Enforcing ‘Our Law’ When the State Breaks Down: The Case of Protection Economies in Libya and Their Political Consequences

Abstract

Much has been written about the challenges of rebuilding state institutions in the wake of conflict, or in the context of weak or failing states. There has however been much less attention paid to how local forms of governance develop, strengthen and evolve in the absence of state institutions. Our argument is that a key analytical tool for understanding this process is through the lens of ‘protection economies’, which have become a key dimension of most modern conflicts. These are the ability of armed actors to generate revenue and consolidate territorial control through the provision of protection around both licit and illicit resource flows. The result is the strengthening of some actors over others, while undercutting the prospects for longer term stability or state consolidation, given that providers of protection often have more to gain from the evolving ‘protection economy’ than from political compromise or peace. We demonstrate this through an examination of how localised protection economies have developed around smuggling and trafficking markets, and how this has contributed to the implosion of the state in Libya. The article draws from extensive fieldwork in Libya during 2011–2013, a crucial period in which the central state and legitimate democratic process was under considerable strain from competing localised militia groups. Arguably, the roots of the current governance crisis can be traced to the way that protection economies strengthened the role of certain actors in local governance, thereby fragmenting territorial control over the country.