EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Libya after Qaddafi: State formation or state collapse?

Wolfram Lacher

No 9/2011, SWP Comments from Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), German Institute for International and Security Affairs

Abstract: Under pressure from a rebellion, an international intervention, and comprehensive sanctions, Muammar al-Qaddafi's regime is on the verge of collapse. As of late March 2011, regime forces are focussed on retaining control of north-western Libya, raising the prospect of protracted civil war and partition. Qaddafi's demise is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for Libya's renewed stabilisation. The post-Qaddafi state will essentially have to be built from scratch. However, political players will likely be more focussed on the redistribution of wealth than on building state institutions. Scenarios for the post-Qaddafi era include a new deal among former regime elites that would lead to renewed instability in the medium-term, or a more protracted, but ultimately more sustainable, state-building process. Hastening Qaddafi's fall should be the main priority of Germany and other EU member states now. External actors should also support the Interim National Council as the nucleus of a post-Qaddafi government. However, they should refrain from playing an active role in the state-building process that will follow Qaddafi's demise, as this would risk discrediting the process

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/256147/1/2011C09.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:swpcom:92011

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SWP Comments from Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), German Institute for International and Security Affairs
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (econstor@zbw-workspace.eu).

 
Page updated 2025-03-20
Handle: RePEc:zbw:swpcom:92011