Political order in post-war Libya: Armed groups, weak institutions, jihadist spoilers, and incentives for de-escalation

UNDER SUBMISSION

Libya after Qadhafi provides an interesting case study for how the structure of post-war environments shape the decisions of political factions with varied resources and organizational capacities. In Libya, the structure created incentives for de-escalation during the dozens of violent skirmishes that took place from 2011 to 2014 that, in other contexts, could easily have tipped into civil war. Only in early 2014 did incentives favouring de-escalation shift, leading the main groups to fracture the transition and pursue military strategies to achieve their aims. This article provides an analytic narrative for the stalemate in post-war Libya and its collapse.