Rethinking Hizballah

Legitimacy, Authority, Violence

Samer N. Abboud, Benjamin J. Muller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754679660
• eBook ISBN: 9781317064176
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

International Relations scholarship posits that legitimacy, authority and violence are attributes of states. However, groups like Hizballah clearly challenge this framing of global politics through its continued ability to exercise violence in the regional arena. Surveying the different and sometimes conflicting interpretations of state-society relations in Lebanon, this book presents a lucid examination of the socio-political conditions that gave rise to the Lebanese movement Hizballah from 1982 until the present. Framing and analysing Hizballah through the perspective of the 'resistance society'; an articulation of identity politics that informs the violent and non-violent political strategies of the movement, Abboud and Muller demonstrate how Hizballah poses a challenge to the Lebanese state through its acquisition and exercise of private authority, and the implications this has for other Lebanese political actors. An essential insight into the complexities of the workings of Hizballah, this book broadens our understanding of how legitimacy, authority and violence can be acquired and exercised outside the structure of the sovereign nation-state. An invaluable resource for scholars working in the fields of Critical Comparative Politics and International Relations.

Chapter 1 Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781315606057-1

Introduction

The emergence of the Lebanese resistance movement Hizballah in the mid-1980s has had a profound impact on shaping contemporary state-society relations in Lebanon. There is a well-rehearsed, and indeed accurate narrative that explains this emergence: borne out of Shi’a communal dislocation from the Lebanese economy and the brutalities of Israeli occupation after 1982, the Shi’a community in Lebanon organized along sectarian lines to form a movement to resist the dual oppression of the Lebanese state and the Israeli occupation. This was precipitated by Shi’a communal organization in the 1970s. However, while the mobilization narrative provides a broad understanding of the emergence of Hizballah in Lebanon, it fails to sufficiently account for how the movement gained loyalty and popularity in the Shi’a community, how it has mobilized violence in pursuit of its aims and how this has been made possible by the very structure of the Lebanese state and inter-sectarian relations in the country. Thus, this book asks how we can think about Hizballah as a different form of authority and legitimacy in world politics – and the extent to which International Relations (IR) theory has constituted the limited conceptualizations of legitimacy, authority and violence. Moreover, what are the “conditions of possibility” for an actor like Hizballah to exist and be considered in such a serious manner? What are the unique features of the Lebanese state and state-society relations that create favorable conditions for this actor to emerge?

In considering these research questions, we counter-pose the processes of economic poverty and dislocation in Lebanon, Israeli occupation, the fragility of the Lebanese state, Shi’a communal identity, regional political developments, and of course, inter-sectarian relations within Lebanon, in order to understand key questions about the movement’s historical trajectory and contemporary politics. Our aim is to interrogate and unbundle sovereignty: the interplay between legitimacy, authority and violence in Lebanon. Specifically, the classic depiction of sovereignty forwarded by Krasner (1999) and others that reifies the distinction between domestic and Westphalian sovereignty, in many cases forwarding a disparaging account of sovereign claims by weaker states (Krasner 1999, 21). How does Hizballah represent a challenge, or “problem” for the Lebanese state? How does it acquire authority in Lebanon?

Thus, this project challenges dominant IR scholarship on notions of legitimacy, authority and violence vis-à-vis the narrative of sovereignty. At the same time, it seeks to contribute to critical comparative politics by exploring the dynamics of state-society relations in Lebanon. It does so by considering Hizballah as a case from which to interrogate key questions about sovereignty and legitimacy. Hizballah, as a movement embedded in the social fabric of Lebanese society, has emerged within a specific socio-political context defined by internal strife, communal oppression and economic alienation. Thus, our study seeks to understand the development of the movement within this broader Lebanese context, and, theoretically, how it poses a challenge to conceptions of sovereignty, authority and legitimacy that frame scholarship in IR.

Sovereignty is central to IR’s vision of world politics. As the essential site of legitimacy, power and authority in world politics, not to mention the Weberian notion of monopolizing legitimate violence, the discourse of sovereignty also acts as a condition of possibility for a series of differentiations such as domestic/international, inside/outside, here/there, political/anarchy, which are integral to IR and its articulation of world politics (Walker 1993, George 1994). Although the representation of sovereign power as indivisible, apolitical, and ahistorical has been contested from a range of perspectives (Bartelson 1995, Thomson 1996), not least of which being challenges from postcolonial scholarship (Chowdry and Nair 2003, Jones 2006), it remains a critical site for discussion and analysis. The increasing reliance on Private Military Firms in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, escalating incidents of Piracy, specifically in the Malacca straits and along the eastern coast of Africa, the relevance and relative legitimacy and authority of a range of market actors, are just some of the considerations that have caught the attention of a burgeoning number of scholars and policy-makers. Hizballah is arguably one of the more developed, complex, and dynamic non-state actors that clearly fit within these wider discussions of the contemporary (dis)location of sovereign power.

It is our contention that Hizballah is a key case from which to explore these theoretical questions. This case provides a means to challenge IR’s imagining of world politics and to demonstrate how legitimacy, authority and violence can be acquired and exercised outside of the sovereign nation-state and its narrative of political possibility.

A Brief Historical Narrative

Any discussion in the Lebanese context must be tethered to the historical evolution of Lebanese politics dating back to the civil war of 1860. Political sectarianism in Lebanon has its genesis in French involvement in Lebanese politics after this war. After having received special permission from the Ottoman authorities to exercise stewardship over the Christian Maronite community, the French imperial powers sought to transform Lebanon’s power structure to favor this community. In the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the French Mandate, political sectarianism in Lebanon was institutionalized and the Maronite community installed in key positions of political, military and economic power.

This power structure did not last long. In 1943 Lebanese leaders from across different sects agreed to what became known as the National Pact. This Pact would govern relations between the Lebanese communities and would divide representation in parliament according to a 6:5 formula that favored Lebanese Christians. Moreover, the Pact contained an unwritten agreement that saw Christian and Sunni Muslim elites acquire access to economic rents and key sectors of the economy. The Shi’a community, by now the fastest growing community in Lebanon, remained dependent on agriculture and the cultivation of tobacco, sectors of the economy that were controlled by a relatively small number of landowning Lebanese families.

As the Lebanese economy transitioned in the post-colonial era to a service oriented economy, agriculture, and thus the livelihood of Shi’a communities, was increasingly neglected. The decline of agriculture in Lebanon initiated massive waves of emigration from the Southern parts of the country. At the same time, emergent leaders within this community, particularly the Imam Musa al-Sadr, challenged the authority of the land-owning elites and began to organize the Shi’a under political banners. This was the first time in Lebanon’s contemporary history that the Shi’a were organized into a sectarian party, later to be named Harakat Amal (The Movement of Hope). Harakat Amal was primarily concerned with alleviating conditions of poverty and economic dislocation in the Shi’a community. Financially, it relied on the nouveau riche Shi’a who had acquired wealth outside of Lebanon. Politically, it rejected the politics and hegemony of the land-owning elite. Socially, it advocated a transition away from the dominant secular identities (communism, nationalism) to a more religious identity. The seeds of collective Shi’a mobilization, and thus the seeds of Hizballah, grew in this period.

The Lebanese Civil War erupted in 1975 and by 1978 Imam Musa al-Sadr had disappeared on a trip to Libya. In his place, Nabih Berri, the secular, green card holding, West African entrepreneur, took over the leadership of Amal. Many of the more religious leaders objected to his leadership, and the 1979 Iranian revolution emboldened their calls for a more religious politics. By 1982, the Israelis had invaded Lebanon, giving rise to a resistance movement that crossed sectarian and party lines. Communists, Islamists, Nationalists and Amal fighters all coalesced around a common cause: resisting Israeli occupation. It was not, however, until 1985 that the Islamic elements of the movement were consolidated under the umbrella of the Islamic resistance movement Hizballah.

Over the next four years Hizballah continued its resistance against Israeli occupation while engaging in periodic clashes with its co-religionists in Amal. Once the Civil War ended with the Ta’if Agreement, Hizballah’s leadership was faced with a strategic political decision: should it accept the agreement and participate in Lebanon’s post-war political order, or should it maintain its initial opposition to the Lebanese state and hence acceptance of sectarianism in Lebanon, a system which it deemed as complicit in the poverty and exploitation of Lebanese Shi’a? The former position prevailed. Hizballah’s leadership chose to participate in the Lebanese political arena because it was deemed necessary to safeguard the aims of the resistance movement. As Hizballah participated in local, regional and domestic elections, its constituency grew and it began to exhibit and articulate a fluid identity politics that was responsive to domestic and regional patterns.

Currently, Hizballah-elected ministers hold Cabinet positions in the Lebanese government. This dramatic evolution, from a position of rejecting the Lebanese state to one of increasing participation in the state apparatus, should be understood as the outcome of strategic political positions taken by the movement to safeguard its right of resistance to Israeli occupation and aggression. Hizballah’s relations with the Lebanese state, domestic political parties and other sects are determined in relation to the political aims of maintaining their authority and right of resistance against Israeli aggression. It is in thinking about Hizballah’s relations to the Shi’a of Lebanon, the Lebanese state and other Lebanese sects and parties that we take as the main aim of this project a critical exploration of Hizballah’s acquisition and exercising of private authority in the Lebanese context.

Who/What is Hizballah?

As the title of this book indicates, the challenge is to “Rethink Hizballah.” However, in order to come to terms with what this means, some consideration for the subject – Hizballah – and how and why a “rethink” is required deserves reflection. As we note in Chapter 2, Hizballah is far more than the sum of its parts: it is a governance structure and leadership cadre, but it is also a resistance movement, the progenitor of a resistance society, rich with sectarian, media, and communal institutions that bolster the resistance society that ultimately constitutes a resistance identity that seeps through sectarian lines. These organs of Hizballah are integral in our analysis in so far as we advocate a necessary rethink of legitimacy, authority, and violence. However, the diversity that this broad sense of Hizballah connotes – a diversity that has expanded and broadened particularly in the past five or so years – is too slippery for our reference point. As such, when we refer to Hizballah, our analysis focuses on the elite political leadership and the broader, discernable political strategies adopted by this leadership.

Under the leadership of Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the senior leadership, represented in the Shura Council, is responsible for the politics and policy positions of the organization. As we discuss in greater detail in Chapter 2, the Shura council is comprised for five main councils of the party: Political, Executive, Judicial, Council of Deputies, and Resistance Council. This elite level of Hizballah, led by Nasrallah, which articulates clearly the political and military focus and direction of the organization, is what represents Hizballah for our analysis. As noted in Chapter 2 and elsewhere in our argument, this is by no means to undermine the broader organs of Hizballah, most notably its essential identity as resistance and the resistance society, which it has institutionalized in various forms. All political goals of Hizballah are deeply rooted in the commitment to a comprehensive notion of resistance – political, social and military. Hizballah’s resistance is an essential and integral constitutive element of its identity, and is fully public.

Focusing on the elite leadership of Hizballah allows us to interrogate the clear expressions of authority, the conditions of possibility for legitimacy, the power to exercise violence, and the manner in which this is all bound up within Hizballah’s notion of the “resistance society.” As such, one must take seriously the manner in which a “resistance identity” is forged from Hizballah’s actions and its constitutive role in an identity that is much broader than the Shi’a community in Lebanon. This overt challenge to the sovereign narrative and the alleged monopoly over identity is as important to our analysis as the claimed monopoly of violence regularly undermined by Hizballah. Moreover, the account and description of Hizballah engaged in here challenges directly the familiar trope vis-à-vis IR, which portrays it as simply a paramilitary organization; little more than a spoiler in sovereign order of contemporary global politics.

Structure of the Book

Sectarianism in Lebanon

The first chapter of the book asks the following question: what are the conditions of possibility that give rise to an actor such as Hizballah in Lebanon? This chapter is structured around an understanding of how political sectarianism in Lebanon structures the distribution of political-economic authority through formal (constitutional) and informal (intra-communal) mechanisms. This discussion reveals a central paradox of the Lebanese political system, mainly, that the system functions to distribute resources and positions of political power across different sectarian communities, rather than promoting national governance. Lebanese politics is as much shaped by inter-communal negotiations over power and authority as it is about how to govern the country. Politics in Lebanon is Janus-faced as it is shaped by both inter- and intra-communal relations: the latter because actors within each community are forced to compete for communal leadership to acquire and control the resources distributed by the state (which include positions of political, security, and economic power), and the former because these actors, once having acquired legitimacy and authority within the community, are then forced into political relations with other communal leaders over issues of power and resource distribution. In addition to the role of sectarianism in structuring political-economic power, it has shaped and reinforced exclusivist identities among many Lebanese.

Our concern here is not so much with the debilitating impact sectarianism has on national governance and the authority of national institutions, but rather with asking how communal groups, such as Hizballah, acquire legitimacy and authority vis-à-vis their main constituency, in this case, the Shi’a of Lebanon. This, in turn, raises a second question issue concerning how Hizballah, as one representative actor within the Lebanese Shi’a community, interacts with the Lebanese state and other Lebanese actors. We structure this discussion around the idea of “becoming sectarianized,” which refers to how sectarianism is politicized and institutionalized in Lebanese society, and how this impacts a range of actors and the possibilities for the exercise of political agency.

The Resistance Society

The question of legitimacy and authority within Lebanese politics is further complicated by the presence of multiple groups claiming to speak for and represent certain communities. There are also issues concerning support for secular and nationalist groups, who have often appealed to many Lebanese across sects. The question taken up in the second chapter asks how Hizballah has come to acquire legitimacy and authority within the Shi’a community. Here, we are interested in how the group has emerged within the Lebanese political system as one of the main representatives of the Shi’a community. For outside observers, their participation in electoral politics or their resistance against Israel are often considered to be the main factors behind their legitimacy within the community. However, in contrast to these notions of legitimacy, we try and provide an account of the “microphysics of power” at work here that help explain how an actor such as Hizballah acquires and exercises legitimacy and authority.

Our discussion centers around Hizballah’s ideal mujtama’a al-muqawamma (resistance society) as an articulation of political community grounded in the ideals of resistance to oppression and injustice. In this articulation of political community, supporters are encouraged to confront exclusion and oppression through a range of daily activities that extend far beyond the battlefield. Here, we emphasize that much of Hizballah’s activities “on the ground” in Lebanon have more to do with facilitating the activities of a network of institutions that provide social, economic, political and educational services to average Lebanese. Thus, the resistance society is not merely an ideal or aspiration, but a web of complex socio-economic networks that work towards the betterment of Lebanese. Through these institutions, the idea of resistance is transmitted to members, and it is an idea firmly grounded in Shi’a history and socio-cultural identity.

As this chapter suggests, the idea and the structure of the resistance society is a specific case in which IR’s narratives provide us very little capacity to understand. The chapter begins with a discussion of the governance structure of Hizballah and then shifts to discussing the specific institutions that make up the matrix of the resistance society. Here, it becomes clear that Hizballah is so much more than just a paramilitary organization or a “rag-tag militia” as many detractors would call it. Instead, it has clearly overseen the construction of a web of networks and institutions working to transmit the resistance ideal to Lebanese communities. This embeddeddness within Lebanese society, and not necessarily just the popularity of their military resistance to Israel, helps explain how they acquire authority and legitimacy within Lebanon.

Debating Violence

Nevertheless, Hizballah is an actor th...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Lebanon’s Sectarian System
• 3. Legitimacy, Authority and Resistance
• 4. Violence and Legitimacy in the Lebanese Context 1985–2010
• 5. Sovereignty, International Relations and the Curious Case of Hizballah
• 6. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon
• 7. Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index