Why Algeria remains stable: past lessons and new challenges (Salim Tamani, Aspenia online)

Five years after the Arab Spring, Algeria is the isolated case in North Africa where stability and security still reign. In the aftermath of the 2011 revolutions, several countries continue to be affected by political change, including Tunisia, Egypt and to a much larger extent Libya. To explain Algeria’s stability, many politicians and analysts have raised several arguments whose central theme is the fact that Algeria has already experienced major change since the late 1980s. The riots of October 5, 1988 were the catalyst for a prolonged and bloody conflict with the emergence of radical Islamism and terrorism which in turn sparked a civil war: this caused more than 200,000 deaths and more than 10 billion dollars in damage in the 1990s.

http://www.aspeninstitute.it/aspenia-online/article/why-algeria-remains-stable-past-lessons-and-new-challenges