Hezbollahs success during the second Lebanon war in 2006 caused a great stirr through the field of military theorists and analysts. The organization was by most numericals clearly out-gunned and out-numbered compared to the combat-experienced Israel defense forces. The Lebanese forces however managed to not only stifle the Israeli offensive actions but held their ground through the 34 days long war resulting in a stalemate and a United Nations resolution. Theories have evolved from or in ways of explaining this puzzling case. Dual approaches have been identified as some theorize that hybrid warfare is a completely new phenomenon where others state it’s a flavor of the month expression for the same old tactics seen many times before. This study seeks to further explore the complex nature of irregular conflicts and find whether a new theory of hybrid warfare ’Unrestricted warfare’ or a senior compendium’On guerrilla warfare’ best can explain this.The findings of this study concludes that neither theory can be out-ruled and opens for further research within the the second Lebanon war as well as on the theories ’On guerrilla warfare’ and ’Unrestricted warfare’.

Interreligious peacebuilding is one of the oldest methods used in peacebuilding around the world, as religion is often one key factor in war and used both to fuel conflicts or to promote peace and co-existence. However, the use of interreligious dialogue in post-conflict societies is still not fully understood and researcher has still not encapsulated its different components. The purpose of this study was therefore to provide understanding of the use of interreligious dia-logue in a highly sectarian societies as contemporary Lebanon is. Therefore, to explore and contribute to this research field, I conducted semi-structured interviewees with a local peace-building organisation in Lebanon. The findings were analysis with an analytical framework, based on intergroup contact theory and research methods on religious dialogue. This study il-lustrated the challenges and opportunities Lebanese peacebuilders face when conducting dia-logues in a very religiously divided society. The findings presented that the affective and cog-nitive effects from interreligious dialogue do varies between individuals depending on their own view on being a majority or minority religion and their own prejudice against other beliefs. Therefore, this paper contributes to new insight on the effects of contact theories relevance in sectarian societies and could be utilised to enhance the peacebuilding efforts in Lebanon.

The proliferation in the number of domestic migrant workers (DMWs), who travel from poorer countries to work in homes in wealthier countries, represents an essential dimension of globalization in the 21st century. This project focuses on DMWs in Lebanon. In an increasingly globalized world, the study of DMWs, who number around 250,000 in Lebanon (Amnesty International, 2019), provides a critical case to understand how the transborder movement of humans generates unique and challenging human rights issues. Lebanon practices the kafala system, which is prevalent in other Middle Eastern countries and makes foreign workers legally dependent on their employment. This system has often been associated with modern-day slavery as employers gain complete authority over their workers' freedoms and rights. This thesis explores how factors such as the COVID outbreak and characteristics specific to Lebanon, such as massive anti-government protests, the economic downturn, and the Beirut Blast, deepen the precarity of DMWs, including their access to protection from physical and sexual abuse and financial wellbeing. The thesis also includes a discussion of reform attempts and activism on behalf of DMWs in the country. As well as utilizing news articles, reports, and prior literature, this thesis incorporates interviews with workers, their employers, and NGO workers in the country. By collecting information while the crises are taking place, this research presents unique details about the position of workers as they respond to one challenge after the next. The study confirms the vulnerability of DMWs in times of crisis, highlighting that events such as the anti-government protests failed to advocate for worker's rights, and crises such as the economic collapse, COVID pandemic, and Beirut Blast created strong nationalistic sentiment that ignored the status of DMWs. Instead of being enabled by progressive demands for Lebanon's government reform, DMWs were disabled in self-advocacy; instead, much of that activism has taken place on their behalf through NGOs. The thesis attempts to shed light on areas that require immediate attention, including the need to compare Lebanese reforms to those in other states and the necessity of including DMWs in Lebanese labor laws.

No description available.

Municipal solid waste management is a public service which, when it fails, can rapidly become overwhelming for communities and authorities. It is also during the deepest crisis that incentives change and new practices emerge. Lebanon went through an 8-months waste crisis after the closure of the country’s main landfill. Facing the incapacity of restoring basic services, the monopolistic centralised system was questioned: civil society, social businesses and municipalities organised, at a smaller scale, their own waste management. The thesis aims were to identify the role of the new waste stakeholders in the broader picture, assess the efficiency and needs of municipal projects and suggest some priorities for the country’s solid waste policies. The use of process-flow diagrams and a contextualised classification of actors were used to describe the Lebanese system. Case studies of recent initiatives were made using an adapted ISWM framework. The investigations have shown that, since the crisis, waste management is organised around three complementary systems, with their own legitimacy, supporters and challenges, but overall lacking of cooperation and mutual recognition. The nascent decentralised waste management tends to achieve better than the traditional central system, especially in terms of landfill space saved, resource management and inclusivity of users. However, it faces issues when tackling final disposal, energy recovery and financing. Any future waste policy should include all waste actors, set clear targets and reject any “one-size-fits-all” solution benefiting private corrupted interests. / Hushållsavfallshantering är ett offentligt verktyg som, när det misslyckas, snabbt kan bli överväldigande för samhällen och myndigheter att hantera. Det är också under de djupaste kriserna som incitament förändras och nya metoder utvecklas. Libanon gick igenom en avfallskris som varade i 8 månader, efter stängningen av landets största deponi. På grund av oförmågan att återställa grundläggande tjänster, blev det monopolistiska centraliserade systemet ifrågasatt: det civila samhället, sociala företag och kommuner organiserade, i mindre skala, sina egen avfallshantering. Examensarbetets mål var att identifiera vilken roll nya intressenter av avfallshantering får i ett brett perspektiv, bedöma effektiviteten och behovet av kommunala projekt samt föreslå prioriteringar för landets politik gällande fast avfall. Ett processflödesschema och en kontextberoende klassificering av aktörer användes för att beskriva det libanesiska systemet. En fallstudie gjordes med hjälp av ett ramverk för integrerad avfallshantering över de senaste initiativen som tagits på området. Undersökningarna har visat att avfallshanteringen är organiserad kring tre kompletterande system, som har de egna rättigheterna, anhängare och utmaningar, men det saknas tydligt samarbete och ömsesidigt erkännande. Den nya decentraliserade avfallshanteringen tenderar att uppnå bättre resultat än det traditionella centrala systemet gjort. Det gäller särskilt när deponiutrymme kan sparas, resurshantering förbättras och användarna integreras i processen. Dock kvarstår problem när det kommer till att hantera slutförvaring, energiåtervinning, och även finansiering. Framtida avfallspolitik bör inkludera alla avfallsaktörer, fastställa klara mål och avvisa alla "one-size-fits-all" lösningar som gynnar privata intressen.

Refugee camps in Lebanon are harsh, continuously and rapidly deteriorating environments. In addition to poverty, numerous wars and the restrictions of civil rights, refugee camps that were not designed as a long-term settlement were made to accommodate their residents in addition to their descendents for a period that has lasted over 59 years. Since the establishment of the camps in 1948 the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have fallen victim to multiple wars and as a result most camps have witnessed major destruction of homes and infrastructure, and a few were entirely destroyed. Today, the planning and development of the camps are highly restricted by the local government, building material is banned from entering the camps and horizontal as well as vertical expansion is prohibited by Lebanese law. According to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have the highest rate of people living in "abject poverty" in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the refugee community and the international aid agencies working in the camps are caught in the dilemma of investing in the development of a sustainable environment in a settlement with a temporary purpose and an uncertain future. This thesis explores the problems facing the built-environment in the camps within the political and socio-economic context, and takes the camp of Burj El Barajneh as a case study for deeper investigation. It then suggests three possible solution approaches that address the environmental problems within different future scenarios. The thesis also looks at the feasibility and requirements of an energy generation plant to provide part of the energy needs of the camp of Burj El Barjneh. Finally, a set of conclusions and recommendations are derived that address the refugee community, the international aid agencies and the host country. The significance of this study is to mitigate a possible humanitarian and environmental crisis in the most dire of refugee situations in the Middle East, with the hope that conclusions drawn from this study can be applied to refugee communities elsewhere in the region.

Lebanon hosts over one million refugees displaced from Syria as a result of the armed conflict—of whom, approximately 15% are adolescents aged between 12 and 17 years of age. Many female adolescent migrants report a decrease in quality of life and an increase in family tensions. This study sought to investigate the emotional well-being of adolescent Syrian girls in Lebanon. We hypothesized that married girls may experience additional hardships and thus greater feelings of dissatisfaction in daily life, given their young marriage and responsibilities at home. This study was part of a large mixed-methods study on the experiences of Syrian refugee girls in Lebanon (n = 1422). Using line-by-line coding and thematic analysis, 188 first-person narratives from Syrian girls were analysed. Our results highlight poor emotional well-being among married and unmarried girls, with sadness, fear and anger commonly mentioned. Some participants expressed feelings of hope, happiness, gratefulness and empowerment. Unmarried girls (n = 111) were more likely to associate their shared stories with negative feelings such as sadness (47% vs. 22%), disappointment (30% vs. 19%), and frustration (32% vs. 22%) than were married girls (n = 77). Four themes emerged as important determinants: access to education, perceived safety, peer support, and longing for life back in Syria. Continued efforts to improve emotional well-being for married and unmarried refugee girls are needed in Lebanon, in particular those that address the nuances for these groups.

No description available.

The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of how sectarian tensions can be harnessed, nourished and spread in Lebanon. It does so through a case study on the speech delivered by Hezbollah’s Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, on 18 October 2021, where he accused the Christian party, and former militia, the Lebanese Forces for killing seven Shia Muslims in a protest four days earlier. More specifically, this thesis is a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis with the aim to examine how we can understand the discourse on Christians and how that discourse is shaped through Nasrallah’s framing of himself, Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces. With conspiracist elements, Nasrallah creates a dichotomy of us and them where them is the threat that also helps to define what is us. It is a highly polarizing speech, where he frames the Lebanese Forces as a political enemy and a threatful organization without morals that wants to sow division and create a civil war in Lebanon. In contrast, Nasrallah depicts Christians as part of a larger us that wants peace and stability. However, within the us, Christians are depicted as exposed, vulnerable and in need of protection which stands in contrast to Hezbollah that is immensely strong and can protect Christians. Meanwhile, he encourages and mobilizes Christians to act against the Lebanese Forces. Thus, despite a rhetoric about unity among Christians and Muslims, the main finding of this thesis is that Nasrallah seeks support from Christians by spurring sectarian tensions and sowing division within the Christian camp, with the goal to gain power.

No / I-MEET is an Integrated Model for Evaluating E-government services Transformation from stakeholders' perspectives. It is based on an integration of concepts from value chain management and business process transformation to optimize the system-wide value chain of providers and users simultaneously. It aims to align stakeholders on a common global value against traditional disintegrated approaches where each stakeholder optimizes its e-service local value at the expense of others. The measured variables are derived from the literature and focused groups. They are then categorized into cost and risk (Inputs) and (benefit and opportunity) Outputs after a validation process based on Structured Equation Models using a sample of 1540 user-responses of e-services in the UK. Finally, Data Envelopment Analysis is conducted to derive an aggregated of an e-service satisfaction value using the various inputs and outputs. The empirical results demonstrate that data-derived weights for aggregating indicators are variable rather than fixed across e-services. The novelty of the assessment approach lies in its capability to provide informed suggestions to set targets to improve an eservice from the perspective of all engaging users. Hence it provides a better transformation of public administration services and improved take up by citizens and businesses.