The term (re-) entrenchment can be used to uncover the contingency of the clashes, alignments and re-alignments during negotiations among the warring parties in Libya. Entrenchment does not necessarily describe a solidity and rigidity, but reveal fortification and transgression simultaneously. This paper surveys the United Nations Support Mission in Libya’s ongoing negotiations and resolutions in Libya to identify the shifting positions of the domestic and international parties involved in the process, identify mechanisms that can trigger democratization or de/democratization and develop a critical perspective about the opportunities of democratic governance in the country. (Re) entrenchments of parties in Libya are contingent on the larger developments in the region as much as the rival governments’ competition regarding the control of vital resources, international support and legitimacy. More specifically, consolidation of ISIS in Libya is a regional issue that may undermine the efforts of UNSMIL that has been so far bracketing the impact of such presence in the country.

This research analyzes women’s political and civic involvement in Libya during and after the revolution against the dictatorship regime of Mummer Gaddafi in 2011. It examines the changes in the degree of political participation and the levels of political opportunities available for women in Libya over time. It also highlights the ongoing dynamics and challenges women face to maintain the gains they made through their participation in the revolution. This analysis is placed in the context of the social movement theory literature as well as it provides a much-needed study of women’s political and civic engagement in contemporary Libya.

When the liberation of Libya was celebrated on 23 October 2011, the overthrow of the Qadhafi regime was welcomed as a new beginning for Libya. The Constitutional Declaration issued by the National Transitional Council (NTC) in August 2011, which set in motion a tight roadmap for national elections, the formation of a new transitional government, and the drafting and approval of a new constitution was greeted with enthusiasm not only by the Libyan populace but also by the international community, notably by the countries calling for and leading the military intervention which contributed to the toppling of Qadhafi. An initial belief that Libyans could shepherd their country through the transition removed definitively the option of “boots on the ground” from the policy choices of Western governments: external policy-makers seemed to believe that Libya could not only “self-sustain” the cost of the transition, but also progress toward a full transition from war to peace and from dictatorship to democracy, without the assistance of foreign actors, despite their key role in bringing about the collapse of the regime. This approach led some authors to see a paradigmatic shift whereby Western powers have renounced any transformative promise and their responsibility toward the outcomes of the transition. Indeed, the grand narrative sustaining transformative changes that can be found in previous post-conflict transitional countries has been almost absent in Libya. This paper maps and traces the role of external actors in the Libyan transition. The analysis focuses on those Western governments and international organisations (UN and IFIs) whose role has had a greater impact on post-conflict statebuilding. The absence of a heavy-footprint intervention does not mean that Libya is a case of “autonomous recovery”, since external influence can be exercised at various levels and through different means. By investigating external stances towards the Libyan transition, this paper first evaluates external priorities vis-à-vis domestic dynamics and second it problematises the notion of a paradigmatic shift in international post-conflict policies.

The 2011 uprisings that swept across the Middle East and North Africa led some countries into internal conflicts that brought about major social and political changes with large regional repercussions. Libya is a case in point, where a forty-two year-long dictatorial regime was toppled and a democratic transition drifted into a civil war in just three years. If the country’s internal instability and its regional repercussions were not enough to raise concerns, European countries can no longer ignore the continuous increase of migrants to Europe and the dramatic increase in the presence of ISiS fighters along the Libyan coast. How did we get to this point? And how do we help Libya recover peace and stability? This paper looks at the challenges and responsibilities of regional and international actors that have intervened in Libya during and after the 2011 conflict. In particular, it looks at the nature and impact of the military interventions during the 2011 Libyan revolution and at the inadequate State-building efforts deployed since then. It shows how the international intervention in the Libyan conflict and its aftermaths was partisan, fragmented, suffered from competing goals and was ill-designed to address the large post-conflict challenges facing the country. Confronted with a regional proxy war playing out in Libya and with challenges far exceeding their size and mandate, international missions could not prevent Libya from sliding towards a civil war, the penetration of ISIS, the emergence of Islamic extremism and the explosion of illicit trade of arms, drugs and human beings. These failures highlight the importance of two central principles for the success of international efforts to achieve peace and security: comprehensiveness and multilateralism. A comprehensive strategy entails looking at a conflict and at the role that international actors ought to play, both vertically – across time, and horizontally – across dimensions. Multilateralism instead calls for an institutionalized coordination of the actions of all major stakeholders in accordance with a set of agreed-upon principles that restrain the pursuit of immediate and individual goals to the benefit of long-run, collective interests. This paper provides a critical contribution to the scholarly research on the role of international actors in domestic conflicts and democratic transitions. Furthermore, it offers invaluable lessons for states and international organizations aiming at maintaining peace and security in the region.