Hizbullah’s Borderlands Strategy: From Identity Shaping to the Nation-State Re-ordering

Abstract

Most of the political analysis of Hizbullah’s involvement in the conflict in Syria dealt with its relationship with Iran’s regional goals and more directly with the interest to secure the alliance with the Baathist regime in Damascus. While the latter is of some interest for our purpose, this paper would like to reflect upon a larger historical trajectory of the Shiite movement in Lebanon while taking into account its previous experience in the southern borderlands to analyse its current political strategy along the eastern borderlands (Qalamoun region). It aims at identifying the main patterns of power when it comes to the territorialisation of power in border regions. Therefore, the paper will rely on the b/ordering—othering theoretical framework which tends to highlight the interactions between legitimisation process and the use of violence at the edge of the State. Moreover, the paradoxical goals of Hizbullah as a non-state actor will appear as the movement clearly contribute to shape the territorial delineation of Lebanon’s nation-state boundaries alongside its own political identity as a nationalist party.