The LSE–Gaddafi affair was a scandal in the United Kingdom that occurred as a result of relationship that existed between the London School of Economics (LSE) and the Libyan government and its leader Muammar Gaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.
The NGO Gaddafi Foundation pledged to donate £1.5 million over five years to a research centre, LSE Global Governance, of which £300k were paid. In addition, LSE Enterprise established a contract worth £2.2 million to train Libyan officials. In 2008, the LSE granted a PhD degree to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan leader, for a dissertation. While a LSE review panel in 2011 found the circumstances adjusted for, allegations continue to circulate that Gaddafi's thesis was ghost-written and/or plagiarised.
In December 2010, Muammar Gaddafi addressed members of the School in a video link-up where he was addressed as "Brother Leader" and received an LSE cap previously given to Nelson Mandela. At the time of the 2011 Libyan Civil War, the relationship between the LSE and the Gaddafi regime and the conduct of individual members of LSE's staff were called into question.See, for example, ; Wall Street Journal, "Institutions Scramble to Check on Libya Ties," 6 March 2011.
As a result of the scandal, the LSE's Director, Sir Howard Davies, resigned on 3 March 2011, citing "errors of judgement". In a New York Times op-ed piece on 7 March 2011, Roger Cohen wrote, in reference to events that had transpired at the school, "It may be possible to sink to greater depths but right now I can't think how. ...The Arab Spring is also a Western Winter. ...How did we back, use and encourage the brutality of Arab dictators over so many years? To what degree did that cynical encouragement of despots foster the very jihadist rage Western societies sought to curb?"Libyan Closure," New York Times, 7 March 2011.
LSE and the Monitor Group
In 2004 Libya's government engaged Monitor Group, a Boston-based, Harvard-linked, consultancy firm founded by Harvard Business School professor Mark Fuller, as advisors on matters of public relations.Michael Richardson, "Monitor Group Touted for Muammar Khadafy over Torture of Bulgarian Nurses," 11 March 2011. According to leaked documents, Monitor Group received £2 million "in order to enhance international understanding and appreciation of Libya and the contribution it has made and may continue to make to its region and to the world." In addition, "the goal is to introduce Muammar Gaddafi as a thinker and intellectual, independent of his more widely known and very public persona as the Leader of the Revolution in Libya."Mother Jones
A number of Harvard University academics were active within Monitor.
One way to achieve this aim was to recruit prominent journalists and intellectuals who were prepared to travel to Libya and write in positive terms about the country. A prime target were academics associated with the LSE, such as professor Anthony Giddens (Giddens is a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge and is an Emeritus professor at LSE). In 2006 and 2007 the company organized two trips to Libya for Giddens, when the former LSE Director met with Muammar Gaddafi. Giddens has declined to comment on any financial compensation he received on these occasions.
Giddens' first visit to Libya resulted in articles in the New Statesman, El País and La Repubblica, where he argued that Libya had been transformed. In the New Statesman he wrote: "Gaddafi's 'conversion' may have been driven partly by the wish to escape sanctions, but I get the strong sense it is authentic and there is a lot of motive power behind it. Saif Gaddafi is a driving force behind the rehabilitation and potential modernisation of Libya. Gaddafi Sr, however, is authorising these processes."Anthony Giddens, "The Colonel and His Third Way," New Statesman, August 28, 2006. During the second visit, Monitor Group organized a panel of "three thinkers" — Giddens, Gaddafi, and Benjamin Barber, Emeritus professor of Rutgers University, author of the book Jihad vs. McWorld — chaired by the veteran journalist Sir David Frost.Mother;s Jones Returning from Libya, Giddens wrote about his "chat with the colonel," in the Guardian, concluding that "If Gadafy is sincere about reform, as I think he is, Libya could end up as the Norway of North Africa."Anthony Giddens, "My Chat with the Colonel," The Guardian, 9 March 2007.
LSE grants PhD degree to Saif Gaddafi
In 2008, Muammar Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, received a PhD from the Department of Philosophy at the LSE with a dissertation entitled "The Role of Civil Society in the Democratization of Global Governance Institutions: From 'Soft Power' to Collective Decision-Making?"Saif al-Islam Alqadhafi, "The Role of Civil Society in the Democratization of Global Governance Institutions: From 'Soft Power' to Collective Decision-Making?" PhD Thesis, London School of Economics, submitted in September 2007. His supervisor was Nancy Cartwright, a distinguished philosopher of science, and Alex Voorhoeve, a political philosopher, advised on chapter 4 and the first half of chapter 5.Jonathan Witteman, "Zoon Kadhafi schreef dissertatie over democratie 'en pleegde plagiaat'," de Volkskrant, 24 February 2011. In the text David Held is acknowledged as having "directly advised" the work. One of the two examiners, Lord Meghnad Desai, the founder of LSE Global Governance, had retired from LSE in 2003 and in 2007 was requested by the University of London to examine the thesis of Saif Gaddafi. The external examiner, Anthony McGrew, has collaborated with David Held on seven jointly written or co-edited books. There is some confusion regarding when the degree itself was awarded. The preface of the dissertation says it was submitted in September, 2007; an LSE press office statement says the PhD was "awarded in 2008"; but David Held is on record as saying Saif Gaddafi "received his PhD from the LSE in 2009."Saif Al-Islam Alqadhafi, "The Role of Civil Society in the Democratization of Global Governance Institutions: From 'Soft Power' to Collective Decision-Making?" PhD Thesis, London School of Economics, 2008; YouTube "Saif Gaddafi's Ralph Miliband Lecture," May 25, 2010. What is clear, however, is that the examiners raised concerns at the time of the viva which required revisions to be made and the dissertation to be resubmitted.Dipanakar De Sarkar, "Acclaimed NRIs in LSE-Libya we b," Hindustan Times, 4 March 2011.
In the acknowledgements, Gaddafi thanks "a number of individuals at Monitor Group with whom I worked to design and conduct the NGO Survey which provides empirical data for this thesis."Saif Al-Islam Alqadhafi, "The Role of Civil Society in the Democratization of Global Governance Institutions: From 'Soft Power' to Collective Decision-Making?" PhD Thesis, London School of Economics, 2008. This team consisted of Libyan and foreign academics, led by Professor Omran Bukhres, and included Bruce J. Allyn and Flora Rose, a Cambridge graduate who works for the leader of the House of Lords. When questioned, Monitor Group admitted to having contributed to the dissertation and acknowledged that such assistance had been a mistake. Their aim, they said, had been to "help the Gaddafi regime bring about change."Farah Stockman, "Local consultancy aided Khadafy," Boston Globe, 4 March 2011; The exact extent of the help provided by the team from Monitor Group is not established, and neither is it clear whether their contribution is in accordance with the rules of the University of London.See University of London, "Regulations for the Degrees of MPhil and PhD," item 9.4.4, various years. Cf. Hannes Baumann, "More than a 'Personal Error of Judgment': Seif Gaddafi and the London School of Economics," Jadaliyya, 15 March 2010. In addition, it has been claimed that parts of the dissertation have been plagiarized.See Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi Thesis Wiki; Dave Stone, "Saif Gaddadi, Ph.D, and the London School of Economics," The Russian Front, Feb 27, 2011.
"We read the thesis and examined Mr Gaddafi orally for two-and-a-half hours," Meghnad Desai commented, "at no stage did the supervisors or anyone else suggest to us that plagiarism was suspected and we found no reason to do so ourselves." "I can hardly be confident that nobody else helped him," said Nancy Cartwright, "since there's evidence that he lifted bits, but I'm confident that it isn't in the sense done by anybody else start to finish."Jonathan Owen, "LSE Insider Claims Gaddafi Donation Was ‘Openly Joked About’" Independent on Sunday, 13 March 2011. "We take these accusations seriously, of course," said Voorhoeve, "like any accusations of plagiarism." The claims of plagiarism are to be investigated by the LSE.
According to John Christensen who independently tutored Gaddafi in economics, "Saif lacked the intellectual depth to study at that level, and showed no willingness to read let alone do course work."John Christensen, The Sneer of Cold Command: My Encounter with Saif al-Islam Qadafi, Tax Justice Network, 28 February 2011.
Gaddafi donates money to LSE's North Africa Programme Even before Gaddafi had been examined for his PhD, according to a senior LSE source, the Pro-Directors of the School were "anticipating the solicitation of a donation." However no factual evidence has been produced to support this allegation. The money eventually arrived in June 2009 when the LSE Council accepted a £1.5 million donation from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation, of which Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was the chairman.Held became a trustee in June 2009 but was forced by the LSE Council to resign several months later due to "potential conflicts of interest." Jonathan Owen, "LSE Insider Claims Gaddafi Donation Was ‘Openly Joked About’" Independent on Sunday, 13 March 2011. This is, said an LSE press release, "a generous donation from an NGO committed to the promotion of civil society and the development of democracy."Petition On-line, "For the LSE to revoke the alumni status of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and to cease all cooperation with the Libyan regime."
The donation was used to create a "North Africa Programme" which would "place Libya within the wider context of the region," and over time narrow its focus to "the specific issues and challenges facing Libya.".London School of Economics and Political Science, "North Africa Research Programme, Progress Report 2009-2010," George Joffe, a Senior Fellow of the Centre of International Studies at Cambridge UniversityPolis.cam.ac.uk was hired as academic advisor to the North Africa Programme.Guardian.co.uk Professor Joffe was Alia Brahimi's thesis examiner. According to a leaked internal memo, Gaddafi had a direct influence over the research activities of the North Africa Programme. In July 2010, Brahimi met with Gaddafi in Libya and in Greece to "talk over objectives and expectations" and to "agree upon topics for workshops." The memo says that: ""The Programme will work with and consult the Gaddafi Foundation on all aspects of the Programme".North Africa Research Programme, Progress Report 2009-2010," In addition, the programme commissioned scholars to write papers on various topics relating to North Africa, in return for fees from £5,000 to £10,000.
LSE planned to train "Libya's future elite"
The Times reported on 3 March 2011 that the LSE had secured a £2.2 million deal to train hundreds of members of Libya's elite. The School agreed to bring 400 "future leaders" from Libya for training in leadership and management, with an additional 250 people due to be trained in Libya itself. The private commercial arrangement was made by Gaddafi.The Times, 3 March 2011, p. 1 LSE struck £1m deal to train Libya's ruling elite: Embarrassed academics express regret at damage to reputation