Between ballots and bullets

"This book on Algeria looks at both the erosion of the authoritarian model and the difficulties of making a transition to democracy. Within the past decade, Algeria experienced one of the most promising experiments of opening up the political system and allowing a remarkable degree of freedom. That initial effort failed, however, when poorly designed elections were won by an Islamist party that was unacceptable to the military. The subsequent explosion of political violence has cost at least 75,000 lives in recent years. Despite this deep crisis there are reasons to believe that Algeria may…