Morocco as an Uncertain Democracy: Political Reform, Adaptation and Regime Resilience

Morocco represents a particularly revealing case for understanding the dynamics of political uncertainty in contemporary authoritarian and hybrid regimes. Since the constitutional reforms of 2011, the country has combined institutional reform, electoral competition and expanded political participation with the persistence of strong executive authority and enduring mechanisms of political control. Rather than fitting neatly into conventional categories of democratization or authoritarianism, Morocco can be approached as an “uncertain democracy” in which democratic practices coexist with adaptive forms of regime resilience. This panel examines how Morocco’s political system has responded to successive waves of social, political and technological transformation. It explores whether reforms introduced since 2011 have generated meaningful changes in the distribution and exercise of political power, or whether they have primarily enabled the regime to adapt its institutional and political strategies while preserving the core architecture of power. The panel brings together complementary perspectives on political reform, electoral politics, party competition, civil society, political Islam, state–society relations and emerging forms of digital and algorithmic political mobilization. Particular attention is paid to the mechanisms through which political actors adapt to institutional constraints, shifting social expectations and changing modes of political participation. By bringing together these dimensions, the panel seeks to move beyond the binary distinction between democratization and authoritarianism. It asks instead how uncertainty itself becomes a structural feature of political order: generating institutional ambiguity, strategic adaptation and new forms of regime resilience. Morocco thus provides an important case for reassessing existing theories of democratic transition, hybrid regimes and authoritarian adaptation.