Security Provision after Regime Change: Local Militias and Political Entities in Post-Qaddafi Tripoli

Abstract

This paper discusses the way the newly formed political entities and the local militias engage in statebuilding practices during Libya's transitional period of 2011–12. Focusing on the encounters between these actors in the security field, it provides insight into the capacity and strategy of national actors to build state structures and to develop the political arrangements that they deem necessary. It does so by identifying the key actors involved, as well as the interactions between them and the constantly evolving relations of control, power and authority. It shows how actors in the security field engage with each other in their efforts to expand and to institutionalize networks and influence, and the competition and alignments with other security actors that are active in the transitional phase and thereafter