AbstractsSociology

This present project is an investigation on how Libya’s head of state from 1969-2011, Muammar Gaddafi, was able to maintain political stability in an authoritarian regime that did not posses any form of democratic legitimacy. The theoretical framework is based upon Milan W. Slovik’s work on authoritarian regimes, Mabrouka al-Werfalli’s work on legitimacy and academic literature on neopatrimonialism from various authors. Gaddafi managed to put himself in a position where he prevented any serious threats from emerging against him by replacing and reshuffling people in influential positions, eliminating actual formal institutions and not allowing for any open opposition or civil society to emerge. He furthermore distanced himself from the governmental body by elevating his own position to that of the leader of the revolution. His role as a revolutionary leader and the charisma that surrounded him as a person created a sense of legitimacy behind the regime. Additionally he utilized the rents from Libya’s energy resources to provide the population with economic benefits and thus gained eudaemonic legitimacy. Moreover, the neopatrimonial mechanisms of Libya played an important role. When dealing with the broad population and the elite, Gaddafi, as the predominant patron of Libya, made use of both mass clientelism and elite clientelism by providing material advantages of different kinds and receiving a political support in return. These different ways of dealing with the population and the elite in order to maintain a stable society overlapped and intertwined, which is why they strengthened each others effect on Gaddafi’s way of sustaining stability in Libya.