Hybrid Political Order and the Politics of Uncertainty

Lebanon hosts the highest number of refugees per capita worldwide and is central to European policies of outsourcing migration management. Hybrid Political Order and the Politics of Uncertainty is the first book to critically and comprehensively explore the parallels between the country’s engagement with the recent Syrian refugee influx and the more protracted Palestinian presence. Drawing on fieldwork, qualitative case-studies, and critical policy analysis, it questions the dominant idea that the haphazardness, inconsistency, and fragmentation of refugee governance are only the result of forced displacement or host state fragility and the related capacity problems. It demonstrates that the endemic ambiguity that determines refugee governance also results from a lack of political will to create coherent and comprehensive rules of engagement to address refugee ‘crises.’ Building on emerging literatures in the fields of critical refugee studies, hybrid governance, and ignorance studies, it proposes an innovative conceptual framework to capture the spatial, temporal, and procedural dimensions of the uncertainty that refugees face and to tease out the strategic components of the reproduction and extension of such informality, liminality, and exceptionalism. In developing the notion of a ‘politics of uncertainty,’ ambiguity is explored as a component of a governmentality that enables the control, exploitation, and expulsion of refugees

Business in Genocide: Understanding and Avoiding Complicity

Genocides and mass atrocities do not arise spontaneously, but tend to be meticulously sourced and managed. As such the concern in this paper is with the role of businesses in these processes, with a particular focus on the agency and decision making of entrepreneurs and managers. We critically explore the specific role entrepreneurs and businesses played in three of the most uncontested genocides of recent history: the Jewish, Kurdish, and Darfurian genocides. From this literature we seek to distill key insights into what entrepreneurs and socially responsible businesses can do to lessen the tensions, misunderstandings, exclusions, and marginalization that are among the complex causes of genocides and other mass atrocities. In order to better understand the complicity of business there is a need for a shift from diagnostic attention on how businesses are engaged in genocide to a more analytical exploration of why businesses have made the choices they did in the process of their engagement with genocide. This is also necessary to advance the debate on how to hold businesses accountable for gross human rights violations and moreover to provide incentives for businesses not only to avoid doing harm but also to proactively, preventively strive to protect and extend human rights

Public-Private Entanglement: Entrepreneurship in a Hybrid Political Order, the Case of Lebanon

The instability and informality that characterize hybrid political orders and its effects on entrepreneurs remains largely unexplored in the scholarly literatures. In this paper we provide initial findings from the case of entrepreneurs' access to electricity in Lebanon. Using quantitative and qualitative methods we find that political connections significantly influence the investment decisions of entrepreneurs and the performance of their firms. In general, a hybrid political order imposes a 'tax' on entrepreneurship by channelling entrepreneurial talent into lobbying and bribery; by reinforcing male and family-owned dominance in business; and by skewing investment decisions. Specifically, we find that family firms whose entrepreneurs engage in bribery, and who obtain government contracts alleviate electricity problems and perform better

Lebanon's response to the Syrian Refugee crisis – Institutional ambiguity as a governance strategy

Contains fulltext : 215888.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access) Contains fulltext : 215888a.pdf (author's version ) (Open Access)In comparison with other regional host countries Lebanon's response to the Syrian refugee crisis is characterized by a remarkable degree of institutional ambiguity. Government policy has centered on the prohibition of formal refugee camps and adopted regulations with regard to registration, residence, and work which drive refugees into illegality. This is partly the result of the chaotic and overwhelming nature of any refugee crisis, which is only reinforced by the Lebanese government's limited resources and capacities and the country's dysfunctional political system. However, institutional ambiguity in the context of the Lebanese response to the Syrian refugee crisis is not merely contingent. Departing from agnotology theory, this article demonstrates that there is also a strategic component to the institutional ambiguity that now determines the life of Syrian refugees in Lebanon. On the basis of fieldwork among Syrian refugee communities, elaborate policy analysis, and an extensive literature review the article reveals the political utility of maintaining uncertainty and precariousness. These insights have profound implications for the analysis of refugee politics and the formulation of policy recommendations.01 februari 201911 p

Refugee entrepreneurship : context and directions for future research

Abstract: This article provides an overview of future directions for research related to refugee entrepreneurship. It puts forward key concepts, explores the relations within the current broader literature on migration and entrepreneurship, and identifies several promising clusters of questions. We also introduce five papers in a special section of this issue, which offer nuanced findings and cues for further research