EXECUTIVE SUMMARY development and the questioning of this model (1988–1998); the period of open commitment to, and implementation of reforms that go hand in hand with the liberal path to development (1999 to date), together with all the reforms this requires in political (democratic governance; political pluralism), economic and corporate (reforms; transition towards a market economy) and social (grassroots involvement in political, economic and social development) terms. 2.5 After its experience of socialist development and the interim crisis of the period of terrorism, Algeria is currently in a phase of transition to a market economy, a transition that the country plans to undertake at its own pace without undue haste. The earliest structural and political reforms were launched by the authorities against a background of terrorist violence aimed at the Algerian people, of threats to the very existence of the state and its institutions, of economic recession and social fatigue. After 1994, these reforms were replaced by structural adjustment programmes. 2.6 To understand this trajectory, it is necessary to refer back to the origins of the crisis. Around the beginning of the 1980s, cracks began to appear in the political model and its economic component. The people had finally had enough of the iron fist of the state machine, its omnipresence in the lives of citizens, and its failures and weaknesses in the management of development, or at least of some of its key areas. Forces in the country began to give vent to their frustration. Social inequalities, the weaknesses (if not downright failure) of a managed economy, and favouritism all provoked doubts about both the economic and the political model that had been adopted. What began as quiet murmurings quickly became strident protest. The economic crisis lurking beneath the surface erupted, accompanied by crashing oil prices in 1986. This provided an opportunity for political contestation of the development model that was in place. 2.7 The state‟s falling revenues reduced its capacity to act, especially as regards some of the economic and social development functions that it had assumed until then. The displeasure felt by citizens, who had developed a syndrome of dependency on the state, turned into anger against the government or against the establishment, and consequently against state institutions and the socialist development model. The crisis of confidence in the country‟s political institutions, which had been brewing until then, was now out in the open. The state itself came to realise that it could no longer continue to carry out the same functions as it had, because of the collapse of some of the sectors for which it had been responsible and also because it now had fewer resources. 2.8 Other political and religious powers exploited the situation and the country was plunged into a “dark decade” marked by violence and terrorist attacks. The violence of the Islamic terrorism was mainly the result of the country having been through a period of questioning the socialist development model. This had been exploited by some people to such an extent that the very fundamental structures of the Algerian state were threatened. Democracy in Algeria was therefore the child of tragedy, a fact that affected the chances of 5