States and Women’s Rights: The Making of Postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco - Softcover

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State Formation in Kin-Based Societies

Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco share a common denominator with many postcolonialnation-states in that they are "old societies" at the same time that they are"new states," to use Clifford Geertz's classic formulation. What makes them newis the novelty of their political independence. Until fairly recently on theworld historical scene, these countries were colonies or enjoyed only limitedsovereignty. Their populations, however, are not new. They have had a culturalidentity for centuries. Upon gaining sovereignty, a major imperative confrontingpostcolonial nations such as those of the Maghrib was to develop a nationalstate and nation-wide institutions in the context left by colonial rule. Thetask often was to be done in a society characterized by a segmented socialorganization, as colonization had left many new nations with separatecollectivities that were not integrated into a national whole. The separatecollectivities varied in nature. They could be ethnic, caste or kinship-based,tribal, religious, or linguistic. In the case of the Maghrib, they were largelytribal and kin based.

The important similarity among many old societies and new states is thatloyalties and foci of solidarity rested with the collectivities themselvesrather than with nation-wide institutions. Postcolonial newly independentnations had to become nation-states in which the territoriality of the nationwas coterminous with that of the state. Following a worldwide wave ofdecolonization in the mid-twentieth century, the development of nation-statesgenerated tensions with local solidarities in many parts of the world. Theproblem of state formation, nation building, or national integration has beenwidespread in the postcolonial world, as is demonstrated by references "to?dual? and ?plural? or ?multiple? societies, to ?mosaic? or ?composite? socialstructures, to ?states? that are not ?nations? and ?nations? that are not?states,? to ?tribalism,? ?parochialism,? and ?communalism.? "

This chapter discusses the conceptualization of state and state formation insocieties characterized by politically significant local solidarities. Theessential starting point is an appreciation of the tensions inherent to nationbuilding and state formation in postcolonial nation-states in general and inthe kin-based societies of the Maghrib in particular.

States, Nations, and Local Solidarities

When analyzing state formation, it is more appropriate to consider theextent to which a given collectivity meets criteria that are part ofstatehood in given periods than to ask whether a collectivity does or does notconstitute a state. The same applies to nationhood. Max Weber offers adefinition useful for the conceptualization of the state used in this book. Hewrites: "A compulsory political association with continuous organization will becalled ?a state? if and in so far as its administrative staff successfullyupholds a claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in theenforcement of its order. A state thus is an institution that places a claim onthe authority to make binding decisions for all, on the monopoly of force, andon a territory. In the modern world, a state is usually associated with anadministrative apparatus in the form of a bureaucracy.

By implication, state formation involves the expansion of administrative reachover a territory combined with authority within national boundaries. Nationbuilding refers to the development of a collective identity and the integrationof separate collectivities into a national whole. The connections between stateformation and nation building are intricate and vary from case to case. Somecountries face nation building and state formation all at once. Others alreadyhave a collective identity when they develop a central state. Still othersbecome national entities only after the development of a central state.

As an overall concept for the social ties binding communities in old societieswith separate collectivities, Geertz speaks of "primordial attachments." He seesthe attachments as stemming from the "givens of social existence," mainly"immediate contiguity and kin connection," including kinship, ethnicity,language, region, religion, or custom. The concept of primordial ties taps acrucial reality in the new nations because it highlights the segmentation ofsocial organization. Primordial ties often serve as a source of solidarity andcohesion for communities in local areas. They serve as a basis for members ofcommunities to claim their separateness both from other communities and centralpower. If primordial ties remain strong and separate collectivities persist, itis generally not because people refuse to relinquish centuries-old, deep-rootedbeliefs that no longer make sense in a modern era. The ties remain, not asmeaningless vestiges of the past, but as social forms that serve a usefulfunction in the here and now. In some cases, ties previously forgotten arereinvented. In the Maghrib, as elsewhere, traditions are invented, abandoned,reinvented, and transformed for reasons rooted in the present.

There is a direct conflict between local solidarities based on primordial ties(which I refer to in brief as local solidarities) and a nation-state. Eachinstitution requires loyalties of its members. Each involves mutually exclusivedefinitions of what the maximal political unit ought to be. Insofar asprimordial solidarities sometimes become candidates for nationhood, theycompete with the state or challenge its very existence. Precisely because theyrepresent alternative institutions of power and social control, primordialcommunities and national institutions find themselves in a relationship ofongoing tension. The tension may be open or latent. Considering other nationsmay help to place the Maghrib in perspective. In India, for example, the tensionhas crystallized into violent conflict. Many of the problems of Indian societyinvolve managing the complexities of a society that includes several languages,castes, religions, and ethnic groups. Similar conflicts based in part on similarkinds of solidarities have arisen in places as diverse as Morocco, Nigeria,Rwanda, China, the former Soviet Union, and the former Yugoslavia, to name onlya few. One may think of Lebanon and Afghanistan as countries where in recenthistory, for a variety of national and transnational reasons, loyalties groundedin kinship, ethnicity, or religion challenged the state and one another.

The tension between communal solidarities and society-wide institutions is notunique to new nation-states. It was also experienced, but in a different way, bythe West. Reinhard Bendix reminds us that Max Weber's lifework was an effort toanalyze the tension. Bendix writes about Weber's work: "[It was an effort] todocument the proposition that Christian doctrine and the revival of Roman lawmilitated against familial and communal ties as foci of loyalty which competeeffectively with the universal claims of legal procedure..." Such familial andcommunal ties as foci of loyalty competed also with national political,social, and economic entities. Some communal ties, particularly ethnic,linguistic, and religious, remain to this day social and political issues inadvanced industrial nations. Witness, for example, French-speaking Canada,Basque nationalism in Spain or, on a more limited scale, the Corsican movementin France. In general in Western Europe, however, communal solidarities werebroken, or at least weakened, in a gradual fashion, over several centuries byindustrial capitalism and political struggles in absolutist regimes. Jack Goodytraces the weakening of solidarities grounded in extended kinship ties to aneven earlier period and associates it with the expansion of the Christian Churchin Western Europe.

In the Maghrib as in other new nations, there are two essential differences.First,...