- 02 Apr 2013
Post-Gaddafi Libya: ‘Learning’ Democracy
ABSTRACT:
What are the challenges to democratisation in Libya? Transition in Libya takes place in a context that differs from neighbouring Arab Spring states, Egypt and Libya. The paper’s first section explains this context. Libya starts democratic transition with a clean slate. However, there are problems: the trauma of violence after the collapse of the Gaddafi regime has resulted disunified elite that is ideologically, tribally and regionally divided. This dynamic has thus far prevented a model of ‘politics as bargaining game’. In the absence of consensus and ubiquity of armed groups as well as the rise of federalist tendencies, Libya’s road to democracy will be long – and may continue to be punctuated by violence and resistance from the periphery, including by Salafists, ‘federalists’, tribal rebellion and even moderate Islamists. Nonetheless, Libya has embarked on a nascent transition noted for electoral, organisational/institutional and constitutional achievements. These will be looked at in the paper second section.
About the Speakers
Larbi Sadiki is an Arab-Australian of Tunisian origin. He is Specialist in Arab democracy & democratization, based at the Politics Department at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. His recent work is RETHINKING ARAB DEMOCRATIZATION: ELECTIONS WITHOUT DEMOCRACY (Oxford University Press, Hardback 2009, paperback 2011). He is editing the forthcoming Routeldge Handbook of the Arab Spring, to be released in October 2013. He writes a weekly column for Al-Jazeera English. He is currently completing a book on the Tunisian Revolution.
