State-building and Islamism in Algeria from colonialism to civil war

Islamists' secondary position in Algerian peaceful protests that caused Abdelaziz Bouteflika's resignation in 2019 is considered a consequence of the civil war that took place in the 1990s. Studies concerning the civil war fought between Islamist groups and state forces range between the culturalist approaches that assume radicalism as a direct outcome of Islam and the short-term perspectives that focus on the relations between political actors. In this study, Islamism is examined as a peripheral ideology that took the form of rationalist, statist, and identity-based by the transformations within the geoculture. The local conditions that differentiate Algeria from its counterparts are examined with an integrated historical approach while the given framework identifies the systemic causes that ensure the rise of Islamism. The continuities and changes in Algerian politics are determined by tracing back the concepts of Islam, Arab nationalism, and socialism and it is claimed that the dual society created as a consequence of France's settler colonialist policy is preserved by the rentier state in Algeria after independence and engendered the conditions that led to the civil war.