Comparative analysis of outsider political discourse in Morocco: the boycott to the 2016 legislative elections

Abstract

From the theory of the sociology of power and using the theoretical-methodological framework of the ideological discourse analysis proposed by Teun van Dijk, this article relates the concepts of discourse and society in the narrative representation of a transcendent political event such as legislative elections in Morocco. To do this, the political discourse issued by two main Moroccan political and social organizations representing the ideological opposition to the current political and institutional regime in the country is analysed: al-'Adl wa-l-Iḥsān (Justice and Spirituality) from political Islam, and al-Nahŷ al-Dīmuqrāṭī (Democratic Way) from leftist revolutionary Marxism. Both organizations, conceived as social and political movements, reacted by proposing an electoral boycott to the legislative elections in October 2016 for different reasons, but always related to their respective position in the political competition and to their social support. The interest of this analysis is based on a moral conception of democratic political action, which supposes, on the one hand, the use of ideology as a power resource and, on the other, the use of ideological concepts that are especially relevant in the symbolic representation of the “other” in relation to the construction of “democratic” social and political identity and social change.