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A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick Permanent WRAP URL: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/101760/ Copyright and reuse: This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. For more information, please contact the WRAP Team at: [email protected] warwick.ac.uk/lib-publications Political Agency and the Symbolic Legacy of Authoritarian Regimes: The Case of Libya Kawther Nuri Alfasi A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Politics and International Studies University of Warwick Department of Politics and International Studies September 2017 Contents Acknowledgements iii Abstract iv List of Acronyms v 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Why Study Political Agency? Why Authoritarianism? 2 1.2 Political Agency and the Libyan Uprising of 2011 7 1.3 Theoretical Framework 11 1.4 Research Methods and Reflexivity 16 1.5 Chapter Outline 21 2 Literature Review: Political Agency in the Middle East 25 2.1 Introduction 25 2.2 Political Agency and Resilient Autocracy 26 2.3 Political Agency: Beyond Democratisation and Authoritarian Resilience 32 2.4 Political Agency and the Arab Spring 38 2.5 Political Agency under Authoritarianism: Toward a Point of Enquiry 46 3 Theoretical Framework 48 3.1 Introduction 48 3.2 Structural Social Movement Theory 49 3.2.1 Political Process Theory 49 3.2.2 Multi-Institutional Politics Theory 53 3.3 Social Movement Framing Theory 58 3.4 Theories of Resistance 66 3.5 Theoretical Framework of the Thesis 73 4 Methodology and Research Design 78 4.1 Case Selection of Libya 78 4.2 Methodological Approach 87 4.3 Data Gathering Methods 89 Interviews 90 Social Movement Materials 94 Qadhafi-era Materials 96 4.4 Ethics and Research Validity 97 4.5 Conclusion 99 5 The Libyan Jamahiriya as Institution 101 5.1 Introduction 101 5.2 Material Control in the Jamahiriya: Coercion and Co-optation 102 5.3 Material Control in the Jamahiriya: Political and Public Institutions 114 5.4 The Symbolic Organisation of the Jamahiriya 128 5.5 Polysemy and Tolerated Transgression in the Jamahiriya 141 5.6 Conclusion 152 6 Agency as Strategic Articulation: ‘Framing’ the Libyan Uprising 154 6.1 Introduction 154 6.2 Networks of Framing in the Libyan Uprising 156 6.3 Collective Action Framing 166 6.3.1 Diagnostic Framing 166 6.3.2 Prognostic Framing 178 6.3.3 Motivational Framing 188 6.4 Strategic Framing as a Meaning Making Practice 196 6.5 Conclusion 207 i 7 Symbolic Contestation in the Libyan Uprising 209 7.1 Introduction 209 7.2 The Subversion of the Jamahiriya’s Symbolic Order 211 7.3 The 17 February Revolutionary Symbolic Order 223 7.4 Material Manifestations of the 17 February Symbolic Order 238 7.5 Dynamics of Domination in the Revolutionary Symbolic Order 245 7.6 Conclusion 261 8 Conclusion 264 8.1 Introduction 264 8.2 Core Arguments 268 8.3 Implications for Middle East Politics 273 8.4 Implications for Social Movement Theory 277 8.5 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research 280 Appendix I Images and Graffiti 285 Appendix II List of Interviews 293 Bibliography 294 Word Count: 76,502 ii Acknowledgements In writing this thesis, I am fortunate to have been surrounded by friends, family and colleagues with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of goodwill and patience. I am particularly beholden to my supervisors, Nicola Pratt and Renske Doorenspleet, for their encouragement, intellectual guidance, and attentive support during the many permutations that this project research has undergone. I am grateful to my parents for their longstanding embrace of my academic endeavours, and for their belief in my ability to see this project to its completion. To my siblings also, who have injected much-need laughter and social respite from the toils of isolated library visits. To Haret, for his generous assistance, and to Hammam, whose fierce commitment to intellectual integrity has radically shaped my own thinking. And to Sabah and Asli, for their staunch friendship, and for representing all that I cherish about living in Oxford. My sincerest thanks go to the activists who generously volunteered their time to speak with me. Their valuable, often challenging insights have contributed immeasurably to this study. This project was funded by the ESRC and I am deeply grateful for the opportunities it has provided. Finally, my thanks to my husband, Junaid Mubeen. From the outset, this has been a tale of a thesis and a marriage intertwined. Where I have wavered, he has remained steadfast; when I teetered towards resignation, he keep me grounded, regaling me with tales of trials and tribulations overcome, enlivening my thinking with alternative subjects, and delivering cups of tea when they have been most needed. I am grateful for his tenacity, and I can only hope that I have absorbed some of it during this journey. Declaration of Authenticity I declare that this thesis is entirely my own work of research. This thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made. Moreover, this thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university, and is less than 80,000 words in length. Kawther Nuri Alfasi, Oxford September 2017 iii Abstract This thesis examines the emergence of contentious forms of political agency during the Libyan uprising of 2011. The wave of popular protests known as the ‘Arab Spring’ challenged prevailing assumptions about the politics of the region. It was argued that, through their unfettered, claims making practices, Arab publics had undermined authoritarian structures of power, and become imbued with new, empowering self-understandings. Positioning itself within this literature on Middle East politics, the thesis sets out to analyse authoritarianism as a mode of domination, and to investigate the extent to which moments of radical contestation both transform authoritarian regimes and generate new political subjectivities. The analysis is centred on the Libyan uprising, which emerged under Qadhafi’s authoritarian Jamahiriya, yet witnessed widespread protests, civil activism and an armed conflict from February to August 2011. The thesis integrates multi-institutional politics theory with theories of contentious politics in order to conceptualise domination as located in social ‘institutions’ that are simultaneously material and symbolic. In turn, it understands agency as a strategic and symbolic representational practice that is capable of transforming institutional structures. Drawing on interviews with Libyan activists, and on the analysis of social movement discourses, the thesis advances three core arguments. Firstly, it argues that Qadhafi’s Jamahiriya embedded political agency into its system of domination by engendering complicity. Secondly, it argues that in 2011, Libyans undercut the Jamahiriya’s monopoly over meaning and practice by generating mobilising ‘collective action frames’, and by subverting its symbolic and classificatory schemas. Lastly, it indicates that representational practices ultimately struggled to transform authoritarian domination because they were bound up with the strategic logics of collective action, and because they re-inscribed the Jamahiriya’s definitions of power and collectivity. In proffering these arguments, this thesis generates a new body of empirical material on an understudied case, and critically applies, challenges and extends theories of authoritarianism and contentious politics. iv List of Acronyms BPC Basic Popular Congress GPC General People’s Congress ICC International Criminal Court LLHR Libyan League of Human Rights LYC Libya Youth Centre LYM Libyan Youth Movement NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NEDB National Economic Development Board NTC National Transitional Council NFSL National Front for the Salvation of Libya PPT Political Process Theory RCC Revolutionary Command Council RST Rentier State Theory RYC Revolutionary Youth Commission TCD Temporary Constitutional Declaration UNHRC United Nations Human Rights Council v 1 Introduction This thesis examines the emergence of political agency as a strategic and symbolic representational practice during the 2011 Libyan uprising. Drawing on multi- institutional theories of power and society, it argues that Colonel Muammar al- Qadhafi’s authoritarian regime, the ‘Jamahiriya’, enmeshed popular political agency within its system of domination. In turn, the Libyan uprising shifted these power dynamics: it led to the emergence of collective meaning making practices, in which Libyans mobilised against, and subverted, the Jamahiriya’s behavioural norms and classification schemes. However, I qualify the voluntaristic implications of this argument by indicating the ways in which this mode of articulation was constrained by the logics of collective action, and by the Jamahiriya’s symbolic ordering of reality. The thesis thus presents a critical appraisal of the oft-reiterated claim that, during the ‘Arab Spring’, ‘the will of the people [was] expressed without intermediary’ (Achcar 2013: 1).1 This chapter will signal the importance of ‘political agency’ as a concept in contemporary social and cultural theory, distinguishing it from more conventional terms such as ‘political participation’. Framing a research agenda in terms of ‘agency’ is a particularly pertinent undertaking in light of the demonstrations and protests that took place in the Arab world from late 2010, and which saw the overthrow of 1 The term ‘Arab Spring’ has been much popularised by Western and Arab media, and has entered the research lexicon. The thesis uses it to refer to the mass protests and uprisings that occurred across the Arab region from the end of 2010 onwards, but it does so sparingly, in recognition of the fact that it remains a contested term (Ahmary and Wedday 2012; Pappé 2014; Monier 2015; Cherkaoui 2016).