5 - The Illiberal Paradox of Autocratic Policymaking

Summary

Chapter 5 dissects power dynamics among actors involved in immigration policy in Morocco before and after the 2013 reform: the monarchy and administration, international, national, and migrant civil society organizations, as well as international organizations, legal actors, and the private sector. I demonstrate that immigration policy liberalization not only emerged out of Morocco’s autocratic political structures – a dynamic I call the illiberal paradox – but also consolidated them. In particular, I show that the monarchy mobilized the expansion of migrants’ rights, as well as its relations with the administration and an expanding civil society to portray the king as a ‘liberal’ monarch. In this process, legal actors and elected politicians have only played a subordinate role. However, these ‘regime effects’ in domestic politics did not absorb resistances and diverging views within the administration, with actors keeping their room for manoeuvre regarding agenda-setting and policy implementation.