The United States and Libya: the limits of coercive diplomacy

Abstract

The protests that have broken out across North Africa in 2011 over, among other issues, demands for increased democracy draw our attention to the manner in which the United States has sought to promote democracy across the region during previous decades. The case of Libya is particularly insightful. The rehabilitation of Qadhafi's regime, one of the harshest dictatorships in the region, surprised those who had hoped that the United States was serious about making democracy and good governance one of its foreign policy objectives. In focusing on events since 1999, this article argues that the United States conditioned normalisation on Libya's cooperation in the fight against terrorism and the abandonment of its nuclear programme. Notably, it succeeded in affecting Libya's behaviour. However, other issues such as human rights and good governance have not been part of the package. The rehabilitation of Qadhafi's regime without fundamental change to its structures has not enticed the regime to democratise and has contributed to the consolidation of its authoritarian nature. The Libyan case demonstrates that coercive diplomacy has succeeded in affecting Libya's policy decisions in important ways, yet the US has not significantly affected the nature of Qadhafi's dictatorial rule.