8. Tribes and Democratization/De-democratization in Libya

In the aftermath of the first elections in the post-Qaddafi era in Libya, in the summer of 2012, there was an ongoing disagreement amongst the observers of this country about the present and the future stability of the country. The pessimists, such as Henry Kissinger, warned against the “collapse of the state” (2012). The optimists, such as Juan Cole (2012), who had championed the NATO intervention into Libya, celebrated the fairly smooth handling of the elections as a sign of democratization. The state of affairs in the country after the elections provided evidence to support both perspectives. On the one hand, the country’s tradition of statelessness was pronounced by the advance of the tribal militia as the primary political and military force following the downfall of the Qaddafi regime (Lacher 2013). On the other hand, the populations from the three main regions of the country—Tripolitania–Tripoli, Cyrenaica–Benghazi, and Fezzan—continued to express willingness to collaborate peacefully to establish a process towards democratic governance.