Libya since Independence: Oil and State-building

by Dirk Vandewalle

Although Libya and its current leader have been the subject of numerous accounts, few have considered how the country's tumultuous history, its institutional development, and its emergence as an oil economy combined to create a state whose rulers ignored the notion of modern statehood. International isolation and a legacy of internal turmoil have destroyed or left undocumented much of what researchers might seek to examine. Dirk Vandewalle supplies a detailed analysis of Libya's political and economic development since the country's independence in 1951, basing his account on fieldwork in Libya, archival research in Tripoli, and personal interviews with some of the country's top policymakers. Vandewalle argues that Libya represents an extreme example of what he calls a "distributive state," an oil-exporting country where an attempt at state-building coincided with large inflows of capital while political and economic institutions were in their infancy. Libya's rulers eventually pursued policies that were politically expedient but proved economically ruinous, and disenfranchised local citizens. Distributive states, according to Vandewalle, may appear capable of resisting economic and political challenges, but they are ill prepared to implement policies that make the state and its institutions relevant to their citizens. Similar developments can be expected whenever local rulers do not have to extract resources from their citizens to fund the building of a modern state.

Genres: History, Middle East, Libya, Africa

256 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1998

Reviews

[Lizzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid analysis of the development of the Libyan state- much path dependency, distributive state, and ect. as in Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats: Oil and the State in Saudi Arabia, the great white whale of my started-but-not-yet-finished book pile. Writing this weeks after I finished, the main argument I remember is that distributive states have weak bureaucratic and regulatory powers that leave them especially disadvantaged if political and economic change diminishes the utility of largess as a strategy for regime survival.

p.188: "The seeming imperviousness to opposition and change, even the relatively low levels of actual coercion and violence, are more indicative of weakness than of success. Libya under the monarchy and Qadhafi has been marked by a relative stability that is more characteristic of what the state avoided than of what it accomplished: it has side-stepped the cooptation that marks state-building in productive economies; it has postponed a severe fiscal crisis that would necessitate political accommodation and force it to allow economic institutions to act more independently; and it has not yet been forced to face sustained and concerted opposition."

[Ahmed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good Book for someone interested in how the Libyan Political System worked under Colonel Muammar Qaddafi. While theoretically the system underpinning Qaddafi's Jamahiriya worked well in theory, its application in practice has not worked very well, lets say it was messy .

Dirk explains well why the system has not worked providing in-depth analysis. Finally its just shows the same kind of the story under Mao's socialists' china.

After realizing the failure of such a system Qaddafi has tried to adopt liberal polices , however without actual institutions that can provide guidance on the transformation such as in the case of Singapore the polices failed and led to the government be more authoritarian.

Although Gaddafi has departed the political scene in 2011, all governments in Libya post 2011 have been authoritarian and pragmatic. Without a strong determination to change these behaviors adopting more liberal polices and government being more democratic the future of Libya will likely to be more chaotic.

[Joseph · Rating 2 out of 5]

ok, i forgot how lame and obnoxious international economic theorists write.

if i read the term "distributive largesse" once more in the book i would have puked. that being said, i did learn some interesting tidbits about my favorite rogue state. "the stateless state" is something that i find fascinating and its implementation (or lack thereof) left me thinking. it also made me wonder about how unique libya's "development" was as a rentier state vis-a-vis others such as kuwait and saudi arabia. that being said, gaddafi's politics continue to fascinate me and i am determined to read other books that give the real dirt on this fascinating country.

[Jim Jewell · Rating 4 out of 5]

great book on Libyans economy and politics under qadhafi