The Failure of the Libyan Political Transition and the Descent into Civil War

Research output

Complete citation

Poljarević, Emin. “The Failure of the Libyan Political Transition and the Descent into Civil War.” In Social Movements and Civil War: When Protests for Democratization Fail, 77–103. London: Routledge, 2017. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315403106-4.

Status

Published (2017)

Publication type

Peer-reviewed book chapter

Overview

This chapter explains how Libya’s 2011 uprising and attempted political transition descended into renewed armed conflict. It traces the interaction between fragmented state institutions, revolutionary armed groups, regional divisions, external intervention, and the absence of an accepted mechanism for resolving political disputes. Rather than treating civil war as an inevitable consequence of regime collapse, the chapter analyses the mechanisms through which unsuccessful demobilisation, competing claims to revolutionary legitimacy, and weak institutional authority transformed political contention into organised violence. Libya is situated comparatively within a broader study of protest movements whose demands for democratisation became entangled with civil war. The chapter contributes a process-oriented explanation of failed transition, showing how movement dynamics, institutional breakdown, and armed mobilisation reinforced one another after the fall of the Qaddafi regime.

Research question or central concern

Through what mechanisms did Libya’s post-2011 political transition fail and political contention develop into civil war?

Main argument, approach, and contribution

The chapter uses process tracing within a comparative social-movement framework. It argues that regime collapse alone did not determine the outcome; fragmented authority, unresolved armed mobilisation, competing revolutionary claims, and weak conflict-resolution institutions interacted cumulatively. The contribution is a mechanism-based explanation linking protest, failed democratisation, and civil war.

Keywords

Libya; Arab uprisings; political transition; civil war; social movements; armed groups; democratisation