Case Selection of Libya

In this thesis, Libya has been selected as a case of both authoritarianism and of popular contestation during the 2011 Arab uprisings. In the broadest sense, a case has been defined as ‘a well-defined aspect of a historical episode that the investigator selects for analysis’ (George and Bennett 2005: 17). The sustained focus on a particular historical episode generates a set of expectations about the research: for instance, the expectation that such studies possess internal validity, a deep scope of proposition and concentrated data availability (Gerring 2007: 38). However, case study research is frequently associated with the scientific method, where the role of the case study is to enable generalisations through the testing of hypotheses. In this

view, case studies are most useful in shedding light on a larger ‘population’ or class of cases (Gerring 2007: 20) or in generalising to theoretical propositions (Yin 2009: 15). At this juncture, it is important to specify the way in which Libya is deployed as a ‘case’ in this thesis. The scientific method does permit the case study a role in exploratory research, and in line with this understanding, the thesis will seek to develop broad insights about the nature of political agency and symbolic contestation that can be applied and investigated in similar contexts (Gerring 2007: 40). In the context of study research, such an approach has been described in the social science research literature as a ‘trade-off’ between ‘high internal validity and good historical explanations of particular cases versus making generalizations that apply to broad populations’ (George and Bennett 2005: 22).

However, this thesis does not seek to represent its central contributions as stemming from causal inferences or from generalisability, nor does it set out to attain such outcomes. This stems from the constructivist orientation underpinning the theoretical model, which, while comprising neither a theory nor methodology, ‘does enable and constrain our research designs and our choice of the tools in making our case’ (Kratochwil 2008: 88). In contrast to the scientific method, the

constructivist/interpretivist paradigm – as defined by Michael Burawoy - deploys a case in order to reveal the essential nature of society at large and to understand the case, not to generalise from it; it searches for ‘societal significance’ rather than ‘statistical significance’ (in Small 2009: 20). As a result, strategic and symbolic meaning making practices are investigated as intersecting phenomena rather than as distinct and measurable variables. As indicated in Chapter 3, this is a conscious deviation from the claim that ‘cultural factors…can be grouped, counted and their influence analysed’ (Johnston 2009: 6), and moves towards the view of culture as an

institutional schema that shapes social interactions in ways that are symbolic as well as material (Polletta 2004).

Because this thesis adheres to some of the stated methodological tenets of political science research, it is important to outline the basis on which the ‘case’ of Libya has been selected, amongst other instances of Middle East authoritarianism and contestation. Firstly, the case of Libya has been selected theoretically (LeCompte and Schensul 1999: 158), partly based on the fact that it can – in some respects - be termed a classic ‘case’ of a repressive authoritarian regime, which underwent an instance of rapid and open political contestation in 2011. The considerable variety of authoritarian regime types in the Middle East, and variations in their distribution of power, has admittedly rendered it difficult to supply a general definition of this category or to deductively apply typological classifications (Stacher 2012;

Hinnebusch 2014). Indeed, Brynen et al (2012: 2) have argued that ‘we are far from convinced that there was or is a single Arab authoritarianism; rather, there is an array of political settings with histories, structural conditions, and dynamics that share both similar and strikingly dissimilar characteristics’.

Nevertheless, there are recurrent traits that are said to underpin authoritarian regimes. Libya has been classified as one of eight Arab republics – the others being Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Tunisia, and Sudan – all of which shared certain commonalities: a similarly structured coercive apparatus, centralized

leadership, and a system of economic management underpinned by cronyism and the distribution of benefits to networks of support (Sasoon 2016). The coexistence of monopolised, personal rule with the provision of material benefits to loyal clients has been described as ‘neo-patrimonialism’: a central concept in the analysis of

hybrid political systems in which the customs and patterns of patrimonialisfm co-exist with, and suffuse, rational-legal institutions. As with classic

patrimonialism, the right to rule in neopatrimonial regimes is ascribed to a person rather than to an office…The chief executive undermine the effectiveness of the nominally modern state administration by using it for systematic patronage and clientelist practices in order to maintain political order. Moreover, parallel and unofficial structures may well hold more power and authority than the formal administration (Bratton and van de Walle 1997: 62).

To extend this definition, ‘neopatrimonial regimes are “neo” because they do not rely on traditional forms of legitimation or on hereditary success’ (Snyder 1992: 396). In the context of case study research, it is important not to equate authoritarian rule in general with neo-patrimonialism, or to suggest that a legal-rational bureaucracy cannot exist within an authoritarian regime (Erdmann 2013). The concept does, however, retain considerable applicability when studying authoritarianism in the Arab world. Studies of authoritarian regime maintenance in the region have demonstrated the way in which authoritarian regimes, from the 1950s onwards, widened elite contestation (co-optation) in order to narrow mass inclusion (Owen 2004;

Schlumberger 2007; Stacher 2012; Hinnesbusch 2014; Sassoon 2016). Patron-client relations were systematically deployed in order to mobilise and incorporate

individuals into state organisations (Stacher 2012: 40), such that, in the Arab uprisings, ‘all the republics were neo-patrimonial’, albeit to different extents (Hinnebusch 2014). Neo-patrimonialism has even been described as a pervasive social phenomenon that can be used to account for the lack of an active civil society in the region (Barakat 1993).

In accordance with this definition, Libya can be described as a ‘typical case’ of neopatrimonial authoritarianism: one that exemplifies ‘a typical set of values, given some general understanding of a phenomenon’ (Gerring 2007: 91). Libya, as a single resource-based economy with a large public sector, is one of the least-diversified economies in the world (St. John 2013: 93). Its significant oil rents have historically been used by the country’s elites in order to attract regime support and to offset political and economic grievances with material incentives, as evidenced in the spending patterns of the Qadhafi regime, which largely extended the distributive mechanisms originated by the monarchy (St. John 2008: 66). The Qadhafi regime also created and maintained other patronage networks, promoting its clients – including local tribes and families - to the inner circles of the government, bureaucracy, security and armed forces, even at the expense of national and institutional loyalty (Achcar 2013: 167). For instance, the security sector was largely governed by the logic of patrimonialism and was not subject to civilian control (Vandewalle 2008: 235), with officers perpetually rotated in order to avoid the bond between officer and soldier becoming too strong (Michaels 2014). The Qadhadhfa, Qadhafi’s home tribe located in the region of Sirte, and other tribes perceived to be supportive of the regime, received a large share of the country’s resources and investments, which were shielded from public scrutiny (Mekouar 2016: 55).

However, although Libya can be termed a ‘typical case’ of authoritarian governance among other Arab republics, sharing in their neopatrimonial

characteristics, it also presents as somewhat of a ‘deviant case’. Deviant cases are those that are of ‘surprising value and are in turn investigated for their theoretical anomalies’ (Gerring 2007: 107). It has been noted that, in its system of governance, Libya possessed ‘fundamental differences from other authoritarian regimes’,

including the Arab republics, stemming from their divergent historical patterns of political development (Sassoon 2016: 70). At the heart of this divergence is what Dirk Vandewalle (1998; 2006; 2008; 2012a; 2012b) has described as the pursuit of a deliberate policy of ‘statelessness’ in Libya, throughout the twentieth-century but particularly following the seizure of power by Qadhafi in 1969. Partly due to the brief and oppressive nature of Libya’s experience with colonialism, and partly due to the proliferation of tribal support structures, Qadhafi was ‘liberated from conventional notions of the state’ (Davis 1987: 58). States are normally defined through their organisational capacity to make strategic choices, adopt particular solutions to problems, and make effective interventions (Friedland and Alford 1991: 242). However, Qadhafi’s Jamahiriya did not set out to do any of those things.

Conventional questions at the heart of modern political systems, such as the gathering of revenues, the need to develop institutional capabilities, and the necessity of

political compromise, were not accorded any importance by Qadhafi (Vandewalle 2012b: 190).

Moreover, the Qadhafi regime was particularly repressive in its systematic destruction of civil society, and in its dismantlement of independent unions, civic organisations and any associations with political overtones. Authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt ‘possessed strong social institutions, such as trade unions, national conscription army, civil society, ulama and urban intelligentsias’, who could

articulate some form of dissent (Pack 2013b: 5), while in the Maghreb, ‘show democracies’ in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco all witnessed alliances between the government and civil actors, albeit at the expense of freedom (Garon 2003: 3). Throughout the Arab autocracies, it was common to witness multidimensional restructurings of power between political opponents and the state

(Lust-Okar 2005), or what Albrecht (2010: 18) has defined as ‘competitive

interactions with the incumbents of a political regime based on a minimum degree of mutual acceptance’. In contrast, such power relations and alliances were not tolerated in Libya, which did not – unlike other neo-patrimonial regimes – possess even a written constitution. As argued by George Joffé (2006: 117) the Libyan political vision denied any civil activism outside that sanctioned by the Qadhafi regime, and it never adopted the stance of being a ‘liberalized autocracy’ that both tolerated and controlled civil society initiatives. Qadhafi’s condemnation of political parties as dictatorial instruments paved the way for a committee-congress system of government that purportedly facilitated direct democracy, and was doctrinally based on the

premise of ‘mass rule’(Khalil 2014: 95). In practice, it enabled Qadhafi to govern unofficially as leader and guide of the revolution (St. John 1987: 136).

The Qadhafi regime’s attempt to create a new species of administrative and political structure has led Roger Owen (2004: 55) to argue that, by the early 1980s, ‘the structure of the Libyan state showed considerable differences from that to be found anywhere else in the Middle East,’ at odds with both single party regimes and those under monarchical rule. It also ‘rendered meaningful comparison with the rest of the Maghreb states increasingly difficult’ (Willis 2012: 5).

Subsequently, Libya continued to differ from other Arab countries in its approach towards state-managed political and economic liberalisation. From the late 1980s, and again in the aftermath of the September 2011 terrorist attacks, countries such as Egypt and Tunisia underwent a process of ‘opening up’, instigating a process of infitah (limited market-based reforms) and toying with the ideals of free markets and democratisation (Brynen et al 2012: 5). In the decade prior to the Arab uprisings, Libya partially moved away from isolationism, witnessing an increase in private

sector activity and attempting to undertake institutional reforms. In 2003, Qadhafi’s son Saif al-Islam emerged as a key interlocutor, establishing the National Economic Development Board (NEDB) which was tasked with drawing up the country’s market liberalisation reforms (Bartu 2015: 36). Media liberalisation reforms led by Saif al- Islam included the establishment of the newspapers Ouya and Quryna in 2007, which permitted some degree of criticism to be directed at government corruption (Dizard et al 2011: 353).

However, the process of liberalisation, most notably including the attempt to draft a constitution, was repeatedly met with firm resistance from regime hardliners. The technocrat prime minister Shukri Ghanem, a proponent of liberalisation and privatisation, was removed in 2006 (Vandewalle 2012b: 201), and in November 2010, then prime minister al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi shut down all of Saif’s reform-oriented media outlets, followed by the arrest of 22 journalists affiliated with them (Mezran and Knect 2015: 83). Thus, there was some economic reform, but no substantive attempt at any political reform, even cosmetic (St. John 2008). Ultimately, it has been argued, any practical move towards representative democracy or introduction of a market economy would have undermined Qadhafi’s political power base and entire framework of governance, which rested on highly developed patronage networks (St John 2014: 135).

Libya’s neopatrimonial system thus resembles other authoritarian regimes, while its distinctive political and historical trajectory sets its mode of governance apart from the other republics that experienced regime-challenging protests during the Arab uprisings. And yet, I do not believe that we should simply classify Libya as an anomalous ‘sultanistic’ regime, in contrast with other Arab autocracies (Stepan and Linz 2013). Sultanism has been situated as an extreme variant of neopatrimonialism:

‘autocracies whose guidance rests on the whims of a supreme leader…power, corruption and plunder are concentrated in a small circle dependent on the leader’s beneficence’ (Johnston 2015: 621). However, this definition generates a tendency to completely neglect institutions altogether and to focus simply on the near-complete personal discretion of leaders and their ideologies (Chehabi and Linz 1998). Instead, I argue that the Jamahiriya, as with other authoritarian regimes, can still be analysed as an institution in its management of material and symbolic sources of power, even if its political system of governance operated in a distinctive way.

The analysis of Libya will focus on the periods both prior to and during the Libyan uprising. In the following chapter, the thesis will present an analysis of the Qadhafi regime’s practices of domination, and the way in which they shaped political agency in the Jamahiriya. This is modelled on multi-institutional politics theory, which indicates the importance of first delineating the ‘institutional logic’ within a particular configuration of power, before exploring the way in which its meanings are engaged with, contested and transformed during moments of open contestation. Chapter 5 does not set out to offer a historical account of Libyan politics under Qadhafi, of which there are many such valuable studies already (El-Fathaly and Palmer 1980; Anderson 1986; Davis 1987; St. John 1987; El-Kikhia 1998;

Vandewalle 1998, 2006; Wright 2010; Pargeter 2012), but to proceed thematically, delineating the Jamahiriya’s material and symbolic practices of power, in accordance with the theoretical framework, while comparing these practices with other Arab autocracies, in line with the intended contribution to the literature on Middle East politics.

In Chapters 6 and 7, the timeframe for the analysis of the 2011 Libyan uprising is principally from the onset of online mobilisation for protests in January 2011, to the

takeover of Tripoli by opposition forces on 21 August. This circumscription is to some extent synthetic: it is difficult to analyse the Libyan uprising as a ‘spatially delimited phenomenon’ (Gerring 2007: 9). For instance, the fighting between pro and anti-Qadhafi forces continued in towns such as Bani Walid, long after the proclaimed ‘liberation’ date. However, this period of time nevertheless encapsulates the most significant juncture in the Libyan uprising, during which revolutionary ‘framing’ practices – articulations of the objectives, motivations, and symbols of the revolution – were most prevalent and novel. In line with the theoretical framework, if the moment of ‘open insubordination represents a dramatic contradiction of the smooth surface of euphemized power’ (Scott 1990: 56), this timeframe of the 17 February uprising constitutes such a radical moment of public contestation.