Abstract
The foreign policy of a state is conventionally considered to be the sum of the external actions carried out by the state as a unitary actor within the sphere of international relations.1 In fact, the term often has a more purposive quality about it, in that the actions are designed or intended to produce outcomes that are to the advantage of the primary actor, the state, as is implied in a dictionary definition of the term “policy.”2 Conventionally, too, such actions are seen as directed primarily toward ensuring the security of a state in terms of its external relations.
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Notes
Christopher Hill, “Foreign Policy,” in The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World, ed. J. Krieger, et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 290.
“A course of action or principle adopted or proposed by a government, party, individual, etc.; any course of action adopted as advantageous or expedient; Lesley Brown, ed., The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), 2274.
Kola Folayan, Tripoli During the Reign of Yusuf Pasha Qaramanli (Ile-Ife: University of Ife Press, 1979), 26–30.
E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Sanusi of Cyrenaica (Oxford: Clarendon, 1947), 98, refers to the “Turco-Sanusi condominium” to describe this.
John Wright, Libya (London: Ernest Benn, 1969), 201–5
Mary-Jane Deeb, Libya’s Foreign Policy in North Africa (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), 104–5.
E. G. H. Joffé, “Libya’s Saharan Destiny,” Journal of North African Studies 10, no. 3–4 (September–December 2005), 613.
E. G. H. Joffé, “Chad: Power Vacuum or Geo-political Focus?” in The Geography of the Landlocked States of Africa and Asia, ed. I. Griffiths, B. W. Hodder, K. S. McLachlan, and R. N. Schofield, (London: UCL Press, 1996).
Dirk Vandewalle, Libya Since Independence: Oil and State-building (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 82.
Mahmoud M. Ayoub, Islam and the Third Universal Theory: the religious thought of Muammar al-Qadhdhafi (London: Kegan-Paul International, 1987), 104–8.
Political union between Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Sudan was proposed in 1971, and politely rejected by Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat, whilst the Numayri government in Sudan ignored Libyan initiatives, eventually exciting Libyan hostility. In Tunisia, President Bourguiba was initially seduced into accepting Colonel Qadhafi’s proposals, until his prime minister, Hedi Nouira, drew his attention to the disadvantages. There were also short-lived plans for similar links with Algeria. See Mary-Jane Deeb, Libya’s Foreign Policy in North Africa (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991), 71–135.
An interesting counterview is contained in an early study of the Qadhafi regime: H. P. Habib Libya past and present (Valetta and Tripoli: Aadam, 1979), 285. This argues that unity is essential for Arab survival, and Libya, in promoting such initiatives, was misunderstood by politicians who did not appreciate the underlying realities facing the Arab world.
George Joffé, “Libya’s Saharan destiny,” Journal of North African Studies 10, no. 3–4 (September–December 2005), 608.
René Lemarchand counted fourteen different Libyan attempts at destabiliza-tion in Africa, including four direct military interventions up to 1987. René Lemarchand, ed., The Green and the Black: Qadhafi’s policies in Africa (Bloomington and Indianapolis: University of Indiana Press, 1998), 9–10.
See Patrick Seale, Abu Nidal: a gun for hire (London: Hutchinson, 1992).
Lorna Hahn, Historical dictionary of Libya (Metuchen and London: Scarecrow, 1981), 63.
At the end of 1979,40 percent of Libya’s oil exports went to the United States! See F. Wadhams, The Libyan oil industry (London: Croom Helm, 1980), 324–30.
“The term “charisma” will be applied to a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader.” Max Weber, Theory of social and economic organisation, Talcott Parsons and A. M. Henderson, trans. (New York: Free, 1947), 358.
Martin Sicker, The Making of a Pariah State: The Adventurist Politics of Muammar Qaddafi (New York: Praeger, 1987), 112–20.
This is discussed in great detail in Joseph T. Stanik, El Dorado Canyon: Reagan’s undeclared war with Qaddafi (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2003).
Hannah Arendt points out that such charismatic authoritarian systems often generate large areas of political autonomy within the bureaucratic structures in which the leading elements anticipate leadership decisions and orientations in making autonomous decisions of their own. The conventional superficial pyramidal system of authority is, in effect, a cover for bureaucratic confusion and autonomy, which can lead to self-defeating policies in both the domestic and external spheres. See Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil (New York: Viking, 1965). It is precisely such views that are now adduced to explain the 1932–33 famine in the Soviet Union, rather than solely the malevolence of the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin.
See S. G. Wheatcroft and R. W. Davies, “The Soviet famine of 1932–1933 and the crisis in agriculture,” in Challenging traditional views of Russian history, ed. S.G. Wheatcroft (London: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2002).
W. I. Zartman and A. C. Kluge, “Qaddafi’s foreign policy,” American-Arab Affairs 6 (Fall 1983), 183.
Ronald Bruce St John, Qaddafi’s world design: Libyan foreign policy1969–1987 (London: Saqi Books, 1987), 143–50.
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Joffé, G. (2008). Prodigal or Pariah?. In: Vandewalle, D. (eds) Libya since 1969. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-61386-7_9
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