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I've been following the recent events in Libya and I learned about the Green Book, which outlines Gaddafi's vision for a democratic socialism. Published in 1975, it proposed a form of direct democracy supposedly implemented in Libya called Jamahiria.

"This new theory is based on the authority of the people, without representation or deputation. It achieves direct democracy in an orderly and effective form. It is superior to the older attempts at direct democracy which were impractical because they lacked popular organizations at base levels."

Gaddafi was widely critical of the different forms of dictatorship through history, and he even counted representative democracies among them. "The most tyrannical dictatorships the world has known have existed under the aegis of parliaments."

He claimed western democracy is not democratic enough; that he was not "the leader", and "you don't understand the system here".

How well do we understand the system there? How did Jamahiria actually work in practice, was there actually a process of direct democracy, to any degree?

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2 Answers

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Jamahiriya translated is a state of the masses. The way that Gaddafi explained it was that the state was governed by the populace through local councils, and he was the designated leader of the people. In reality, it was an authoritarian state with Gaddafi in sole power.

In practice, the government was organized into "people's committees", which were local representatives. Each people's committee reported to the General People's Committee, which was Gaddafi's cabinet, with Gaddafi as the General Secretary and the primary decision maker.

The people's committees consisted of local people from each municipality who were elected into the position and served a three year term. This went through several different variations and forms, with the people's committees being formed at different levels, but ultimately the decision was to leave them at the municipality level.

So in response to your question, there was a somewhat limited form of democracy in the the representatives on the people's committees were elected. While these committees may have operated with the best interests of their constituents in mind, the final authority on all decisions fell to Gaddafi.

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not exactly ,in theory he doesnt rule,the people tell what they want,and the other people called "people section" execute these decisions.he just a viewer and the final decision in the hand of people by these committee ,by debate – md nth Dec 24 '12 at 20:41
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Smoke and mirrors. It's all lies - he was your standard run-of-the-mill dictator. This includes finding fancy justifications for one's powers, in his case "direct democracy".

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Why the downvote? This is correct: after all, the actual system used (as detailed in @Steven's answer) directly contradicts his book itself, since it was representative. – Lohoris Dec 24 '12 at 15:48
yep,he always says best things but do the worst things ,just a fantasy , and it was very violent security system. – md nth Dec 24 '12 at 18:44
Felix, your statement doesn't really add anything to the question: Yes, it's evident that things were quite different from the ideals held up in the Green Book, thus the point of my question. Even under a dictatorship (and especially a strong "successful" one) I'm sure there was a structure of power and distributed decision-making down to the local level: one man alone can't run the country. – Andrew Vit Dec 28 '12 at 22:17
@AndrewVit: Thanks for the clarification, Andrew. However, I think I did answer the last question at the end of your post: "was there actually a process of direct democracy, to any degree?". No, there wasn't. If you want to ask how was Libya run at the local level (as you correctly point out, every state is run somehow), then it's a separate, perhaps more interesting question. – Felix Goldberg Dec 28 '12 at 23:43

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