Building Democracy in Lebanon

of Lebanese infrastructure. Israel did not, however, reach its major war aims and was heavily criticised internationally for disproportional use of force. Hizbollah claimed victory, increased its popularity immensely and emerged as a more dominant political force in Lebanon. Its principle demand was that the 8 March Alliance should have at least one third of the members in a national unity government, securing an effective veto power for the opposition. In November, all Shi’a and one Orthodox Christian member of the government resigned in support of this demand, followed by huge demonstrations and large sit-ins in downtown Beirut that lasted for weeks.

This standoff lasted for about 17 months until the government on 7 May 2008 decided to shut down Hizbollah’s internal communication network. Hizbollah’s answer was to occupy large parts of Beirut, including areas controlled by pro-government groups. They met little resistance and handed the area over to the Lebanese Army on 14 May when the government had revoked its decision. The crisis was brought to an end on 21 May with the Doha

Agreement, a document that concluded the Lebanese National Dialogue Conference arranged by the Emir of Qatar. The Doha Agreement gave the opposition one-third plus one minister (11 of 30) in the government of national unity and the parties pledged to elect Michel Suleiman, the respected head of the armed forces, to the vacant post as President – a pledge that was confirmed by the Parliament shortly afterwards.¹⁴² The opposition ended its months of sit-in; Lebanon returned to relative normalcy, which allowed them to start preparing for the 2009 elections.

physical infrastructure in the country). The question is whether the political institutions, notably the electoral system, can contribute to making it easier for the parties to overcome mutual suspicion and mistrust.

4.3.2 The Challenge of Confessionalism

The general question that will be discussed in this section relates to basic challenges of building a stable and democratic future in Lebanon. We can distinguish between two approaches: Should the socio-cultural fragmentation of the country’s political institutions (organised along sectarian cleavages and known as ‘confessionalism’) be considered as a given – and consequently an organising principle for any future political system in Lebanon, or should it be considered as an transitional stage on the road to a more integrated system whereby the sects no longer constitute a dominating cornerstone of the system, in line with the visions of the Lebanese constitution with the aim of overcoming confessionalism?

The choice between these two approaches reflects alternative normative conceptions of democratic development in divided societies; one which holds that a democratic approach requires a system that respects established socio-cultural identities and that provides institutional mechanisms for preserving these identities as building blocks of the political system, as opposed to the ‘nation-building’ (or ‘modernisation’) approach, seeking

mechanisms that facilitate the gradual assimilation of fragmented socio-cultural identities in the formation of a new, overriding national political culture. More specifically, in the context of the present study, we can ask: How should the electoral system be designed on the basis of such different conceptions of Lebanon as a polity in order to meet universal requirements of a democratic political process?

These questions are not new, but have been central to the political and academic discourses on the future of Lebanon at least since the outbreak of the civil war in 1975. Recent

developments in the period 2005-2011 have also been dramatic, including the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and the Syrian withdrawal of troops (2005), the war with Israel (2006), the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1757 (2007) establishing the Special Tribunal investigating the Hariri assassination, the high tensions and clashes between opposing internal political coalitions (particularly in 2007-2008), elections in 2009, and the collapse of the Saad Hariri government in January 2011. To what extent have these events influenced the underlying political discourse on the Lebanon of tomorrow?

According to the first approach mentioned above, the political system and the elected bodies should reflect as accurately as possible existing political loyalties and interests, often deeply rooted in local history – not a utopian vision of a society that does not reflect the real nature of inter-group relations in contemporary Lebanon – and thus contribute to making identifiable and distinct political entities and parliamentary groups as a sound basis for negotiations on power-sharing arrangements between the country’s constituent groups. This will be the best guarantee for strengthening the democratic powers of the Parliament and thus for building a system of democratic co-existence in Lebanon. The other view would be that elections should contribute to create cross-sectarian alliances that could contribute to undermining sectarian political identities and building a unified democratic citizenship. This would provide

the foundations for political loyalties based more on political-ideological cleavages (i.e., left/right) and thus, create a political culture suited for a real competition between alternative policies.

Both of these views on Lebanon’s way forward find support in well-established trends in academic and ideological (or a combination of both) schools. The most common approach (in line with the second view above) is a variation of the ‘modernisation theories’ that analyse the path of societies from a ‘traditional’ to a ‘modern’ level of political development.

‘Modernisation’ involves a dynamic process of social, cultural and political integration, creating a modern nation-state of the Western European type. It finds its most articulated and ideological expression in the Jacobinism or republican patriotism of the French model.

Cultural distinctions and cleavages should not be of any significance in political mobilisation and organisation of the state. The republic should stay ’une et indivisible’.¹⁴³

Michael Hudson has contributed some of the most influential analyses of political development in Lebanon from the theoretical perspective of modernisation and social mobilisation, particularly in his early book The Precarious Republic.¹⁴⁴ Hudson is fascinated by the observation that Lebanon seems to present a ‘deviant’ case defying categorisation within the modernisation paradigm: On the one hand, it displays some characteristics of modernisation, particularly in the economic sphere and in its exposure to cultural modernity, whereas progressive changes in the spheres of socio-cultural (family-based communities) and political (confessionalism) relations, as would be expected, lag behind: “The Lebanese experience illustrates both the surprising possibilities for modernisation in a deeply divided political culture and the strains that such a process imposes on the political system.”¹⁴⁵ In Hudson’s view, this creates a political dilemma and a dysfunctional political system accentuated by the lack of adequate institutions able to deal effectively with internal and external problems.

Farid El Khazen, Theodor Hanf and others represent an alternative approach to Lebanese politics. El Khazen accepts that the modernisation approach of Hudson and others helps to detect the flaws in the Lebanese system, but not to explain the causes:

Missing in Hudson’s assessment of the performance of Lebanon’s political system is the historical dimension that has shaped the particular socio-political features of Lebanese society. In fact, of all modern states in the Middle East, Lebanon is the most rooted in history both in its communal and regional dimensions. The historical nucleus of the modern Lebanese state, namely, the Imarah of Mount Lebanon and, after 1861, the mutasarrifiyya arrangement, emerged as a result of a complex

143 Hanf 1993: 28.

144 Hudson 1968. The modernisation approach to Lebanese politics was introduced by Daniel Lerner in his The Passing of Traditional Society. Modernizing in the Middle East (1958), another important work was Politics in Lebanon, edited by Leonard Binder (1966). In his …Arab Politics. The Search for Legitimacy ... Hudson presents a systematic analysis of political development in the Arab world, which has survived as a much-used textbook in spite its many critics.

145 Hudson 1968: 4, quoted in El Khazen 2000: 16.

interplay between internal and external change. In this way, confessionalism could not be regarded simply as an irresponsible act on the part of the Lebanese elite. Nor was parochialism something that could be reversed by state decrees or by the forces of modernisation.¹⁴⁶

In line with authors like Arend Lijphart and David and Audrey Smock, El Khazen argues that one should consider the positive and constructive potentialities of the confessional nature of Lebanese politics as a point of departure for democratic developments: “A closer look at Lebanon’s history and political system reveals that the abolition of the confessional system would have undermined the very basis of democracy in the country. For confessionalism is in effect a de facto recognition of diversity and dissent, the two conditions necessary for the establishment of democratic order, particularly in a divided society.”¹⁴⁷ Antoine Messara – another Lebanese academic and presently member of Lebanon’s newly appointed

Constitutional Council – supports this point in an earlier article by observing that the unicameral Lebanese Parliament does not seem to be the appropriate place for negotiating policies of accommodation between Lebanon’s communities. “The power of compromise”, as he calls it, is held by elites that are the leading representatives of these communities and that meet in arenas outside the parliament where the real bargaining takes place: “Hence, they leave it to Parliament to ratify what they decide.”¹⁴⁸

The point here with relevance to the electoral system is that the Parliament is not regarded as truly representing the immediate and conflicting political cleavages in the society because the candidates are voted in on lists composed of persons from different confessional groups.

Voters will therefore have to give their votes not only to members of their own confessional group, but also to representatives of other groups from the electoral district. For example, a Christian member of Parliament who was voted in with Moslem votes will in certain situations not be considered by the Christian electorate as genuinely representing them and could therefore not be trusted with “the power of compromise”. Another intended effect of the system is that it strengthens the chances of moderate candidates because they will be more likely to get votes from the other communities. However, this is only in such cases where a confessional group represents a minority. If one group is dominant, extremist candidates may fare well. The fact that the system promotes multi confessional alliances may, in itself, promote moderation. Messara comments:

146 El Kazen 2000:21. Faris 1982:7-8 explains that the Lebanese political system originates in the Imarah of Mount Lebanon, an arrangement whereby the conquering Ottomans in the early sixteenth century conferred the title of ”Sultan of the Mountain” on the Ma’ni Amir, Fakhr al-Din I, and allowed him to become the first among equals in relation to other feudal Maronite and Druze feudal lords in the southern region of Mount Lebanon. This system, which was basically secular in nature, survived for more than three centuries, was replaced in 1861 by the Mutasarriffiyya following violent conflicts between Maronites and Druzes. This system, agreed upon between five European powers and the Ottomans, introduced confessionalism as a system of political representation, later inherited by the Republic of Lebanon.

147 El Khazen 2000: 24. Cfr. Lijphart 1977; Smock and Smock 1975.

148 Messara 1988: 625-626.

However, this moderation, within the framework of the single electoral college, is purely tactical and is often exploited by candidates to get the votes of other communities. The fact that the representatives of communities, and even the most extremist ones, are excluded from representation may impede conflict regulation.¹⁴⁹

Messara’s solution to this dilemma is that the unicameral parliamentary system should be reformed with the introduction of “a communal senate or a communal council where communities are represented as such. Hence, in crisis periods or when dealing with basic issues, the debate would not be transferred from the Parliament to the ‘street’”.¹⁵⁰

Many Lebanese who share this basic approach of ‘unity in diversity’ to the country’s need for conflict regulation and stability point to Switzerland and its ’Konkordanzdemokratie’ as a model for Lebanon: A federation of communities that constitute a transcending, multifarious nation.¹⁵¹ The core idea of this approach is that existing communities are legitimate building bricks of a transcending nation.¹⁵² Existing communities will not disappear; making them disappear is morally unacceptable and will create resistance that undermines peace and stability. The Lebanese nation, which is not pre-determined, but is organically transcendent as the different groups, parties and actors that comprise the Lebanese society interact in the day-to-day life.

It is worth pointing out, however, that the Lebanese Constitution, first issued in 1926, as well as the National Reconciliation Accord of 1989 (the Taif Agreement) state that the goal and vision for Lebanon is a political system not based on confessionalism. Consequently, there is an ongoing discourse in Lebanon on the relationship between the vision of Lebanon as a secular nation-state and the reality of contemporary Lebanon as a fragmented republic.

Two related aspects that contribute to keep a country like Lebanon fragmented and undermining efforts of national integration should be kept in mind. One is a weak central government, a direct effect of a fragmented political system where important decisions have to be made on the basis of consensus. The state as such is (in principle) neutral in relation to inter-group rivalries and does not interfere much in the daily life of the semi-autonomous communities of Lebanon. Indeed, "the secret of the [Lebanese political] system’s precarious survival is its very institutional weakness".¹⁵³ But, at the same time, the state does not have sufficient monopoly of power to impose incorporation of different groups under a common institutional framework or to set up powerful mechanisms for inter-group arbitration. This weakness is difficult to get around as long as the President, the Prime Minister and the Speaker of Parliament are carefully chosen from and thus considered as representatives of particular groups, not primarily as authoritative representatives of the Lebanese state.

149 Messara 1988: 629.

150 Ibid.

151 See Hanf 1993: 29.

152 However, since the communities in Lebanon are so geographically mixed, this cannot be applied in the simple geographical manner as in Switzerland.

153 El Khazen 2000: 16 with reference to Hudson 1968: 211.

The other aspect is ‘the politics of fear’, characteristic of ‘anarchical’ societies lacking or saddled with a weak central government or regime (i.e., the international society and failed states). According to Hanf, the behaviour of most groups and states in the Levant is basically motivated by fear: “For, in reality, the loss of [one’s position] means subjugation, expulsion, life in refugee camps or emigration – if not physical annihilation. The fear of being the ultimate loser is the supreme force in politics in the countries along the road to Jerusalem.”¹⁵⁴ In Lebanon, nobody in a situation of violent conflict can trust the state to come to the rescue or guarantee basic rights. The individual citizen depends totally on the family, the clan, the sect, whereas the larger groups depend on relations and alliances with other groups or external powers. Hanf also points to the fact that existence in such an environment might not only breed extremism, hate and irrationality, but might as easily induce parties to behave extremely rationally and responsible, considering all available alternatives, including compromise with arch-enemies, in order to secure their own interests of a more or less existential nature. This might be the logic behind the drastic changes in political orientation or alliances that can be observed from time to time in Lebanese politics. As Hanf puts it: ”…fear can indeed produce a vicious circle of hate and violence, but also reason and compromise – that conflict can bring forth coexistence.”¹⁵⁵

4.4 The Quota Arrangements and Other Power-Sharing Elements