QUALITÉ INSTITUTIONNELLE ET PERFORMANCE DE LA RÉGULATION SECTORIELLE UN EXAMEN RÉTROSPECTIF DE LA REFORME DES TÉLÉCOMMUNICATIONS EN ALGÉRIE

Abstract

The relative failur of reform aid policies for developing countries that followed the Washigton post-consensus era has brougt to surface the need to consider the institutional dimension as a dey element of rewed development policies. Recently, a host of studies based on this paradigm have highlighted the positive impact  of the instituional environment quality on the efficiency of sectoral reforms, in particular, on regulatory performance in infrastructure industries traditionally structured as vertically integrad state-owned monopolies. This article examines the reform of the telecommunication sector in Algeria with the purpose of qualitatively testin the key role of institutions emphasized in this recent literature. The liberalization of the sector and the privatization of the historical operator, Have produced constrasted results in the fixed and cellular segments. While the cellular segment has delivered relatively satisfactory performance, the fixed segment has considerably lagged behind. We argue that political accountability and institutional quality (independance of the regulator, separation of powers, etc.) are key to understanding the outcome of the reform, an argument which is central to the recent lierature. This leads us to raise question about the adequacy of the reform path that has been folowwed to instituional context.