Book

Description

Libya did not lose the idea of the state. It kept postponing its completion. In The Deferred State: Libya and the Search for Stability, Abdulbare Ishleebat examines the political and social forces that have shaped modern Libya and confronts one of the country's most difficult questions: Why did the fall of a political regime not automatically lead to the rise of a stable state? From independence and the Qaddafi era to the upheaval of 2011, political fragmentation, armed conflict, foreign intervention, and the continuing struggle for national stability, the book explores the deeper challenges facing the Libyan state. It examines the relationship between state and regime, political legitimacy, oil and public wealth, armed groups and military institutions, foreign influence, reconciliation, constitutional order, and the difficult path toward rebuilding unified national institutions. Neither a defense of one side nor an indictment of another, The Deferred State offers a distinctly Libyan perspective, combining political and social analysis with the author's own reading of Libya's modern experience. This is not simply a book about Libya's past. It is an attempt to understand its present and search for a realistic path toward its future. A state deferred is not necessarily a state lost.