ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a second case study. It focuses on the death of Libyan leader Muamar Qadaffi at the hands of a rebellious population. It identifies the killing of Qadaffi as an act of regicide. However, it insists that the meaning of that act of regicide depends on how one contextualizes it. When situated in its local, Libyan context, it was an act of Jacobin genocide, intended to get rid of a cruel and self-satisfied dictator, whose execution would free the country to pursue the path of democracy and progress. When situated in the context of the practice of democratic peace, in which Western leaders and commentators were prone to situate it, it was a regicide of a different order. Western leaders eliminated what they took to be a “rogue,” but they took Qadaffi to be a rogue first and foremost because of his kingly conduct. Democratic peace targets kings. Democratic peace targets kings because kingship is antithetical to its mores. Kingship, from its perspective, is not prestigious, but roguish. Democratic peace performs regicide in order to defend the peace. As a local event, the killing of Qadaffi served progressive purposes. As an international event, however, it betrayed a defensive character. To the extent that the interpretation has merit, it gives new insight into the cultural logic of the democratic peace. In addition to its romantic and neo-medieval streak (which the desire for the exemplary punishment of Qadaffi confirms), the episode draws attention to its participation in the Scottish Enlightenment's revaluation of virtue and manners (and refined manners as a sign of ethical virtue), thus affirming again its distance from the ideal-typically modern concept of peace.
