Thinkers and political figures
Portrait: US Navy photograph, via Wikimedia Commons (opens in a new tab) · Public domain
Muammar Gaddafi
- Country
- Libya
- Era
- 1942–2011
- Tradition
- Third International Theory, personalist rule
Officer who seized power at twenty-seven and ruled Libya for forty-two years under a theory of direct popular committees that in practice concentrated all power in himself.
01
Documented positions
Documented positions come from the sources listed. Similarity is this project’s inference from those positions, and is a much weaker claim.
- Set out the Third International Theory in the Green Book, rejecting both capitalism and communism in favour of direct popular committees
- Nationalised oil and used the revenue for housing, education, health care and the Great Man-Made River project
- Abolished conventional government structures in 1977, declaring a "state of the masses" with no formal head of state
- Banned political parties and independent civil society, and had exiled opponents killed abroad
- Funded armed movements abroad, and Libya was found responsible for the Lockerbie bombing
- Renounced weapons of mass destruction programmes in 2003 and normalised relations with Western states
- Promoted African political union and paid a large share of the African Union’s budget
02
Where it sits on each dimension
Wealth and inequality
18
RedistributionMarket outcomes
Evidence: Well documented
The state in the economy
14
Active stateLimited state
Evidence: Well documented
Personal liberty
3
Collective orderIndividual freedom
Evidence: Well documented
Nation and the world
82
InternationalistNationalist
Evidence: Well documented
Religion and the state
62
Secular stateReligion in public life
Evidence: Documented
Power and its limits
3
Concentrated authorityChecks and pluralism
Evidence: Well documented
Crime and punishment
8
PunishmentRehabilitation
Evidence: Documented
Dimensions left unscored, for want of evidence: Tradition and change, Environment and growth
Sources
- Muammar Gaddafi, The Green Book · 1975
- Human Rights Watch, Libya: June 1996 Killings at Abu Salim Prison · 2006
Last verified: