Tra innovazione e continuità: la riforma costituzionale algerina del 2016

In February 2016 the Algerian Parliament adopted a broad-sweeping constitutional reform, which came into force in March of the same year. After an analysis of the main reasons why Algeria – in contrast to many other countries of the MENA region – was only marginally affected by the “Arab Spring”, the paper addresses the long process of revision of the 1996 Constitution and discusses the most significant novelties introduced by this reform. The paper argues that the 2016 Algerian reform features a two-fold tendency which has also characterised the other recent constitutional reforms adopted in North Africa and in the Middle East, namely innovation on the one hand and continuity with the past on the other.