Does Libya need a lesson in devolved government?

Recent news from Libya has not inspired confidence. Terrorism, riots, murder, a temporarily kidnapped prime minster, oil stuck at export terminals – it’s a dispiriting litany of apparently unconnected events. Yet careful study of the region’s history and the aftermath of the uprisings against Colonel Gaddafi suggest that peripheral forces in Libya are, as they often do, resisting impositions from the centre. That is the central thesis of a collection of essays The 2011 Libyan Uprisings and the Struggle for the Post-Qadafi Future, edited by Jason Pack of Cambridge University.

Pack & Co argue that the Libyan uprising was not homogenous. There were ‘multiple simultaneous uprisings’ far away from Colonel Gaddafi’s powerbases in Tripoli, Sabha and Sirte, in areas of the country where his writ ran courtesy of local strongmen and tribes. Gaddafi was never strong enough to assert his dictatorship in these regions. His authority evaporated in Tobruk because local militia would not fire upon their brothers.