IR, imperialism, and the Global South: From Libya to Venezuela

Abstract

This article brings together two cases to contribute to the growing body of literature rethinking the study of international relations (IR) and the Global South: The Libyan Arab al-Jamāhīrīyah and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Drawing on media representations and secondary literature from IR and international political economy (IPE), it critically examines three main conceptual theses (authoritarian, rentier, and rogue) used to describe the historical socio-political formations of these states up to this date. Mixing oil abundance with authoritarian revolutionary fervour and foreign policy adventurism, Libya and Venezuela have been progressively reduced to the figure of one man, while presenting their current crises as localized processes delinked from the imperialist inter-state system. The article argues that these analyses, if left unquestioned, perpetuate a US-led imperial ordering of the world, while foreclosing and discrediting alternatives to capitalist development emerging from and grounded in a Global South context. In doing so, the article contributes to the growing and controversial debate on the meanings and needs for decolonizing the study of IR.

Theorising Sanctions as Warfare: Insights from the US-Led Aggression on Libya

“…Vladimir Kontorovich (2013) argues that US academics preferred to ignore the possibility that developmental strategies can arise from defensive concerns. Rather they opted to explain these developmental strategies as the result of bizarre preferences by Soviet rulers; this is an argument that resonates strongly with mainstream scholarship on the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Capasso 2021). For instance, when the collapse of oil prices happened in the 1980s-as mentioned above, this translated into a massive reduction of Libya's national budget, which initially caused the government to push for "maximum production" in the heavy industry and "minimum consumption" of non-necessary goods.…”

“…While providing a more nuanced analysis of the on-the-ground effects of sanctions on the Libyan population, Tim Niblock's book, Pariah States & Sanctions in the Middle East: Iraq, Libya, Sudan (2001), also fails to question the motives that led to their imposition. On par with Libyan political historiography, the country is presented as a "rogue, aggressive" state, threatening the stability of the international order (Capasso 2021).…”