Escalating power struggles are driving Libya's transitional process towards collapse. Under the rallying cry of fighting terrorism, disparate political forces are seeking to suspend the transitional framework. They have no viable alternative to offer. External actors have insufficient influence...

Representatives of Libya's warring parties are close to reaching a UN-mediated power-sharing agreement that would establish a Government of National Accord (GNA). Assuming it is finalized, the deal will be fragile. Its implementation will be fraught with tensions and can collapse at any moment...

Since the establishment of the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli, in March 2016, a handful of local militias have gradually brought much of the Libyan capital under their control. Although nominally loyal to the GNA, these armed groups today in fact dominate the...

Libya's longstanding political deadlock reached breaking point with the fighting between rival militias in Tripoli in September 2018. Throughout the preceding two years of political stalemate, the UN-led approach to negotiations remained vested in defunct institutions that blocked any progress....

Recent advances by Khalifa Haftar's 'Libyan Arab Armed Forces' in southern Libya are changing power relations in Libya in ways that undermine the UN's ongoing attempts at brokering a political solution. Haftar's increasing influence implies he will be less open to concessions, while key forces...

Almost eight months into the offensive on Tripoli by Khalifa Haftar's 'Libyan Arab Armed Forces' (LAAF), the war shows no signs of abating. Ongoing diplomatic efforts are divorced from realities on the ground. The current balance of forces rules out any possibility for a return to a political...

The yearlong offensive on Tripoli by Khalifa Haftar's forces has suffered fatal setbacks, and Libya's conflicts are changing shape. Russia's and Turkey's attempts at carving out spheres of influence are bound to collide with the interests of other foreign powers and with the fluidity of Libya's...

The formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU) under Abdelhamid Dabeiba in March 2021 was a breakthrough in efforts to overcome Libya's political division. But the settlement's flaws are already starting to show. So far, political actors have merely agreed to compete for access to state...

This is an exercise in contemporary history that aims to give a comprehensive background and analysis to the current (2012) political crisis in Mali, generated by the start of a new Tuareg nationalist uprising against the state, complemented by a coordinated attack on the state by both...

Resource curse theory claims that resource abundance encourages violent conflict. A study of 37 oil-producing developing countries, however, reveals that oil states with very high levels of oil revenue are remarkably stable. An analysis of the ways in which governments spend oil revenues...