Conflict dynamics in post-2011 Libya: a political economy perspective, Conflict Security and Development, Vol. 16, No.5, 2016 (original) (raw)
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As Libya's struggle for post-Qadhafi succession enters its ninth year, international peace-making efforts remain doomed, so long as they fail to address the root causes of the country's malaise: flawed economic institutions and the lack of a social contract. The economic structures established during the Qadhafi period deliberately incorporated inefficiencies, redundancies and a lack of transparency. Not only has this system survived unreformed, but paradoxically, the ensuing political vacuum after Qadhafi's ouster has helped it become more entrenched. Benefiting from this vacuum of oversight and ringfenced by international policymakers, various economic entities can now be considered semi-sovereign institutions, arguably more critical to resolving the drivers of conflict than even the competing political factions. The way forward, therefore, requires developing a deep understanding of these structures. The international community should pivot towards an economic-focused approach to peace-making. The first step is to commission a mapping of Libya's economic structures.
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EuroMeSCo Paper Nº49, 2022
The 2011 downfall of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi marked a tipping point for Libya’s southern neighbours in re-defining their roles on the regional north-south axis. The era of an assertive Libyan foreign policy on Africa came to a halt. Simultaneously, as a consequence of the civil war, multiple African actors, both state and non-state, assumed greater influence inside and over Libya. The country moved from being an exporter of security and insecurity to sub-Saharan Africa, as under Gaddafi, to becoming an importer. Some aspects of this largely unnoticed, multi-dimensional “Africanisation” of Libya are likely to take root. Changes in Libya’s and sub-Saharan African actors’ standings within the regional setting represent a new reality on the ground that has not been contextualised and analysed thoroughly enough. Only when the international actors do so will they be able to adequately navigate and constructively engage social, political and security structures within the Libya-sub-Saharan Africa framework. Thus, this paper aims to answer the following research questions: in which specific north-south security-related phenomena did sub-Saharan African actors assume agency? Are the motivations of the ac- tors involved opportunistic or do they include long-term political goals? Which aspects of “Africanisation” are taking solid roots and could be sustained beyond the period of Libya’s instability? Will this change to the regional order be temporary and reversible? What are the implications for the European Union (EU) policies related to peace, security and governance in Libya? For the research, several interviews with representatives of the regional armed groups, policy advisors, policy-makers and researchers with an insightful understanding of local and regional dynamics have been conducted since 2018, including during field research in Sudan in 2019. Those have been supplemented by a comprehensive review of existing literature on cross-border conflict dynamics in the Libya-Sudan-Chad-Niger borderlands, Libya-sub-Saharan African relations and relevant documents of international organisations. Historical methods focus- ing on the long-term and comprehensive processes seen within a big picture are being supplemented with an analytical approach seeking logical consequences and formulating predictions out of hard data and a comparative approach, where models, institutions and experiences are put together with more or less adequate processes found elsewhere.
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The Libyan conflict has become an issue at the global level since its beginning. The foreign aid and support help got by the revolutionaries in their attempt to overthrow the Qaddafi regime and the role of tribes not only during these events but also afterwards, the country’s strategic position and oil reserves are the main points of interest when considering the North African internationalized civil war. While the role played by the tribes in stabilizing the political and social framework still lays at crossroads, being extremely controversial, the economic value and strategic importance of oil, for domestic actors as well as the international ones, are above any doubt.
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Libya is fractured. Its civil war is a complex conflict fought out between myriad smaller militias loosely integrated into two main factions. Khalifa Haftar’s siege of Tripoli and its UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) has at the time of writing gone on for almost a year. After some major gains for Haftar and his Libyan National Army (LNA), the siege has been stuck in a stalemate with frontlines running along the southern suburbs of the capital. Each side is backed by various regional and extra-regional powers, and the ensuing military stalemate has taken precedence over the democratic transition that many were hoping for after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The civil war was born out of the power vacuum that followed Gaddafi’s removal. This report looks at the evolution of the Libyan conflict since 2011 and maps out the various domestic and external – both state and non-state – interests that clash directly or indirectly in Libya. Moreover, it analyses the various security implications that the conflict has for the country itself and the broader region more generally. Lastly, the report comments on the prospects of the conflict and the peace process pursued by the United Nations and other international actors.
Master thesis: Informal Institutions and Protracted Social Conflict – the Case of Libya
This thesis aims to examine the influence of Informal Institutions of Political Participation (IIPP) on the perpetuation of Protracted Social Conflict (PSC) in the case of Libya. It does so by utilizing the theoretical framework of Hans-Joachim Lauth who isolated three “destructive” types of informal institutions: clientelism, corruption and threat of violence. It follows Edward Azar’s claim that PSC is caused by deprivation of basic communal needs, and I focus on the limitation of political access in particular. By using the interpretative case study, I determine that the Libyan conflict can be marked as PSC and I isolate the presence of IIPP. The key finding is that IIPP can influence the perpetuation of PSC directly, by radically limiting the space for political participation and indirectly, by obstructing the state institutions and eroding their legitimacy. The thesis calls for further investigation on this topic.