Challenges of Democratic Transition and State Building in Libya

Abstract

After the broad revolutionary movement that the Arab region witnessed during the year 2011, the hopes of the peoples were fulfilled in overthrowing authoritarian regimes that had monopolized power for decades. While the peaceful revolution succeeded in Tunisia and Egypt, it was bloody in Libya, and the principle of violence and fighting prevailed there as a means of change. The fall of the Gaddafi regime was announced on 23 October 2011. Then came the post-change phase, burdened with the challenges that were the result of the previous phase and the violence that dominated the course of the revolution. Those who confronted it had no choice but to move forward with the democratic project that establishes the principle of the peaceful transfer of power. As is the case with all the changes that took place in the Arab region, which were subject to two aspects of challenges, internal and external, the situation in Libya is more critical and complex in the nature of the existing regime, and in the risks and repercussions that Libya could be exposed to within its tense regional environment and the ambitions of Europe and the United States, given its importance as an oil-rich country, and the internal challenges are the direct line of contact in the transformations taking place in Libya, so the focus will be more detailed as much as the study allows in a group of the following paragraphs: