The regional dimension on national development policy. The case of Algeria: 1962-1992

This dissertation examines regional development in Algeria. Particularly, it analyzes the issue of regional disparities in the context of two paths of development: socialism (1962--78) and market socialism (1979--1992).;Under socialism, the government of Algeria sought a mobilization doctrine similar to the one pursued in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, to use the country's resources for attaining economic independence through industrialization and land-reform schemes. The doctrine "Algerian socialism" also called for regional equality through implementing regional development programs. Regional equality is defined as achieving the same levels of industrialization and urbanization in Algeria's five major regions. Equality in industrialization entails regional economic growth, job creation, and income; whereas, equality in urbanization entails creating growth centers to control and manage internal migration.;Algerian socialism's failure to lessen regional disparities, believed to have resulted from French colonial policies, was not due to class formation during the post-independence era, but to the contradictory goals of achieving efficiency and equity, and the deliberate industrialization of the north and agriculturization of the high plateaus and the east. The poles-of-growth strategy allocated the bulk of industrial investments to the few developed urban centers on the littoral, and neglected the agricultural sector, which led to the failure of the land-reform scheme, whence the lagging of the high plateaus and eastern regions.;The government embraced market socialism in the 1980s to correct the results of Algerian socialism. The authorities called for administrative decentralization, industrial deconcentration, and privatization of agriculture to lessen regional inequalities created by the poles-of-growth strategy. The high-plateaus option aimed at industrialization and reviving local markets in the high plains to take pressure off overurbanization and off unemployment in the littoral.;Market socialism led to disparities in regional income distribution, heavy migration toward newly created growth centers in the high plateaus, and a macrocephalic growth of the capital, Algiers. The high-plateaus option moderately increased the region's industrial capacity and created more jobs in the industrial sector.