​This paper assesses various aspects of the mechanisms and styles of government in the Maghreb through a complex comparison of precolonial Morocco and Tunisia. It assesses the concepts of power and asks how they were represented in local and colonial discourse and uncovers the foundations of political legitimacy on which styles of government were built. It looks for intersections and similarities in Maghrebi history, and concludes that there were many commonalities in the political cultures of these two regions despite the different external factors that determined the historical trajectory taken by each country.