ABSTRACT

Chapter 7 , From military regimes to militia’s rule focuses on the monopoly of violence and the provision of security, a key aspect of the state according to most definitions. Regime change in Iraq and Libya brought with it a rejection of the oppressive and predatory role of the security apparatuses of the respective regimes. As events evolved, such a rejection conflicted with the process of rebuilding a nationally cohesive structure representing the state’s monopoly over the means of violence and favoured the militia-isation of the security apparatus. The Iraqi Security Forces failed to represent the nation as a whole, either in their ethno-religious or social composition. The many security providers in Libya are far from representing a unitary actor. In both countries the security sector has maintained some of the undemocratic features that characterised their previous regimes, with the further complication that they no longer respond to a single power centre but to multiple ones. This situation compromised the restoration of the monopoly of the means of violence in the state, and thus, its authority.