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This article argues that Morocco's competitive authoritarian regime is more resilient today in certain key respects than it was when the Arab Spring began. Drawing on Levitsky and Way's dimension of organisational power, the article contends the regime was sufficiently unnerved by the unrest to resort to the use of high intensity coercion as part of its response to the 20 February Movement. The article maintains that, in employing this force successfully, the regime has turned the protests into an important source of non-material cohesion for its security apparatus and thereby enhanced its ability to defend itself from similar challenges in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to critically assess Joseph Nye’s claims about student exchange programmes by examining the impact of Morocco’s educational relationship with the EU on the kingdom’s political development during and since the Arab Spring. Nye maintains that such schemes are important sources of soft power which Western countries can use to promote their values - including that of democracy - in the societies of the visiting students. Despite tens of thousands of its citizens enrolling in European universities each year, however, Morocco is scarcely any more democratic today than it was when the Arab Spring began. The article considers what the country’s non-democratisation means for the EU’s soft power and this facet of Nye’s thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability of seven aphid species, collected in west-central Morocco, to transmit barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) was determined. Aphids were either collected from grasses showing symptoms of BYDV infection or were allowed acquisition access to plants infected with a PAV-like isolate of BYDV before transfer to oat test plants. BYDV transmission by six of the seven aphid species was confirmed by ELISA test; only Melanaphis donacis failed to transmit. The six newly defined BYDV vector species brings the total known to occur in Morocco to ten. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]