Abstract
Lebanon's history of democratic establishment, collapse and resuscitation represents an excellent laboratory to assess the theory of Consociational Democracy. This article elaborates four main approaches — Elitist, Institutional, Developmental and International — that emerged in the literature concerning Lebanon since the mid-1960s. It is aimed to demonstrate their complete interdependence in contributing to Consociational Democracy theory, despite the fact that each of these approaches purposes to give unique explanation of the Lebanese political system. Thus, the explanatory variables — elites, institutions, modernization and international environment — of Lebanon's cycles of reforms and collapses are empirically analyzed in view of the authors who proposed them. Finally, the approaches will be recomposed to enrich the debate on theoretical and prescriptive contributions of power sharing in Lebanon.
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Notes
‘Whereas the prewar elite was made up of a coalition of land-lords, notables, and professionals, the postwar elite largely consists of war elites, rich entrepreneurs, Syria's clients, and military personnel’, el-Husseini (2004, 261).
Because Consociational Democracy is both a prescriptive and an analytical concept, Lijphart chose to introduce a term (power sharing), easier for policy makers to use. See Lijphart (2008, 6).
Similarly Nordlinger proposed six conflict-regulating practices: stable coalition, proportionality, depoliticization, mutual veto, compromise and concessions by the stronger elite to the weaker (Nordlinger, 1972).
(1) No community must represent the majority, (2) absence of broad social differences, (3) a small number of groups, (4) groups must have the same size, (5) small population, (6) external dangers promotes internal unity, (7) overarching loyalties reduce the strength of particularistic loyalties, (8) geographical concentrations of the groups, 9) tradition of compromise and accommodation. See Lijphart (1996).
On this point it is also necessary to consider the 1958 civil war (Agwani, 1965; el Gammal, 1991; Alin, 1994; Salam, 1979) and other political crises within the Lebanese system (1952) and with the Palestinians (1968–1969 and 1973).
The three leading positions — defined as Troika after Ta’if—have been assigned to a Maronite Christian President, a Sunni Muslim Prime Minister and a Shiite Muslim Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies.
Even if the Shi‘i Muslims were the poorest group, communities’ lines of separation never perfectly overlapped with class distinction.
On this point Suleiman (1967b, 683) cites the definitions of Runney and Kendall (1956), Neumann (1956) and Schattschneider (1942).
Defined by G.I. Blanksten as ‘the tendency of the political active sectors of the population to follow or oppose a leader for personal, individual and family reasons rather than for political idea, program or party’ quoted by Suleiman (1967b, 686). On this issue see also Johnson (1986).
Except for Hezbollah, which maintained a militia structure, despite its political activity in local institutions and in the parliament.
An exception is represented by the Druze canton in the Chouf area, see Owen (1984).
In March 1995 the UN's Economic and Social Council for West Asia (ESCWA) declared that one third of the Lebanese population live below the poverty line (618 $/Month).
Not only considered as Arab countries versus Israel but also among Arab states.
As a consequence of the considerations made above about the party system, external intervention was often required by Lebanese factions and politicians.
Lebanon is usually ranked in the low positions of the indexes of democracy. Among others see Economist's democracy index 2007.
On this point, Hudson expresses doubts on Lebanon's Consociational nature for what concerns the Shihabist period of the 1960s, and highlights Lebanon's main deviations from the model (Hudson, 1988).
Also Hartzell and Hoddie (2003) claim that power-sharing institutions are positively associated with durable peace.
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Acknowledgements
I Would like to thank the Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane (SUM) in Florence and its director Leonardo Morlino, I am also grateful to Fulvio Attinà and Peter Mair for suggestions and encouragement and to the anonymous referees of Acta Politica. None of them are responsible for the content of this work.
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Di Mauro, D. The Consociational Democracy at Stake: Four Approaches to Explain Lebanon Past and Present. Acta Polit 43, 453–471 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/ap.2008.15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ap.2008.15