The three countries of North Africa - Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco - are situated in the region that the Arabs call al-Maghrib, meaning the West, the land of the setting sun. The Maghrib is distinguished from al-Mashriq, which refers to the Arab East, the land where the sun rises.
Although there is sometimes a tendency to regard the Maghribi states as marginal participants in the Arab world's political and cultural system, this perception is erroneous in several important respects. First, Morocco and Algeria are both large and, after Egypt, the two most populous countries in the Arab world. With almost twenty-five million inhabitants each, they have more people than Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia combined, giving the Maghrib a significant measure of demographic and political weight in the Arab arena. Second, the Maghrib is deeply involved inter-Arab politics, often playing a leading role. For example, Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, has been the home of the Arab League since 1979. Also, Morocco is a frequent host of Arab summit meetings and the country's monarch, King Hassan II, is a recognized leader in inter-Arab diplomacy. At a social Arab summit convened in Casablanca, Morocco, in May 1989, for instance, Hassan was appointed to chair both a heads-of-state committee on Lebanon and special Arab League committee charged with furthering the Arab-Israeli peace process.
The Maghrib is also important because of its past and continuing ties to the West. Tunisia and Morocco have long been among the United States' staunchest allies in the Arab world. Both countries became independent in1956, and since that time each has been governed by a pro-Western regime that has cooperated with the United States on regional issues, with Morocco working especially closely with United States on questions relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. U.S.-Algerian relations, once strained, have been warming steadily for more than a decade, and commercial ties between the two countries have become particularly strong in recent years. All three North African countries also have close ties to Europe, more so than do any other Arab states. This is partly due to geographic proximity and partly the result of linguistic and cultural ties that developed during France's lengthy and intense colonization of the Maghrib. In addition, almost two million Maghribis work in Europe at the present time.
While the Maghrib is an important part of the Arab world and has strong ties to the United States and Europe, these are not the only reasons it deserves attention. The experience of North Africa offers an excellent opportunity to compare three different strategies of political and economic development - and in this the Maghrib shed important light on the Arab world as a whole. Tunisia has been governed since its independence by a single political party that has experimented with both socialist and capitalist strategies of development. Morocco has been governed since independence by a conservative monarchy, whose political style has often been described as machine politics on a national scale. At the same time, Moroccan politics includes an active parliamentary system and multiple political parties. Algeria, which secured its independence in 1962 after an eight-year war against France in which one million Algerians were killed, has been governed since independence by a small cadre of military and civilian leaders. Backed by the army, the regime has worked to promote economic development but has displayed little interest in the expansion of popular political participation.
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