Originally Posted by
Steve the Planner
Marc:
We tend to focus not on promoting democracy but on establishing or maintaining nation-state power structures.
The debate in the Arab world, in my opinion, has, over the last 90 years or so, focused on who gets to control the apparatus of a strong central government descending from the ancient Persian/Greece/Roman empire models, which place sub-national governance/government in a very inferior position easily controlled from above.
What is fascinating to me about Libya is that, unlike the perennial battle over who gets to be in charge (ultimately creating one form of dictatorship over the previous), is that, with no pre-existing pattern, people are beginning to form, admittedly on an experimental and informal basis) sub-national governance structures.
The question they raise, which is markedly different from other countries, is not "who?," but "how?," which, I believe is the first crack in a wall that has, for the most part, held Arab peoples back, and diverted their attention from the issues needed to be addressed in more sophisticated and urbanized systems like they once had in Babylon, etc...
While the results are unpredicatable, in my view, the challenges raised and faced in Libya (free from distortion of anti-imperialism and poverty of resources) are fundamental ones: How do we, as a modern, young Arab society wish to govern ourselves to provide essential services and opportunities?
The Arab World's future may be re-shaped by these nascent Libyan experiments, which, hopefully will impact all the old, unworkable and externally-derived nation-state systems.
Notably, in a world of Nation-States, the shell and trappings are needed, but how can sub-national governance open opportunities (maybe not immediately) for Arab self-determination and civic advancement?
I heard a lady on CNN talking from Benghazi about what she wanted--- greater services, education, opportunities, freedom---voting rights, while perhaps significant vehicles to those ends, where not a front-runner.
). Consequently, in order to undermine the tribal structure of Libya as it existed under the previous monarch (Ghaddafi's own tribal lineage was singularly "unimpressive" so he couldn't draw on that power structure to prop himself up) Ghaddafi introduced popular councils, revolutionary committees, &c at all levels of government (talk about un-intended consequences!). Partly, this was to upset the tribal structure of Libya (which he has been largely succesful in suppressing, until now) but mostly it was to diffuse power to such a degree as to leave him the only centre of authroitative power in the hub-spoke system. He periodically, shook up those councils too. But the Libyan people, more perhaps than any other Arab or African state have a great deal of expertise in 
) especially after the return of Libyan jihadis from Afghanistan and the numerous (almost Nasserite) officer revolts since the late 70s. In fact, it was the absence of any real vertically authoritarian system that enabled the "revolt" to spread so quickly, given that there was no reliable coercive instrument to rely upon other than a few loyal "revolutionary" militias. He diffused his power so effectviely throughout the system that, in the end, he had nothing to back it up in an emergency (especially one in which the international system was not conducive to his particular brand of conflict resolution). It's a wonder he was in power so long (but that's nepotisim, clientelism, et al for you). What we are seeing now is the self-organisation of Libya based upon years of exerience but without Ghaddafi's braking mechanism. In the end, nothing succeeds like success; the question we have to ask ourselves is would the "revolt" have occured without Tunisia and Egypt? Which makes generalisations about the "causes" of revolution in general even more suspect.
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