Tag Archives: sociology

Article: What drives public trust in the military in non-democracies

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Abouzzohour, Yasmina & Tarik M. Yousef. 2023. What drives public trust in the military in non-democracies: Evidence from Libya (2014-2019). The Journal of North African Studies. [open access]

This article investigates the conditions that lead to heightened trust in the military in non-democracies through an empirical study of post-2011 Libya. Drawing on the political science and sociology literatures on institutional trust in non-democratic contexts, we develop hypotheses linking public trust in the military to personal safety, political interest, Islamist orientation, trust in institutions, regionalism, and support for democracy. Using survey data collected by the Arab Barometer between 2014 and 2019, we empirically test these hypotheses. Our findings reveal a confluence of factors driving trust in the military in Libya, including regional, generational, educational, and class divides. Being older, male, and from the East contribute positively to trust in the military as well as perceived personal safety, trust in government, interest in politics, and support for democracy. On the other hand, an Islamist orientation, education and income are negatively correlated. These results allow us to speculate about the drivers of trust in the military. In particular, the positive impact of personal safety and support for democracy could reflect the public's perception of the army as responsible for ensuring safety and protecting a nation in turmoil. The role of interest in politics could be attributed to the charged context of politics and security after the 2014 elections. Notably, regional exceptionalism in the East could be related to the role and behaviour of the eastern-based, self-proclaimed Libyan National Army. Our paper contributes to the limited empirical research on trust in the military in non-democracies, backsliding in conflict countries, and political attitudes in Libya.

Article: Reluctant Militants: Colonialism, Territory, and Sanusi Resistance on the Ottoman‐Saharan Frontier

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Jonathan Lohnes. 2021. Reluctant Militants: Colonialism, Territory, and Sanusi Resistance on the Ottoman‐Saharan Frontier. Journal of Historical Sociology 34(3), 466-478. [paywall]

Abstract: Libya's enigmatic Sanusi brotherhood has been the subject of perennial debate since its emergence in Ottoman Cyrenaica in the mid nineteenth century, becoming a screen upon which apologists and detractors could project their own political anxieties and desires. For European critics, the brotherhood embodied the irrationality and fanaticism of the Islamic East. Its networks in North and Central Africa constituted an obstacle to their expansionist designs, while Sanusi prestige throughout the Muslim world rendered the brotherhood a threat to the entire colonial order of things. Nationalist historiography has generally endorsed this view, albeit with a positive valence, characterizing the Sanusiyya as an anticolonial social movement. Meanwhile, modern critical scholarship has tried to impose order on the chaos of the turn-of-the-century Sahara by assigning to the fraternity the role of a “proto-state.” This article proposes a new framework for understanding the history and sociology of the Sanusi. Drawing on theorists of subaltern resistance such as James Scott and Michael Adas—alongside Ottoman, British, French, and Italian primary sources—I demonstrate that the brotherhood began its life as an inward-looking Islamic social justice movement with little evident interest in state building or the geopolitical controversies of the moment. I coin the term “reluctant militants” to describe its mercurial trajectory from frontier evangelism to armed struggle in response to French and Italian colonial encirclement. This process culminated in the Long War of 1911–1931, during which the Sanusiyya played a critical part in the struggles over post-Ottoman reconstruction, from the Maghreb to Anatolia.

Article: A State of Discord: A Sociohistorical Reflection on Contested Statehood in Libya

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El Taraboulsi-McCarthy, Sherine. 2023. A State of Discord: A Sociohistorical Reflection on Contested Statehood in Libya. In Armando Salvatore, Sari Hanafi & Kieko Obuse (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Abstract: Contrary to the majority of Western scholarship on Libya, which ascribes Libya’s “statelessness” to a failure on the part of local actors to adopt modern state formation following independence in 1951, the author argues that this view fails to take into account local power dynamics among social actors and between social actors and the state (colonial and postcolonial) that manifested themselves in modes of cooperation and contestation and have shaped Libya’s experience with statehood. The author shows that while contestation among social actors before and after independence had been stronger than centralizing forces, resulting in a state of discord, this should be explained in context and through a local account of Libya’s history as a colonized country. This chapter calls for a more robust incorporation of temporal aspects of social and political development in theorizing the state in Libya and the Arab world.

Book: A Bibliography of Libyan Sociologists

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As a research aid, the Libyan sociologist Mustafa al-Tir (مصتفى عمر التير) published a bilingual English-Arabic bio-bibliography of sociologists and anthropologists in Libya in the early 1980s. In it, he writes:

“Producing bibliographies and indexes, whether general or specialised, is an important concern of those organising or propagating knowledge in society…Bibliographies and indexes are, of course, essential for the development of scientific research…

I have noticed on more than one occasion that many Libyan planners and scholars ignore sociological studies which have been carried out in their own society…and that some planners seek the help of specialised experts in social sciences from abroad while native experts, no less competent and probably much more so, because of their knowledge of the language, values and systems of this society, are available…The wrong lies in their complete negligence of the works of their native colleagues.

I believe that the negligence on the part of many students, planners and specialists of the works of Libyan researchers in social sciences is due, partly at least, to their failure to recognise the availability of local experience and their ignorance of the works of Libyan researchers.”

Attir, Mustafa O. 1980(?). The Libyan Sociologists, anthropologists and social works and their scientific research. Arab Development Institute: Tripoli.

 مصتفى عمر التير. 1980. المتخصصون الليبيون في علوم الاجتماع و الانسان و الخدمة الاجتماعية و نشاطهم العلمي. معهد الانماء العربي: طرابلس

A PDF of the work can be found here.