Analyzing Morocco's Political Structure and Resilience
Before assessing the resilience of a state, it is essential to clarify which state is being examined. Morocco is neither a fully autonomous democratic system nor a rigid totalitarian regime. Instead, it operates under a rationalized patrimonial regime characterized by competitive authoritarianism, masquerading as constitutional and liberal. This unique structure implies that while formal institutions are present and operational, they do not wield real decision-making power over critical issues such as foreign policy, security, economic equilibria, and strategic appointments. These areas are firmly under the control of the Palace and a network of vertical loyalties. This understanding serves as an analytical starting point for contemplating the resilience of the Moroccan state, which is fundamentally designed to absorb shocks. The centralization of power allows for rapid decision-making without the institutional paralysis that often plagues democratic systems. The monarchy's triple legitimacy—religious, nationalist, and historical—also acts as a political cushion that few Arab regimes can counter. Consequently, the security apparatus, deeply loyal in its structure rather than ideological conviction, ensures functional continuity.
However, these attributes that enable the regime to withstand crises simultaneously hinder long-term reform. This phenomenon can be termed the 'trap of authoritarian resilience.' By surviving crises without allowing them to produce their natural transformative effects, the regime postpones the structural adjustments that these crises should necessitate. A regime that endures various crises without ever transforming accumulates deferred risks rather than genuine robustness.
Challenges Ahead: Economic Vulnerabilities and Diplomatic Fractures
The ongoing conflict following the attacks by Israel and the United States against Iran has simultaneously activated three distinct vulnerabilities that Morocco cannot address separately. These include an economic shock primarily driven by energy prices, a geopolitical shock that strains the kingdom's official alliances, and an identity crisis that reopens wounds previously masked by the normalization with Israel. Economically, the 2026 finance law was enacted based on an assumption of oil prices at $65 per barrel, yet prices now exceed $100. With Morocco importing over 90% of its hydrocarbon needs and lacking operational refineries since the closure of SAMIR in 2015—an absence that has not been adequately compensated by a substitution plan—the country has transitioned from partial dependence to complete reliance on imported refined products within a decade. This structural vulnerability is exacerbated by currency fluctuations, as oil is purchased in dollars. When oil prices soar and the US dollar strengthens concurrently—common during geopolitical crises—the import bill incurs a dual impact that the currency reserves of Bank Al-Maghrib can only cushion in the short term. They cannot indefinitely offset the long-lasting shocks to energy and currency.
Every external oil shock translates into an internal inflationary shock in Morocco. Fuel is not merely a Friday night gas fill-up; it encompasses the costs of transporting goods, the price of flour, bricks, cement, and more. In an economy heavily reliant on road transport, diesel acts as an invisible tax on everything. The most delicate and least rigorously discussed aspect of this situation pertains to the normalization with Israel. In 2020, Morocco signed the Abraham Accords, formally recognizing Israel alongside the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. In return, Washington acknowledged Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, creating a diplomatically coherent transaction. Morocco gained a concrete advancement regarding its existential question at the price of a stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that Moroccan society has never approved. This decision was imposed from above, without consultation, on a populace that remains one of the most sensitive in the Arab world to the Palestinian cause. This normalization could be absorbed as long as the conflict remained at a manageable level of violence and the normalization itself was an abstract diplomatic fact, minimally visible in daily life. However, the Gaza war and subsequent regional escalation in 2026 have drastically altered this equation.
Today, regardless of its geopolitical calculations, cynicism, or regional aspirations, Iran occupies the position of defender of Palestinians and Muslims in the Arab and Muslim public imagination. In contrast, the Moroccan state finds itself diplomatically perceived—rightly or wrongly—as aligned with aggressors and perpetrators. This dissonance is not managed through rational arguments; it manifests as an identity wound. Identity wounds, particularly in regimes where political space is limited, find alternative forms of expression. Thus far, the Moroccan regime has navigated this contradiction through silence or rhetoric supporting the Palestinian people, dissociated from any critique of Israel, while simultaneously repressing and applying pressure on dissenting voices. Nonetheless, this is not a sustainable long-term strategy. The longer the conflict persists, and the more images circulate, the deeper the dissonance between official Morocco and the reality of Moroccan society becomes. While this does not pose an immediate destabilization threat, as the regime has the means to contain it, it represents a slow erosion of the consent upon which its stability relies.
In terms of social contracts, the implicit agreement that underpins Moroccan stability was already under strain before the outbreak of the war. This contract is straightforward: the regime ensures a minimum of economic security, access to essential services, and prospects for youth, while society refrains from challenging the fundamental architecture of power. However, this contract exhibits deep fissures. The Hirak movement in the Rif (2016-2017) was not merely a local incident; it signaled that geographic peripheries no longer feel bound by this contract. Entire regions possess a legitimate impression of being sidelined from the economic development prominently displayed in Rabat and Casablanca. Youth unemployment remains a structural reality that neither university reforms nor investment plans have resolved. Furthermore, while subsidy reform is necessary from a macroeconomic perspective, it has shifted some of the adjustment costs onto the most vulnerable households, exacerbating the predation of certain economic actors.
The risk does not lie in social explosion. Political sociology teaches us that such explosions are rare and typically preceded by prolonged invisible accumulations. The more insidious risk is the gradual delegitimization of the regime. A society that does not revolt but rather turns away, disengages, and ceases to believe that the state can offer anything represents a slow, silent erosion that is far more difficult to measure and more dangerous in the long term for a regime whose stability relies on passive consent rather than active endorsement.
In the short term, Morocco will navigate this shock. The regime's robustness is not a myth; it is real and deeply embedded in a power architecture explicitly designed for survival. The management instruments are in place—targeted repression when necessary, co-opting critical voices, controlled political communication, and a sufficiently solid monarchical legitimacy to absorb diffuse discontent without leading to frontal opposition. However, the critical question does not pertain to the short term but rather to what this shock will leave behind once it has passed. The current crisis may reshape the cost of this postponement strategy, necessitating serious energy diversification, reduced dependence on food imports, and a less socially costly diplomatic policy. These are no longer options for optimization; they have become necessities that must be engaged with. Under certain conditions, external constraints can achieve what political will has yet to accomplish.
The most adept regimes at managing crises are often those that take the longest to acknowledge the need for profound transformation. Their very adeptness becomes their limitation. The war unfolding to the east is not merely a source of economic and geopolitical disruptions for specific countries; it serves as a test of institutional maturity. It reveals whether a regime can simultaneously address an external shock and its internal vulnerabilities without retreating into a solely short-term survival logic.
The distinction between a country that emerges more robust and one that becomes more fragile will not be determined on financial markets or in military command rooms. It will hinge on the regime's ability to finally confront, without evasion, the questions it has authorized itself to defer for decades. How to construct a legitimacy that does not solely depend on monarchical centrality? How to honor a social contract with a youth whose expectations exceed what the current model can offer? And how to pursue a foreign policy without creating a fracture within society between the state that is presented and the people that are governed?
As reported by blogs.mediapart.fr.
