This dissertation is concerned with the case study of Algerian political Islam in the contemporary era. The central research question addressed here is two fold. First, the question of whether political Islam constitutes a radical ideological break with the Algerian political ljfeworld is asked. The political imagination of Algerian Islamism is analysed in its historical and political contexts to unearth areas of rupture with dominant forms of political imagination, but areas of hybridity and of complicity with such formations are also highlighted. Thus, the main contention of this thesis is that the discursive relationship between Islamist political formation and that of their opponents in the political sphere is complex: Islamist political imagination is oppositional to the state, but it does not escape the discursive tools for legitimation present in the existing ljfeworld. Secondly, the consequences of this argument for our understanding of the Algerian Civil War of the 199os are addressed. It is argued here that political imagination is one of the key loci where political contest has been played out in the contemporary Algerian setting. The confrontation between the regime and political Islam is the most up to date example of a struggle for power that necessitates the monopoly over the legitimising tools of history and culture. More importantly, this framework questions the notion that the state-Islamist confrontation in subsequent years can be explained in a binary fashion (Good vs. Evil; Rational politics vs. Irrational theocracy). In fact, this confrontation over political power is consistent with existing patterns of political competition in postcolonial Algeria.

The socio-religious history of Algeria is characterised by a series of identity crises, to which the end of 20th century's civil war represents the paroxysm. Since the suppression of the marabout instances in the 19th and 20th centuries, the population was never able to find the right role of religion in society. The "second war of Algeria" does not only represent the climax of a series of identity crises, but also the result, the consequence, of all the ones which preceded it. The 1980 decade, which had preceded the civil war, was propitious to the growth of social protest in Algeria. Like in most of the social crises that Algeria had known, Islam was then the main vehicle for social protest. / This thesis intends to bring out the historical elements which had led to the civil war opposing religious groups and the government. Through four periods of the Algerian Islamic history, we will attempt to understand the evolution of the Algerian religiosity. A link between these four periods emerges: the quest for the national identity, to which a particular attention will be given. The goal of this thesis is then to bring out the principal events of the Algerian Islamic history in order to understand how a personal and dogmatic Islam became an ideological and political Islam in the 1980's and 1990's. / Therefore, this thesis will focus on Islam as a mobilisation, protestation and resistance agent for the Algerian civil society. More precisely this thesis will analyse how and why the Algerian Islam has been "instrumentalised" either by the government and the religious leaders of the society.

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