on what they have learnt from their own past or by imitating other
situations that are unlike their own but which they have knowledge of; and, on the other
hand, because the actors own actions are influenced by social and economic structures,
as well as the configuration of the political regime. A dynamic set of interactions that is
able to have an impact on these structures and configuration arises, and at the same time
the structure of interactions is also able to feed back into and influence the evolution of
collective action itself.
This study is based on the observations made and interviews conducted in the city of
Rabat at different times, viewing videos posted on the Internet, monitoring the blogs and
walls of actors and social networks that were both in favour of and against the movement, reading the Moroccan and foreign press and reviewing the literature produced in
the heat of events. This study first of all presents some of the features of the recent history of protests in the country and the hybrid configuration of the Moroccan political
regime, as well as the possible cross-influences between the two. Second, it analyses the
structure and functioning of the 20th February Movement and its innovative features.
Third, it addresses the strategy and methods to neutralize the movement developed by
the regime to show that they correspond to the different repertoires made available to it
as a result of its hybrid nature. It finally considers the underlying logic that gives coherence to these repertoires.

The recent history of protests and the hybrid nature of

the political regime in Morocco
Analysing a protest movement like the 20th February Movement reveals a fairly common feature of social movements: the mixture of new and old actors and conflicts.
The fact that the domino effect set off by the protests in Tunisia and Egypt was foreseeable makes particular sense when considered in light of the history of the protests that
have rocked Morocco over recent years.

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Most of the collective action the country has experienced has not been characterized
by a politicization of conflicts with the authorities, but by trying to respond to the populations specific needs and demands. Moreover, since 2005, collective action at a local
level has been the focus of the states attention. King Mohammed VI promoted a policy
of reducing poverty whose implementation fell to associative networks. At the same time
as this approach moulds and selects the organizations responsible for channelling public
participation, it also encourages their growth (Bono, 2010). This policy helped to institutionalize a certain type of dialogue between the authorities and the population, in which
local associations play an intermediary role (Bergh and Jari, 2010).
However, the handling of social issues through associative networks has not stopped
public protests about the high cost of living, the unemployment of college graduates,
corruption in awarding public contracts and public sector jobs and the contempt of certain state representatives for the populations rights (Bennafla and Emperador Badimon,
2011; Emperador Badimon, 2011). Instead, specific and localized movements expressing
popular outrage have proliferated, resulting on some occasions in riots and violent
clashes with the security forces. These violent episodes contrast with the self-limiting
nature of the demands, the ritualizing of demonstrations and the negotiated control of
protests, which reflect a certain level of pacification of relations between the different
sides in comparison with an earlier phase that was characterized by a propensity for systematically using repression to manage protests (Vairel, 2005). This trend is partly
explained by the presence of activists who have political and associative experience, who
often play a significant role in the process of articulating the demands of the population,
in building local coordination efforts to create a network of the different organizations
involved, in entering into dialogue with the authorities, in using the media and social
networks for publicity purposes and in depoliticizing the causes (Bennani-Chrabi, 2003;
Catusse and Vairel, 2010). A politicization of the causes has perhaps been more frequent
when the territorial scope has changed, for example through the development of nationally coordinated efforts based around a common cause. However, this change of scope
has given rise to serious disputes between grassroots activists, who fear a loss of control,
and those who favour national organizations taking over from movements that originated
at the periphery.
Among the various mobilization campaigns that have emerged over the last 10 years,
four seem to be clearly politically charged. These are: the defence of human rights in
general, and, in particular, campaigning for a transitional justice that would seek to rehabilitate victims of political repression and hold the implementers of that repression to
account; promoting the rights of women with a campaign to revise the Family Code;
officially recognizing the Amazigh language and culture; and demanding independence
for Western Sahara (Feliu, 2004; Vairel, 2005). To all these causes, which he inherited
from his predecessor, Mohammed VI has provided different answers. But these answers
all had in common the fact that the Monarch, on the one hand, monopolized each initiative and its final form and, on the other, created institutions (such as the Royal Institute
for Amazigh Culture in Morocco and the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs) or
ad hoc committees outside the influence of democratic institutions (for example, the
Consultative Commission for the Reform of the Family Code, the Equity and
Reconciliation Commission and the Advisory Committee for Regionalization). These

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institutions have allowed certain matters to be considered closed and leaders and social
organizations to be coopted. However, these outcomes are not usually definitive, and
although causes may be put in abeyance, it is possible for them to re-emerge both from
inside and outside these institutions. This policy has fuelled debates about democratic
transition in Morocco, while the opposition has pointed out that this relaxation of authoritarianism does not translate into any constitutional reform, that the Monarchy still controls the various branches of power and plays an increasingly central role in the countrys
economy, and that civil liberties remain restricted. Finally, there have been repeated
cases of violent repression of demonstrations, particularly of those held by supporters of
Saharan independence. Leaving aside evaluating the scope of these reforms, it is clear
that they have contributed to periodically reactivating debates, mainly within the opposition, on the need for constitutional reform.
The Constitution of 1996, which was in force until 1 July 2011, introduced, as did its
predecessors, a hybrid regime. The interpretations and applications of the text reinforced
its authoritarian features, to the detriment of free expression of social and political pluralism (Bendourou, 2011). The Monarchy has been afforded a monopoly over constituent
power, supremacy over the representation of the nation, headship over the faithful and
the role of protector of freedoms. This concentration of power was legitimated on the
basis of different repertoires (genealogical-religious, dynastic and nationalist ones) that
were effective because of fruitful alliances with powerful, stability-providing groups
(such as the army, large technocratic bodies of the state, the comprador bourgeoisie and
rural caciques) and close relations with France, the United States and the monarchies of
the Persian Gulf. However, the authoritarian power of the Monarchy and its technocratic
representatives the royal councillors in the palace and governors on the territorial level
recognizes various institutional mechanisms for representation and political and social
participation, with different repertoires of legitimation, types of remit and degrees of
subordination (Desrues and Hernando de Larramendi, 2011). In some cases, the legitimacy of the members that make up these mechanisms rests on universal suffrage, as is
the case with the House of Representatives, while in others, such as advisory councils
and commissions, it is derived from the cooption of the spokespeople for collective
causes or fields of expert knowledge (Fernndez Molina, 2011). The political regime
also displays different attitudes to collective action, variously repressing, ignoring or
listening and attending to its demands, although in the latter case often reformulating and
reappropriating them.
The authorities recognition of their opponents legitimacy is distorted by a series of
red lines that cannot be crossed, relating to the fundamental questions of the configuration of the monarchical regime and its head, the Moroccan Sahara, Sunni Islam and the
security forces (Desrues and Hernando de Larramendi, 2011; Feliu, 2004; Vairel, 2005).
The first result of this inclusion/exclusion dynamic (Saaf, 1996) that should be noted is
that the Monarchy recognizes the pluralism of Moroccan society at the same time as
awarding itself a monopoly over deciding how it can be legitimately expressed, as well
as who can participate in public affairs and how. In this sense, the sovereign occupies a
position as the arbiter between the centripetal forces that exist within the population.
However, this arbitration role is a very powerful one, and the King has not hesitated to
intervene through his monopoly over defining the rules of the game.

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The nature of the 20th February Movement:The

contradictions between the logics of a social forum and
those of a coalition movement
The 20th February Movement is a decentralized protest movement which, on the one
hand, reorganizes a wide variety of ideological tendencies and causes and, on the other,
displays a fundamental duality. This dualism means that we must distinguish between,
first, the youth of the movement and, second, the personalities and groups that accompany them. This generational distinction affects not only the issue of identification of the
20th February Movement, but also the practices and tactics of every actor involved in it;
and it suggests at the same time how the protests might be categorized as a social movement or as a coalition movement.
Those who, in January 2011, started to reflect upon the need to take advantage of the
window of opportunity opened by the demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt, which would
lead, from February onwards, to vigorous protest, had several things in common: their
youth, a certain fondness for the new information and communication technologies and
the fact that they were connected physically through biographical experiences of shared
activism or episodes of earlier protest, or virtually through social networks enabled by
Web 2.0. Although many of them describe themselves as independents and it is difficult
to list the number of possible affiliations that have joined the protests, the following
groups are strongly represented among the youth: activists of leftist parties (Democratic
Way, Unified Socialist Party, Democratic Socialist Vanguard Party), the anti-capitalist
and liberal globalization movement (the association for the valuation of financial transactions and help for citizens), grassroots student unionism (National Union of Moroccan
Students) and different human rights organizations (Moroccan Association of Human
Rights). Also represented are activists of the critical communities that have broken with
the official culture over the issue of individual freedom and civil rights (Alternative
Movement for Individual Freedoms), rebellious members of student sections of parties
that adopt a position of conformism with the Monarchys custodianship of the political
arena (Socialist Union of Popular Forces, Progress and Socialism Party, Justice and
Development Party), activists of the Amazigh cause, who demand rights pertaining to
their status as an aboriginal people; and there are also young Islamists, a majority of
whom are members of the powerful illegal association Justice and Charity, which is the
main force opposing the Monarchy. The last-mentioned group are distinguished from
those of Salafist faith, who find in the demonstrations an opportunity to demand the
release of hundreds of detainees from among their ranks arrested after the terrorist attacks
carried out in Casablanca in 2003.
Heterogeneity is a common factor in social movements. However, it raises serious
problems when it is synonymous with ideological incompatibility. In the case of the 20th
February Movement, the young instigators closest to left-wing or libertarian tendencies
have had to deal with the contradictions between an inclusive will and openness to the
participation of other tendencies, particularly the many Islamist activists. In attempting
to go beyond previous affiliations and promote a shared identity around an agenda of
protest that they identify with the voice of the people, local groups have drawn up a
series of principles inspired by the World Social Forum and the groups that have arisen

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in recent years to fight against the high cost of living. This involves participating by
subscribing to the protest agenda in an individual way, the deliberative operation of the
assemblies, consensual decision-making, the rotation of functions, a refusal to acknowledge official leaders and spokespersons, and the autonomy of each local group.
So the local groups are a physical space of horizontal deliberation, of shared knowledge and broadly encompassing identity-building that is manifested in consensual
demands and actions. However, this consensus is often forged at an earlier stage when
discussions take place in Web 2.0 social networks. This perception of the 20th February
Movement makes it seem more like a forum or social space where social networks made
up of young individuals and the organizations to which they belong gather. In this way
different types of networks are linked through diverse causes and regions. The fact that
this forum is set in motion, that is, that it embodies its consensus in public protest actions,
carries with it the extension of participation to organizations to which many young people in the forums belong or are close to.
The social question, distributive policies, employment, education, health or the fight
against corruption were fundamental elements in the construction of a frame of inclusive
injustice that linked with other recent demonstrations and was able to refer to factors
which are important in the life of the majority of the Moroccan population. In this sense,
an inclusive identity was conferred upon the 20th February Movement. By contrast,
given the popularity enjoyed by Mohammed VI, the resonance of this frame of injustice
among the population might be lessened due to the difficulty of connecting it with the
need to modify the regimes monarchical character and the role vouchsafed to the King.
Nevertheless, its dissident side can be seen here in the fact that the movement has called
into question several red lines and pointed to the political dimension underlying many
earlier demonstrations.
The first identifying feature of the 20th February Movement, that is, its diverse youth
networks, contrasts with a second feature relating to a coalition of parties and associations that joined the demonstrations and supported the initiative led in some cases by
young activists in their ranks. Around 100 civil society organizations formed the National
Council for Support of the 20th February Youth Movement. Although this council was
conceived as a mere logistical and financial support mechanism for the youth, joining in
with the marches and other public demonstrations, a debate about the strategy to be followed arose within it from the outset, between the members who advocated the merging
of the two entities and those who preferred to opt for a role of logistical support and to
preserve the autonomy of the young people in the direction of the movement. The prominent role some organizations began to acquire helped to arouse suspicions that they were
making use of their supportive function to pursue their own agendas.
This brief presentation shows that the 20th February Movement is the heir to earlier
demonstrations and the culmination of a broad process in which a space of protest was
formed. The internal structure of the movement has been called into question by the dissent that arose regarding the list of demands and, in particular, the issue of the institutional modalities of the constitutional change and the form of the resulting regime, the
civil status of the state, equality of gender, etc. The zeal shown by the young instigators
of the 20th February Movement in maintaining control of the direction of protest activities and of the forums that furnished spaces to the groups revealed the generation gap

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between the young people and older activists and the demand for recognition of their
leading role. It also revealed the strategy they both shared: to promulgate the image of a
movement of defiant regeneration.
Beyond its public presentation of itself as a youth movement with no activist wing,
spread across various places throughout the country and coordinated through the use of
Internet and mobile telephony (Desrues, 2012), the 20th February Movements first demonstrations had shown that assembling antagonistic political tendencies together was
possible and that they could collaborate despite their differences. The young people managed to transcend the latter by means of a deliberative culture foreign to the organizations that joined the protests. Nevertheless, the population remained in the position of
spectators. The heterogeneity and dualism of the movement contributed to give credit to
its opponents arguments with respect to possible manipulation by some organizations
with a long tradition of opposition to the regime.

How the challenges presented by the 20th February

Movement were handled
Responses to the challenge of the movements emergence have been diverse and have
evolved in terms of their repertoire. But the logic underlying the Moroccan political
regimes handling of the protests was either to slow down the dilution of the main segments of Moroccan society or to fragment the social groups and spaces that make up
those segments in order to prevent further legitimation of the 20th February Movement.
The designated adversaries of the movement have carried out a labour of deconstruction
of its identity and of its demands (counter-framing). They have done this by using devices
and repertoires that rely on different types of legitimation and connect with vested interests or dominant cultural affinities in the population. An analysis of this handling of the
protests also tells us about the reality of how power is exercised and how forces in
Moroccan society are related.

Fostering the sectionalism of different groups in the Moroccan society

The preventative measures taken before 20 February by the political regime attempted to
stem the risk that the Arab Spring would infect Morocco. They tried, first of all, to
discourage the dangerous classes from aligning themselves with the protest, by subsidizing basic foodstuffs to alleviate the hardship of daily life. The government promised
to satisfy some of the demands of other groups that continued to enjoy a significant
attraction among the populace and might become recalcitrant, such as the movement of
unemployed graduates and the unions. The pro-human rights organizations and the main
parliamentary opposition party, the Islamist Justice and Development Party (JDP), also
received tokens of good will from the regime.
This work of splitting the opposition was accompanied by acts of intimidation and
disinformation against the visible leaders of the 20th February Movement in an attempt
to make them cancel the demonstration of 20th February. A hostile campaign unleashed
on the Internet and in media sympathetic to the regime disseminated doctored images of
some young people which framed them as unbelievers (drinkers of alcohol, Christian

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converts) and unpatriotic (sympathetic to the Polisario Front). The campaign reached its
climax when the official news agency issued a press release announcing the cancellation
of the 20th February march. The press release, signed by three young promoters of the
first list of demands published on the Internet, denounced the influence of extremist
organizations within the 20th February Movement and extolled the virtues of returning
to the path of the reforms, only this time under the leadership of Mohammed VI. These
arguments, reiterated like a leitmotiv by the governments spokesperson to the media,
sowed doubts about the true nature of the movement, its unaffiliated identity and its
commitment to peaceful and orderly change.

The Kings offensive: A constitutional reform

On 9 March, Mohammed VI gave a speech, in which he announced a constitutional
review; the speech made no mention of the 20th February Movement. He presented a
road map that was framed as a deepening of the reforms that he had promoted during the
10 years of his reign. The constitutional review would include issues that were part of the
20th February Movements demands. However, it omitted the fundamental question of
the democratic election of a Constituent Assembly.
People sympathetic to the cause of the Amazigh people, human rights, the promotion
of gender equality, the consolidation of the rule of law and the role of civil society interpreted in the road map a willingness on the part of the Monarchy to consider their
demands. Along the same lines, they noted the acquiescence to the demands of some of
the main political parties Istiqlal, the Socialist Union of Popular Forces and the Party
of Progress and Socialism that had ceased their opposition to the regime in the 1990s,
in the hope of being rewarded through the powers of the parliament, the government and
the prime minister being reinforced.
An Advisory Committee for Constitutional Reform (ACCR) was placed in charge of
submitting a document on reform to the King within a time limit of 100 days. The King
appointed 19 members, chosen primarily from academics and figures from civil society
who would be able to express in this text the feelings of the interest groups to be
consulted within the limits of what the King was open to. This epistemic community
asked political parties and civil society forces to submit their proposals. Alongside the
ACCR a mechanism for political monitoring was established which invited political parties and trade unions to express their opinions on the draft texts that they would be presented with before the final document was drafted.
In its content and creative methods, this offer of reform provided a certain level of
satisfaction to different groups and guaranteed a new step on the path of a slow and progressive change under the Monarchys tutelage, removed from the uncertainty of the
outcome of revolutionary processes that the various interest groups, collectives and
social groups, who were aware of the limits of their ability to appeal to society, feared so
much. This relative satisfaction indicated a population that remained frightened by the
memory of the waves of repression that had marked the Years of Lead (19651990).
There was therefore a reinforcement of the traditional arbitrational role of the Monarchy
in matters relating to defining the identity and limits of the Moroccan political community. It was a role based alternatively on authorizing or disallowing, on protecting or

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persecuting, or rather on legitimating or otherwise both social behaviours and practices

as well as the affiliations of the Kings subjects to different national, ethnic, linguistic,
religious, civil and cultural communities. In this regard, disputes about freedom of conscience and the status given to religion and official languages in the Constitution showed
the high potential for political tensions surrounding these definitions.
The ACCR invited the 20th February Movement to formulate its proposals. However,
as a government spokesman pointed out, this recognition was only extended to young
people with demands made in good faith, which is to say to those prepared to rule out
any demand for a democratically elected Constituent Assembly. The 20th February
Movement youth and the organizations that supported them were divided over the attitude they should adopt. A minority decided to participate in the constitutional reform
process, while the majority opted for a boycott and renewed mobilizations with the goal
of keeping up the social pressure on the ACCR to have their demands met. The conversion of the election of a democratically elected Constituent Assembly into a non-negotiable
demand resulted in the 20th February Movement staying within a logic of protest, and
provided arguments to its opponents as they continued with their work of counterframing the movement as radicalized and unrepresentative. In addition to splitting the
movements youth, this counter-framing accentuated a dividing line between groups
fighting for the end of a monarchic regime Democratic Way and the Islamist Justice
and Charity and the other left-wing forces within the coalition that called for a parliamentary monarchy, e.g. the Unified Socialist Party, the National Congress Party and the
Democratic and Socialist Vanguard Party.
Having opened the process of constitutional review, King Mohammed VI regained
the initiative and appropriated demands for reform, turning them into a counter-offer of
reform whose process, content and scope he controlled. The promise of satisfying specific demands and the consultative process allowed the political and associative spheres
to be sectionalized once again, with the deadlines, pace and methods of the dialogue
preventing a broad and deep debate from opening up. A formula of negotiation replaced
a deliberative one. The majority of the forces involved in the consultative process played
the role, first and foremost, of staging a show of Moroccan political and social pluralism.
They accepted this role in the hope that the Monarchy would reward their conformity.
Furthermore, the July 2011 referendum for the ratification of the Constitution gave popular legitimacy to reforms and undermined continuance of the mobilizations. The democratic repertoire was mobilized once again through bringing the elections to the House of
Representatives forward to November 2011. The victory of the Islamist Justice and
Development Party, which was allowed for the first time to lead the process of forming
a government, conveyed an image of a process of change that had popular legitimacy and
did not carry any apparent risk of political instability, something that stood in contrast to
developments in neighbouring countries. Also, the support received from the European
Union and the monarchies of the Cooperation Council for the Gulf States strengthened a
regime that often outsources the financing of its public policy initiatives. However, the
fact that the Moroccan authorities were able to create the impression of controlling the
course of events that arose as a result of the 20th February Movement does not mean that
they limited themselves to measures based around the resectionalization and differentiation of the social and political spheres.

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Strategies to neutralize the public demonstrations: Police control and

the rule of law
In managing the 20th February Movement, the police simultaneously developed coercive,
persuasive and informational strategies. Police pressure created through arrests, intimidation or visits to homes, and the summoning of 20th February Movement activists to police
stations occurred during the mobilizations. While a model of negotiated control seems to
have taken priority in the management of the first large demonstrations of 20 February, 20
March and 20 April, from the month of May a more forceful model was favoured.
Depending on the city, the types of gathering, the routes of the marches, the institutions
being targeted and the date, there was either selective or blanket repression, which was carried out either by state-controlled organisms or the 20th February Movements opponents.
The systematic use of force to disperse attempts to carry out sit-ins highlights the
symbolic value that certain areas or locations where protests are held can acquire, as was
the case with Tahrir Square in the Egyptian capital. Following the terrorist attack on
Marrakesh that took place on 28 April, the fear among members of the 20th February
Movement that the security forces would take advantage of the event to put an end to the
demonstrations, whether through a wave of arrests or arguing for increased security
measures, pushed them to take the offensive and convene a sit-in in the vicinity of the
headquarters of the Territorial Security Directorate (DST). Organized for the highly significant date of 15 May, the eve of the anniversary of the 16 May 2003 bombings, the
protests denounced the practice of torture as part of a dirty war against domestic and
international terrorism, something which the regime did not admit to. The demonstrators
did not consider the potential for confrontation that organizing this protest would bring;
it ended with a brutal dispersal of people who were trying to reach the meeting place for
the protest and opened a cycle of repression that would last until the constitutional referendum was held on 1 July.
The forces of law and order did not have a monopoly over pressuring and repressing
the 20th February Movement. On several occasions, counter-demonstrators were contracted to harass 20th February Movement marches as they were in progress, with some
participants even being physically attacked. In the course of their activities these
counter-demonstrators recorded the people they were attacking in order to report them to
the authorities in the event that they responded with violence. Not all of the counterdemonstrators had the goal of intimidating those who participated in the 20th February
Movements marches, however. During the referendum campaign public demonstrations
were organized in support of the Monarch and the Constitution; these did not seek to
physically confront the 20th February Movement, but rather to demonstrate that it did
not represent the feelings of the majority of the population.
To justify breaking up demonstrations, the authorities turned to arguments of legal
compliance. The legislation concerning public gatherings requires a prior notification
[of] all processions, parades, and in general any demonstration on a public thoroughfare.
The only groups permitted to do so are political parties, trade unions, professional
organisations and legally declared associations. The 20th February Movement was
therefore excluded under these provisions. The argument of unauthorized marches was
reinforced by other arguments based on the damage caused to residents and nearby businesses along the routes of the marches, or in the case of the accusations launched at the

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DST headquarters, with the creation of an enquiry commission headed by the recently
formed National Committee for Human Rights.

Conclusion
The analysis shows that, in Moroccos case, collective action is possible and can yield
results that affect the political regime. Although the emergence of the 20th February
Movement cannot be understood without the earlier wave of protests in Tunisia and
Egypt, and without the background of social protest in recent Moroccan history, it introduces innovative elements as a youth protest promoting a political counter-culture
through interconnectedness and deliberation in the forums and spaces furnished by local
social youth groups. This dynamic could have resulted in the formation of an unprecedented social movement. However, the antagonistic forces regained strength owing to
the regimes handling of the situation. The coalition of organizations split over attitudes
towards the ACCRs invitation to collaborate, the modification of the agenda of demands
and competition for the rank and file of the 20th February Movement, thus reinforcing
the dual and plural nature of the movement.
Our analysis therefore reveals both the segmentation that runs through Moroccan
society and the existence of possible bridges between social and political forces.
Nevertheless, those bridges are fragile and the regime made use of those same segments
in society in its attempt to neutralize the 20th February Movement. This reinforced the
image of an active minority that was hardly representative.
The resources belonging to the different repertoires of legitimation that make up the
hybridization of the Moroccan regime are: democratic (popular ratification of the constitutional referendum and elections), those belonging to the rule of law (compliance with
the laws on the right to demonstrate in the public space) and authoritarian (the discretional
nature of the reform process and repression of the 20th February Movement). They have
all been exploited by the Monarchy, which has adopted them according to the pressure of
critical situations that have arisen as the protests have developed (the publication of an
agenda of demands; the boycotting of the constitutional revision process; threats to the
state security services; the continuation of protests during the referendum campaign).
In short, there is a conjunction of two variables that must be taken into account when
analysing the Moroccan exception with respect to the development of the Tunisian and
Egyptian regimes in 2011. One is the dual nature of a protest movement that combines,
not without tensions, a social youth movement with a coalition movement; the other is
the hybrid nature of the political regime. This does not mean that the 20th February
Movement has failed completely. It has managed to legitimate the demand for a parliamentary monarchy might put an end to the hybrid nature of the existing regime.
Acknowledgements and funding
Some of the facts and information reported in this article have been included in Desrues T (2012) Le
Mouvement du 20 Fvrier et le rgime marocain: contestation, rvision constitutionnelle et elections.
LAnne du Maghreb, VIII. Paris: CNRS ditions, pp. 359-389. The article was prepared within the
framework of the research project Youth, Social Change, Politics and Networked Societies in the
Mediterranean Area: The Case of the Maghreb Countries, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science
and Innovation (CSO2011-29438-C05-04).

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Author biography
Thierry Desrues is a Scientific Tenure at the Instituto de Estudios Sociales Avanzados/Consejo
Superior de Investigaciones Cientficas (IESA/CSIC). His research is in the area of social and
political processes in Morocco, with a particular focus on youth, collective action and rural areas.

Rsum
Dans le cadre de la vague de protestations qui a secou le monde arabe, le Maroc est
un cas particulirement intressant pour aborder le problme de laction collective et
la transformation des rgimes politiques hybrides. En retraant la trajectoire historique
rcente des actions protestataires dans le pays, lmergence et la structuration du
Mouvement du 20 Fvrier (M20F) et la stratgie de neutralisation du rgime politique
marocain, on introduit lide que le succs dune action collective visant transformer
un rgime politique est lie la capacit de ses promoteurs lgitimer leur cause en
dehors de leurs rangs. Ce faisant, on soutient que tant la nature du M20F caractrise
par une profonde htrognit et dualit que la configuration hybride du rgime
politique marocain qui offre une varit de rpertoires de lgitimation pour grer les
protestations ont favoris lchec du mouvement protestataire.
Mots-cls
Manifestations, mobilisations, le printemps arabe, rgimes hybrides, rgimes
autoritaires
Resumen
En el contexto de la ola de protestas que sacudi el mundo rabe, Marruecos es un caso
relevante para abordar la problemtica de la accin colectiva y la transformacin de los
regmenes polticos hbridos. La descripcin de la trayectoria histrica reciente de las
protestas en el pas, del surgimiento y la vertebracin del Movimiento del 20 de Febrero
(M20F) as como de la estrategia de neutralizacin desarrollada por el rgimen poltico
marroqu, nos permite retomar la idea segn la cual el xito de una accin colectiva para
transformar un rgimen poltico est relacionado con la capacidad de legitimar su causa
ms all de sus promotores. En este artculo se postula que tanto la naturaleza del M20F
marcada por un profundo dualismo y heterogeneidad como la configuracin hbrida
del rgimen poltico marroqu que ofrece una diversidad de repertorios de legitimacin
para la gestin de las protestas favorecieron el fracaso del movimiento de protesta.
Palabras clave
Movilizaciones, primavera rabe, protesta, regmenes autoritarios, regmenes hbridos

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