Power-Sharing after Civil War

Thirty Years since Lebanon’s Taif Agreement

John Nagle, Mary-Alice Clancy, John Nagle, Mary-Alice Clancy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781032135458
• eBook ISBN: 9781000486742
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book provides a wide-ranging exploration of the legacy of Lebanon's peace agreement in the 30 years since it was signed.

The chapters in this edited volume have been written by leading scholars and provide in-depth analyses of key issues in postwar Lebanon, including the performance of power-sharing, human rights, communal memory and sectarianism, conflict and peace, militias, political parties and elections. A core strength of the book is the multidisciplinary approach to understanding postwar Lebanon, ranging from political science, international relations, sociology, conflict and peace studies, history and memory studies. The multidisciplinary character of the book allows for a rich and detailed evaluation of the ongoing legacy and consequences of Lebanon's postwar settlement.

The book will be of interest to scholars, students and people interested in contemporary Lebanese politics and society. It will also be attractive for a wider international audience interested in the consequences of postwar power-sharing systems and peace processes.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics.

Power-sharing after the Arab Spring? Insights from Lebanon’s Political Transition

Tamirace Fakhoury

ABSTRACT

The article looks at the legacy of consociationalism in Lebanon with the aim of illuminating some insights on the linkages between power-sharing and conflict resolution in the post-2011 Middle East. It highlights three core dilemmas or governance traps that have recurred in Lebanon’s political dynamic: the power-sharing formula’s proneness to deadlock, its dependence on the external environment as an avenue for partisanship and sectarian leverage, and its weak responsiveness to demands from below. The article shows how these dilemmas are tightly linked to the politics of sectarianism. While Lebanon’s postwar transition (1990 onward) serves as a backdrop for exploring these dilemmas, emphasis is placed on the performance of Lebanon’s political system in the post–Arab Spring era. The aim is to assess whether Lebanon’s consociational performance has matured over time. The Lebanese experience brings into sharper focus the limitations of sectarian power-sharing. Still, it provides useful insights for reshaping the debate on power-sharing in divided societies of the Arab world.

Introduction

The Syrian people are worth so much more than being reduced to Sunnis and Alawites¹

In the wake of the “relapsed” Arab Spring,² not only governance but also political studies in the region have been facing a crisis. The onset of the Arab uprisings inspired a short-lived enthusiastic scholarly wave, which focused on the potential of democratization.³ With the return of the deep state in Egypt, the collapse of Syria, and the crystallization of sharp cleavages in Libya and Yemen, this wave was, however, eclipsed by the old paradigms on resilient authoritarianism and “authoritarian learning.”⁴ Central to these scholarly dilemmas is the uneasy relationship between sectarian fragmentation and institution building, and the Arab state’s crises of legitimation rooted in decades of corruption and inefficient governance.⁵

A scholarly trend within the continuum of debates on political transitions in the Middle East has been the discussion about whether forms of governance based on power-sharing constitute realistic options to mitigate intrastate tensions and exit wars.⁶ Because Arab societies are heterogeneous, political governance ought to reflect their diversity through the design of pluralist arrangements.⁷ The broad field of power-sharing studies⁸ draws on a specific typology of democratic regimes described as the “consociational democracy” model. Developed during the 1960s by the “consociationalist fathers,” namely, Arend Lijphart, Hans Daalder, and more recently Brendan O’Leary, this type of democracy foresees the devolution of power among communities and the crafting of institutions enabling their participation in decision making.⁹ In his book Democracy in Plural Societies, Lijphart identifies four devices for consociational democracy: (1) a grand elite coalition representing different societal groups; (2) mutual veto, allowing communities to contest decisions opposed to their interests; (3) proportionality rules in political representation; and (4) segmental autonomy, or the communities’ right to run their own affairs.¹⁰ Various strands of literature have criticized the model on the grounds that it crystallizes divisions and empowers elites over the masses.¹¹ Still, research has shown that consociationalism can help mitigate deep divides, especially when it gives way to more integrative forms of governance.¹²

The argument for introducing power-sharing in many post-2011 deeply divided Arab polities is strongly policy oriented and rooted in the Arab world’s context-specific realities.¹³ Attempts at forming national unity governments in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, and Libya have grappled with the necessity to account for different groups’ interests.¹⁴ The failure to design modes of inclusive governance has reinforced communal grievances, and has resulted in conflicts and new forms of authoritarian communalism(s) in post-2011 Bahrain, Yemen, and Libya.¹⁵ Arab states, such as Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, and Libya, constituted major arenas for intrastate conflicts over government in the context of the Arab Spring and its spillovers.¹⁶

Within this climate, regional and international actors have emphasized the importance of governance nested in power-sharing arrangements in the post-2011 Middle East.¹⁷ The Arab League has stressed the importance of introducing inclusive governments.¹⁸ In its 2016 Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy (EUGS), the European Union (EU) envisions “resilience building” in the Middle East as a crucial method of political stabilization. Resilience requires, among other components, consolidating forms of pluralist governance that encompass various stakeholders, including religious communities.¹⁹ Similarly, the United Nations (UN) has pushed for power-sharing among warring parties in Libya and Syria as a prospect for conflict resolution.²⁰

Although the twinned concept of inclusive governance and conflict alleviation in Arab plural societies has evolved into a key concern,²¹ we know little, in practice, about the forms of political systems that can consolidate peace while avoiding the pitfalls of politicized sectarianism.²² As Lawrence Rosen puts it, democracy studies in the region have, generally speaking, not paid due attention to the cultural components of governance.²³ Moreover, because authoritarianism has prevailed in most Arab polities, scholars have been interested in exploring why Arab authoritarian systems persist²⁴ rather than how the political designs in which communities share power may emerge and consolidate.

Since the onset of the 2011 Arab revolts, scholars and policy makers have expressed renewed interest in the extent to which Lebanon’s power-sharing model could inspire political solutions in divided states such as Syria.²⁵ The small republic with 18 Muslim and Christian communities has developed, since its formation in 1943, a consociational model that has survived manifold wars and crises. Yet, which lessons can we learn from Lebanon’s legacy of sectarian power-sharing, and can Lebanon—as a test case for consociational governance—help us understand the perils and benefits of power-sharing for the region?

This article looks at the legacy of consociationalism in Lebanon, a small polity that has inspired Lijphart’s theory of consociationalism,²⁶ with the aim of illuminating some insights on the linkages between power-sharing and conflict resolution in divided societies of the post-2011 Middle East. Herein, conflict resolution is framed as the “reaching out” across “community divides”²⁷ and the bringing together of “actors across deep divisions . . . to tackle the questions of how relations in their societies can become more peaceful, just and democratic.”²⁸ This article does not seek to apply lessons from the Lebanese case to other post–Arab Spring polities. Rather, it highlights key dilemmas in Lebanon’s war-to-peace transition that practitioners working on power-sharing for the post-2011 Arab Spring could take into consideration. More specifically, the article seeks to illuminate an understanding about how consociational arrangements, nested within the politics of sectarianism, entrench dilemmas regarding democratization, peace, and social justice.²⁹ To that end, the article highlights three core dilemmas that have recurred in Lebanon’s political transition: the power-sharing formula’s proneness to deadlock, its dependence on the external environment as an avenue for partisanship and sectarian leverage, and its weak responsiveness to demands from below. This article shows how these dilemmas are tightly linked to the politics of sectarianism. Although Lebanon’s postwar transition (1990 onward) serves as a backdrop for exploring these chronic dilemmas, focus will be placed on the performance of Lebanon’s consociational politics in the post–Arab Spring era. The aim is to set up a framework to assess whether Lebanon’s consociational performance has matured over time. This article argues that the conflation between power-sharing and sectarianism entrenches sociopolitical structures that appropriate and reproduce the logic of sectarian power-sharing, ensuring the conditions for its preservation. In this context, Lebanon’s consociational formula can do little to exit from the spiral of sectarianism.

Lebanon’s pathway to power-sharing: resilience, dilemmas, and breakdown(s)

As noted in the introduction to this special issue, Lebanon’s trajectory of power-sharing is a mixture of both a historical and institutional legacy.³⁰ After a long-standing war, in which Lebanon’s communities fought over domestic and regional politics (1975–1990), the fractured polity has witnessed a power-sharing revival. In 1989, Lebanon’s Taif Agreement initiated Lebanon’s transition from the war, hinting at the potential resurgence of power-sharing after conflicts.

With the onset of the Arab uprisings and Syria’s civil war, Lebanon was caught in a delicate balancing act. In contrast to surrounding polities, such as Bahrain and Libya, it has managed to preserve a veneer of stability since 2011. Several scholars raised questions as to whether power-sharing practices, which necessitate elite negotiations, may have contributed to stabilizing the country in the context of neighboring upheavals.³¹ The government of Lebanon has sought to stabilize the country by strengthening inter-elite consultative processes and ensuring cooperation among the Lebanese army, security agencies, and Hezbollah.³² It has been able to cope with some externally induced challenges, such as armed confrontations between Islamist networks from Syria and the Lebanese Army and the influx of more than one million forcibly displaced Syrians. In 2013, Hezbollah’s formal announcement of its military involvement in Syria’s war provoked political tensions and acts of reprisal on Lebanese ground. Led by former Imam Ahmad Al Asir, a Sunni splinter group called on the Sunni community to challenge Hezbollah’s power base in Lebanon and to fight against it in Syria. The Al Asir uprising was, however, successfully quelled by the Lebanese army, and Hezbollah’s military entanglement in Syria has not led to any full-scale armed conflict in Lebanon. Nevertheless, gridlock between the aforementioned contending alliances, the 8 March and 14 March alliances, have paralyzed state institutions. Parliamentary elections were postponed twice (in 2013 and 2014), and governments have had either a difficult birth or have broken down. Additionally, divisiveness about issues ranging from Hezbollah’s weaponry to the distribution of ministerial portfolios and the management of public services (e.g., garbage collection and electricity and technology services) have led to protracted deadlock.

To showcase Lebanon’s endemic power-sharing dilemmas, I draw first on the cases of political deadlocks since 2011 and their implications for policy making. Second, I explore how the post–Arab Spring landscape in general and Syria’s war in particular have...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: Power-sharing after Civil War: Thirty Years since Lebanon’s Taif Agreement
• 1 Power-sharing after the Arab Spring? Insights from Lebanon’s Political Transition
• 2 Formal and Informal Consociational Institutions: A Comparison of the National Pact and the Taif Agreement in Lebanon
• 3 Taif and the Lebanese State: The Political Economy of a Very Sectarian Public Sector
• 4 The Causes, Nature, and Effect of the Current Crisis of Lebanese Capitalism
• 5 War Museums in Postwar Lebanon: Memory, Violence, and Performance
• 6 National versus Communal Memory in Lebanon
• 7 The Rise of the “Resistance Axis”: Hezbollah and the Legacy of the Taif Agreement
• Index