Libyan Politics
A review of the literature reveals that there is a considerable gap regarding the topic of Libyan politics. Early writing on political development and bureaucracy in Libya was by Omer I. El Fathaly, Monte Palmer, and Richard Chackerian in 1979. There are other writings on Libyan politics by Libyan and non-Libyan scholars in Arabic and English as well. As we will see, several articles wrote on the topic of Libyan politics during the Kaddafi and post-Kaddafi eras. Most of the recent contributions to Libyan politics are mainly articles published in journals. Thus, this book aims to narrow down some of the literature's gap in this regard.
This book aims to explore the domestic and international relations of Libya in the post-Kaddafi era. So, more topics will be addressed (Insha'Allah or God willing) in other additions. More subjects may add in the coming editions, such as political parties, interest groups and civil society organs, organizational behavior, and constitution. Some topic, such as political parties, is not ready to write about because there is no yet final law exist in this regard. Some other subjects require more time and space to write. For example, the constitution is ready for a referendum by December 2021. Therefore, writing in this regard may wait for a while.
This work is a medium-size book that contains various articles on Libyan politics. The first chapter examines the Libyan crisis on the theoretical and practical levels simultaneously. Adopting theoretical frameworks may help to understand the different aspects of the Libyan crisis. The second chapter deals with the topic of the Libyan legislative process. The decision-making process is mainly similar to other countries in terms of concept and complication. For example, committees and sub-committees have been played crucial roles within the framework of the legislative branch, e.g., the General National Congress or “GNC”.
The third and fourth chapters focus on the non-governmental politics in Libya post-Kaddafi era. While the third chapter examines the attitudes of Libyans towards democratization, the other chapter deals with tribalism. Tribalism considers the main component of Libyan politics. Also, Libyan public opinion may describe as moderate in its orientation. According to delivered questionnaires in 2012 and 2015, respondents identify themselves as participants rather than parochial and subjective cultures.
As far as tribal politics are concerned, chapter four examines the impact of political and social variables on Libyan politics. In chapter four we deal with tribes as a civil society organization. Thus, tribes play a political role whenever the interests of their members are concerning. Tribes are not public organizations; therefore, they represent the concept of private versus public institutions.
In chapter five, the focus is on democratization and the influence of external intervention in this regard. Here, the magnitude of external intervention is measured based on aggregated published data. Thus, chapter five examines the correlation between the data published by the Indexes of Democracy and Fragile States and finds out that there is a negative relationship between the two variables. Thus, when the external intervention has increased after 2014, the index of democracy has declined noticeably and vice-versa.
While the first five chapters deal with Libya's internal politics, the other four chapters will explore Libya's external politics in the post-Kaddafi era. Libyan politics is influencing by international conferences, such as the Berlin conference of 2019. Chapter sex explores the impact of the Berlin conference on the Libyan crisis at theoretical and practical levels. In this chapter, qualitative and quantitative content analyses of the Berlin declaration are using. Yet, a peaceful solution to the Libyan crisis is achieving. There are international supports for the outcomes of the Berlin conference. Cease-fire, military, economic, and political dialogues are among the prominent achievements of the Berlin meeting.
The last three chapters deal with Libya's role in combating human trafficking with Mediterranean countries. In this regard, Libya signed two agreements with Malta and Italy to combat illegal immigration from the Libyan seashores, respectively. Libya has also signed a memorandum of understanding with Turkey because of the war on Tripoli. This agreement led to a balance of power between the two rivalry conflicting parties; thus, military, economic, and political dialogue achieve progress.
arabic 1 English 14
Mustafa A. A. Kashiem(1-2021)
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