MANAGING IDENTITIES AMONG EXPATRIATE BUSINESSMEN ACROSS THE SYRIAN-LEBANESE BOUNDARY

The chapter aims at examining the process of construction/deconstruction of the Lebanese-Syrian border from the point of view and through the practices of one group of actors whose contribution to the process can be considered strategic. The group concerned is made up of the Syrian businessmen who had left Syria since the creation of the United Arab Republic in February 1958 and had settled, and prospered, in Lebanon. Choosing a non-governmental actor in order to analyse the international boundary separating Lebanon from Syria imposed itself. In most of the studies already available on the subject, the boundary has been examined in a classic international relations perspective privileging the state, and even more in a narrow governmental perspective, thus ignoring complex processes and dynamics. Also, analysing the distinction between Lebanon and Syria by means of the examination of businessmen's representations and strategies allows us to bridge the gap between international relations and political economy, and possibly to throw light on the domestic structures that make the specificity of each state with regard to the other

Lebanon: Is the Consociational system reformable ?

Ten years after the adoption of a new constitutional text, none of the major questions raised by the war have been resolved: neither the guilt of the militia leaders and their amnesty, nor the issue of missing and displaced persons, still less the axial choices for the country's reconstruction and its regional positioning. It is clear and obvious that the principles of Taef and their unfinished implementation have failed to bestow a consensual foundation onto Lebanese national life and that the latter is shattered by deep divisions. While considering the political system, its working and effects on the social sphere, though no ready cure for the pains the country is suffering is yet at hand, it is important at least to get down to identifying the pitfalls threatening it and to locating the windows of opportunity which may help it to overcome a decade of crisis

Is the Consociational system reformable ? English Version

This is the English Version of a communication read in the American University of Beirut in 2001. Arendt Lijphart's consensus theory is confronted to the Lebanese constitutional crisis. Four sociological variables are examined: social pluralism, mode of representation, citizenship and the role of the elite

Historical sociology and the renewal of the social sciences

A handbook in Social Sciences for MA students at the University of Bir Zeit (Palestine

Lebanon in search of sovereignty: Post 2005 security dilemmas

Lebanon's option in favor of a "weak" state implied that armed forces remained voluntarily limited and under-equipped. Traditionally, external defense was neglected and the state kept neutral in international and regional conflicts while the relation between militarization and state-building was deliberately distended. In the wake of the civil war priority was given to the reconstruction of military and police institutions, erected as a "central pillar" of the state. From 1990 to 2005, this reconstruction remained impeded due to the enduring segmentation of the society and the imposed percolation of Syrian political culture, and because state's security remained under regional threats. Then, 2005 witnessed a reconfiguration of the national scene, the withdrawal of Syrian forces and the reinforcement of security cooperation with the West. The paper explores a main hypothesis: post-2005 Lebanon remained a state with limited sovereignty with a "bifurcated" defense strategy and little military capability. Armed forces were prone to fragmentation along primordial identities, and sometimes privatized. Authoritarianism loomed as the ultimate recourse against state dissolution and societal strife. The paper is organized in two sections: (1) The first section shows how reconstruction of national armed forces remained precluded by lack of national sovereignty, due to Syrian rule and Israeli occupation. The transformation of war rendered obsolete the numerous but poorly equipped and inadequately trained Lebanese army in contrast to Hezbollah's "national resistance" as illustrated during the summer 2006 war waged by Israel and in the struggle against Fatah al-Islam in 2007. (2) The second section argues that the segmentation of society percolated into armed forces resulting in the alienation of some confessional groups from the army and the involvement of some military in trans-boundary political economic networks. Sectarianism in the security institutions mirrored the re-confessionalisation of the society and impeded their capacity to police the domestic scene

Trafficking, Rents, and Diaspora in the Lebanese War

Although the model of conflict laid out by Paul Collier--a model privileging motivations of greed--should not be applied to the Lebanese civil war without strong qualification, greed incited warlords and political entrepreneurs to take advantage of the breakdown of state authority, as social insecurity offered growing opportunities of predation by armed groups. Over a period of fifteen years, they imposed a new social and economic order that came to be known as "Lebanization" and was imitated in several civil war

Conclusion: Nation-Building and Minority Rights in the Middle East, Elizabeth Picard

The current "minority crisis" in the Middle East can be considered an existential crisis as it tends to exclude hundreds of thousands of members of religious minorities from the public sphere and political life, while multidimensional violence force many of them to take refuge abroad. This chapter adopts a perspective of political sociology in order to shed light on the complex relation between the local political power which claims sovereignty and the exclusive use of "legitimate violence" - "the state" - on the one hand, and victimized and powerless religious communities, on the other hand

Post-war Lebanese communities in search of reconciliation

Fifteen years after the adoption of the Taif agreement, the restoration and strengthening of political communalism has failed to bestow a consensual foundation in Lebanon. The national life remains hampered by religious and sectarian divisions. Such a conclusion calls for a critical reappraisal of consociational democracy, a political system adopted by Lebanon since the birth of the state, and favoured in other countries characterised by religious pluralism such as Bosnia (in 1994), and tomorrow Iraq and Sudan. It also draws attention of analysts and policymakers toward the kind of institutional and practical responses to offer to popular demands in the wake of domestic conflicts expressed in terms of religious identities. Namely, the urgent need of recognition, rule of law, and security

Jacques Dauphin, Incertain Irak. Tableau d'un Royaume avant la Tempête 1914-1953, Paris, Geuthner, 1991, 266 p.

La guerre du Golfe a mis en évidence la rareté des travaux en langue française sur l'Irak et le Koweït. Dans ce contexte, la publication de l'ouvrage de Jacques Dauphin, correspondant de l'AFP en Irak est bienvenu. Chronique évènementielle, ce livre fait montre de subtilité et se révèle prémonitoire notamment sur la centralité croissante des militaires dans le système politique du royaume

Séminaire sur le Golfe Persique et les changements structurels du système international - Téhéran - 17-18 décembre 1995

Il faut déméler dans le déroulement complexe de ce séminaire trois conférences emboîtées et emmêlées, dont chacune méritait attention pour ce qu'elle dévoilait des questions traitées, et surtout des acteurs impliqués. Cette rencontre était d'abord une conférence internationale faisant appel à des « spécialistes ». Elle donna lieu ensuite à un échange nourri entre interlocuteurs iraniens et arabes à propos des questions sécuritaires comunes et, au delà, de la dimension de politique intérieure de cette questiion pour chacun des Etats de la région. Enfin, elle fonctionna aussi à un troisième niveau qui ne fut, lui, jamais explicité. Celui du débat interne à l'Iran à propos des orientations prioritaires du pays, entre autres sur la scène régionale et internationale