Social Cleavages and Armed Group Consolidation: The Case of Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan Arab Armed Forces

Abstract

In Libya’s fragmented military landscape, Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan Arab Armed Forces stands out as the only armed group that concentrated power over entire regions. The interplay of relative power and social cleavages conditioned Haftar’s choices of consolidation strategies. As Haftar grew stronger, he progressively moved from cooperative and competitive approaches toward coercion. Social cleavages wrought by conflict–as opposed to seemingly objective group boundaries–contributed to shaping Haftar’s choices between coercive and cooperative strategies. The significance of these cleavages depended on how violence had shaped local social cohesion and armed groups’ links with communities.