Violence and Social Transformation in Libya
Violence and Social Transformation in Libya

Author: Virginie Collombier

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-09-15

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 0197756492

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Ten years after Libya descended into conflict, the contours of a new society are emerging. How has violence remade the country--what has happened to inter-community and inter-personal relations, to social hierarchies and elite composition? Which new groups, networks and identities have formed through conflict, and how has this transformed power structures, modes of capital accumulation and governance at the local and national levels? How has the violence contributed to create new communities, both inside the country and in exile? This volume brings together leading researchers, both foreign and Libyan, to examine the deep changes undergone by Libya's society amid civil war. These transformations are bound to shape the country for decades to come, and will influence its relations with the outside world. By addressing neglected yet crucial aspects of social change amid violence, the contributors substantially broaden the picture of Libyan society beyond the current confines of scholarship, as well as enriching wider debates in Conflict Studies.

Violence and Social Transformation in Libya
Violence and Social Transformation in Libya

Author: Virginie Collombier

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-07-01

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 019776679X

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Ten years after Libya descended into conflict, the contours of a new society are emerging. How has violence remade the country--what has happened to inter-community and inter-personal relations, to social hierarchies and elite composition? Which new groups, networks and identities have formed through conflict, and how has this transformed power structures, modes of capital accumulation and governance at the local and national levels? How has the violence contributed to create new communities, both inside the country and in exile? This volume brings together leading researchers, both foreign and Libyan, to examine the deep changes undergone by Libya's society amid civil war. These transformations are bound to shape the country for decades to come, and will influence its relations with the outside world. By addressing neglected yet crucial aspects of social change amid violence, the contributors substantially broaden the picture of Libyan society beyond the current confines of scholarship, as well as enriching wider debates in Conflict Studies.

Libya's Fragmentation
Libya's Fragmentation

Author: Wolfram Lacher

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-02-20

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 0755600819

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After the overthrow of the Qadhafi regime in 2011, Libya witnessed a dramatic breakdown of centralized power. Countless local factions carved up the country into a patchwork of spheres of influence. Almost no nationwide or even regional organizations emerged, and no national institutions survived the turbulent descent into renewed civil war. Only the leader of one armed coalition, Khalifa Haftar, has managed to overcome competitors and centralize authority over eastern Libya. As he attempts to seize power in the capital Tripoli, dozens of armed groups in western Libya have coalesced to offer tenacious resistance. Rarely does internal division and political fragmentation occur as radically as in Libya. This has been the primary obstacle to the re-establishment of central authority. This book analyzes the forces that have shaped the country's trajectory since 2011. Questioning widely held assumptions about the role of Libya's tribes in the revolution, Wolfram Lacher shows how war transformed pre-existing social structures and explains why Khalifa Haftar has been able to consolidate his sway over the northeast. Based on hundreds of interviews with key actors in the conflict, Lacher advances a new approach to the study of civil wars, placing the social ties of actors at the centre of analysis and exploring the link between violent conflict and social cohesion.

The Burning Shores
The Burning Shores

Author: Frederic Wehrey

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2018-04-17

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 0374715289

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A riveting, beautifully crafted account of Libya after Qadhafi. The death of Colonel Muammar Qadhafi freed Libya from forty-two years of despotic rule, raising hopes for a new era. But in the aftermath, the country descended into bitter rivalries and civil war, paving the way for the Islamic State and a catastrophic migrant crisis. In a fast-paced narrative that blends frontline reporting, analysis, and history, Frederic Wehrey tells the story of what went wrong. An Arabic-speaking Middle East scholar, Wehrey interviewed the key actors in Libya and paints vivid portraits of lives upended by a country in turmoil: the once-hopeful activists murdered or exiled, revolutionaries transformed into militia bosses or jihadist recruits, an aging general who promises salvation from the chaos in exchange for a return to the old authoritarianism. He traveled where few Westerners have gone, from the shattered city of Benghazi, birthplace of the revolution, to the lawless Sahara, to the coastal stronghold of the Islamic State in Qadhafi’s hometown of Sirt. He chronicles the American and international missteps after the dictator’s death that hastened the country’s unraveling. Written with bravura, based on daring reportage, and informed by deep knowledge, TheBurning Shores is the definitive account of Libya’s fall.

Understanding Libya Since Gaddafi
Understanding Libya Since Gaddafi

Author: Ulf Laessing

Publisher: Hurst & Company

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1849048886

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Why has Libya fallen apart since 2011? The world has largely given up trying to understand how the revolution that toppled Muammar Gaddafi has left the country a failed state and a major security headache for Europe. Gaddafi's police state has been replaced by yet another dictatorship, amidst a complex conflict of myriad armed groups, Islamists, tribes, towns and secularists. What happened? One of few foreign journalists to have lived in post-revolution Tripoli, Ulf Laessing has unique insight into the violent nature of post-Gaddafi politics. Confronting threats from media-hostile militias and jihadi kidnappings, in a world where diplomats retreat to their compounds and guns are drawn at government press conferences, Laessing has kept his ear to the ground and won the trust of many key players. Understanding Libya Since Gaddafi is an original blend of personal anecdote and nuanced Libyan history. It offers a much-needed diagnosis of why war has erupted over a desert nation of just 6 million, and of how the country blessed with Africa's greatest energy reserves has been reduced to state collapse.

Libya and the Global Enduring Disorder
Libya and the Global Enduring Disorder

Author: Jason Pack

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-02-15

Total Pages: 529

ISBN-13: 019765424X

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We no longer inhabit a world governed by international coordination, a unified NATO bloc, or an American hegemon. Traditionally, the decline of one empire leads to a restoration in the balance of power, via a struggle among rival systems of order. Yet this dynamic is surprisingly absent today; instead, the superpowers have all, at times, sought to promote what Jason Pack terms the 'Enduring Disorder'. He contends that Libya's ongoing conflict-more so than the civil wars in Yemen, Syria, Venezuela or Ukraine-constitutes the ideal microcosm in which to identify the salient features of this new era of geopolitics. The country's post-Qadhafi trajectory has been molded by the stark absence of coherent international diplomacy; while Libya's incremental implosion has precipitated cross-border contagion, further corroding global institutions and international partnership. Pack draws on over two decades of research in and on Libya and Syria to highlight the Kafkaesque aspects of today's global affairs. He shows how even the threats posed by the Arab Spring, and the Benghazi assassination of US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, couldn't occasion a unified Western response. Rather, they have further undercut global collaboration, demonstrating the self-reinforcing nature of the progressively collapsing world order.

The Libyan Revolution and Its Aftermath
The Libyan Revolution and Its Aftermath

Author: Peter Cole

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13: 0190210966

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This book offers a novel, incisive and wide-ranging account of Libya's '17 February Revolution' by tracing how critical towns, communities and political groups helped to shape its course. Each community, whether geographical (e.g. Misrata, Zintan), tribal/communal (e.g. Beni Walid) or political (e.g. the Muslim Brotherhood) took its own path into the uprisings and subsequent conflict of 2011, according to their own histories and relationship to Muammar Qadhafi's regime. The story of each group is told by the authors, based on reportage and expert analysis, from the outbreak of protests in Benghazi in February 2011 through to the transitional period following the end of fighting in October 2011. They describe the emergence of Libya's new politics through the unique stories of those who made it happen, or those who fought against it. The Libyan Revolution and its Aftermath brings together leading journalists, academics, and specialists, each with extensive field experience amidst the constituencies they depict, drawing on interviews with fighters, politicians and civil society leaders who have contributed their own account of events to this volume.

The Arab Winter
The Arab Winter

Author: Stephen J. King

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-02-13

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 1108477410

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Compares experiences of the Arab Spring for a comprehensive account of how nations handled the challenge of democratic consolidation.

The Search for Stability in Libya
The Search for Stability in Libya

Author: Andrea Dessì

Publisher: Edizioni Nuova Cultura

Published: 2018-05-31

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13: 883365060X

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Established in June 2014, New-Med is a research network of Mediterranean experts and policy analysts with a special interest in the complex social, political, cultural and security-related dynamics that are unfolding in the Mediterranean region. The network is developed by IAI, in cooperation with the OSCE Secretariat in Vienna, the Compagnia di San Paolo of Turin, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, and the German Marshall Fund (GMF) of the United States. At the core of the New-Med activities stands the need to rethink the role of multilateral, regional and sub-regional organisations, to make them better equipped to respond to fast-changing local and global conditions and to address the pressing demands coming from Mediterranean societies all around the basin. This volume examines the goals and prospects of the OSCE’s growing engagement in the Mediterranean region and, more specifically, with the OSCE’s six Mediterranean Partners for Cooperation (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia). The volume’s four chapters focus on the OSCE’s potential role in international efforts to stabilize Libya, a country which has been ravaged by a prolonged and destructive civil war, becoming the epicenter of conflict dynamics with far-reaching implications for both neighbouring countries and Europe. Each chapter addresses a particular theme, or level of analysis, tied to the current conflict in Libya. Beginning with an introductory chapter outlining the OSCE’s growing engagements in the Mediterranean region and Libya’s abortive requests to joint the OSCE Mediterranean Partnership, subsequent chapters delve into the minute details of the major internal and external obstacles to peace-building and stabilization in Libya, addressing the role of regional, European and international actors involved in the country. A final chapter delivers a Russian viewpoint of these themes and traces Moscow’s evolving policy and interests in Libya while addressing the broader role of the OSCE in the Mediterranean.

The Libyan Paradox
The Libyan Paradox

Author: Luis Martínez

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13:

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The militant attitude of the United States after 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 inspired the leadership of Libya to change its confrontational attitude towards America and Europe. The regime abandoned its development of nuclear weapons and opened its economy to the West. Nevertheless, Muammar Gaddafi, the leader of the Libyan Revolution, has found ways to consolidate his hold on the country. In this controversial book, Luis Martinez suggests that the future of Libya now lies in becoming, paradoxically, what he terms an "authoritarian liberal state."