The historical emergence and transformation of the Moroccan political party field

Abstract

This article offers a historical analysis of the emergence of the political party field in post-independence Morocco and makes the case for a bottom-up approach that pays close attention to actors’ cultural dispositions, capabilities and the constraints imposed upon them by emergent fields. It starts by briefly introducing the conceptual toolbox of Bourdieusian field theory, underscoring the analytical strengths of the concepts it includes. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of both primary and secondary sources, the article then deploys the aforementioned concepts to trace the historical processes that shaped the emergence of the Moroccan political party field. In doing so, this article suggests a novel approach to the study of political parties that emphasizes the importance of adopting a bottom-up perspective, and the need to go beyond mono-causal explanatory accounts.