Algerian foreign policy: from revolution to national interest

In the immediate aftermath of independence, Algeria pursued a militant anti-imperialist policy of Third World solidarity under presidents Ahmed Ben Bella and Houari Boumediene. The 1976 National Charter sets forth the rationale for such a foreign policy which was marked by Algerian leadership in the Group of 77, the Nonaligned Movement and the effort to create a New International Economic Order in North-South relations. During the 1980s, President Chadli Benjedid gradually shifted the focus of Algerian diplomacy from Third World leadership to a regional policy focused on the Maghreb and the establishment of the Union du Maghreb Arabe. The severe internal crisis of the 1990s led to a further retrenchment of Algerian foreign policy. Despite his role in the revolutionary years, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has continued the evolution of the state's foreign policy towards national interest pragmatism.