Includes bibliographical references (pages 151-160) and index.

For decades, Algeria has been depicted as an inaccessible, opaque, rentier state and under the control of secret intelligence agencies and inaccessible 'cartels' and 'clans'. While that analysis is partly true, this work contends that the analytical emphasis on opacity risks missing how much the country has changed since the 1990s: the new transparency of the interest groups that govern the country; the competing notions of economic development within key financial institutions; the impact of non-revolutionary contentious politics; the micro-politics of the changing attitudes of the country's urban youth; the growth of moderate Islamist party politics; the changing notions of security held by the armed forces; and the dislocation of rebellion towards the South.