The process of political transition on post-Arab Spring Libya: foreign-imposed regime change (FIRC), tribe, militias, and civil war

Is it possible to export democracy by force? This article deals with this question as applied to the NATO/U.S. military intervention in Libya, in 2011, during the Arab- Spring uprisings and its aftermath. We will test and refine the Foreign Imposed Regime Change (FIRC) model using the qualitative methods of case study and process-tracing. By doing this, we will be able to identify independent variables not anticipated by the FIRC model, unveiling the actual, extraordinarily complex social-political cleavages of the country that hinder democratization and conduce to civil war.