The purpose for undertaking this case study of the Shi'a in Lebanon is threefold. First, as a hypothesis-generating case study, its objective is to formulate relevant hypotheses about religious resurgence and religious terrorism. This study achieves this objective by formulating 14 general and nine special hypotheses, and testing and confirming the latter. Second, the purpose of this study is also to explore the trajectory of the Lebanese Shi'a's sectarian mobilization. This exploration permits the conceptualization of geocultural immobility and its effect upon a religious minority. It deduces that the Lebanese Shiga's geo-cultural immobility is directly related to their active religious resurgence. The third purpose is to study the changes in the objectives and tactics of a religious minority, that of the Muslim Shi'a in Lebanon. This research is able, via its primary and secondary data, to show a relationship between the Lebanese Shiga's religious resurgence and their use of religious terrorism. This study introduces the concept of geo-cultural immobility. A minority's geo-cultural immobility is identified as an imposed low geographic mobility within a nation with low cultural pluralism. It establishes the Lebanese Shi'a's geo-cultural immobility, to which it attributes their religious resurgence. This Lebanese Shi'a religious resurgence is proven in this research to produce zealots needed by religious terrorist organizations. This study also introduces and defines religious terrorism as violent acts performed by elements of a religious organization or sect, growing out of a commitment to communicate a divine message. It distinguishes between religious terrorism, secular terrorism, and fighters for religious freedom, which are based on the actors' motives, affinities, and consciousness of the maliciousness of their acts. The primary and secondary data and the quasi-experiment in this research support its special hypotheses. They indicate a statistical correlation between eight Lebanese Shi'a cultural and religious attributes: (1) age, (2) marital status, (3) extent of Shi'a Imam's militancy, (4) personal religious commitment and religious resurgence, (5) zealotry, (6) geo-cultural immobility, (7) imprisonment of family members, and (8) willingness to commit terrorism.

The focus of this thesis is the analysis of a Greek–speaking Muslim community that resides in Syria and Lebanon and who claim Greek identity and Diaspora membership on the basis of Greek language and customs. My empirical research on the community was guided by the following research question: in which ways do the members of the Greek-speaking community practice and project their Greek identity? This thesis draws on theories regarding identity construction, community building, memory, gender, diaspora and immigration. All of them have been useful in order to understand and analyze the empirical data gathered during the fieldwork. Anthropological research was conducted for more than 17 months in Syria, Lebanon and Crete. Modern Greeks have constructed their identity around Orthodox Christianity, the Greek language, the glory of Ancient Greece and around policies in support of the Greek state; all concepts that people should respect, support and identify with in order to be included in the Greek fold. The voices of the members of the community in this study tell a counter narrative to that of the official Greek state, and to the formal Greek nationalist historiography that accompanies it. In this counter narrative, Greek history incorporates Muslims, and relates that good relations amongst religious groups are possible and desirable. Significantly, Greek identity is disconnected from Orthodox Christianity, while it does remain attached to Greek customs and Greek language. The community under examination constructs its identity around memories of Crete, gendered norms and practices, and the experience of living in Crete as illegal immigrants.

L'émergence du confessionnalisme au Liban est en corrélation avec le développement particulier du capitalisme dans la société libanaise, ce qui semble différent du modèle de modernisme de la société européenne et occidentale. C'est ainsi qu'on peut avancer que l'émergence historique de la formule politique confessionnelle n'était jamais un phénomène aléatoire ou spontané. Force est de constater que l'institutionnalisation du confessionnalisme était le corollaire de la déviation ou la déformation de la capitalisation ainsi que de la modernisation, un système confessionnel s'étant établi au lieu de l'instauration d'une institution étatique moderne sur la base du contrat social concrétisant l'unité nationale et la solidarité sociale à l'instar de la société européenne contemporaine. Ainsi, la pénétration du capitalisme occidental et l'articulation de l'économie nationale au marché capitaliste mondial incarnent la place du Liban dans l'économie internationale comme zone périphérique en marginalisant ses secteurs productifs. La bourgeoisie commerciale et bancaire s'impose alors dans le contexte d'une économie rentière tout en entreprenant la fonction d'intermédiaire entre Occident et Orient. Cette bourgeoisie intermédiaire contrôle l'intégralité du système libanais en coalition avec l'aristocratie traditionnelle. Elle s'applique à restreindre et à étouffer toute sorte de mobilité syndicale ou associative émanant d'une lutte des classes sociales tout en suscitant en contrepartie un alignement et un affrontement d'envergure confessionnelle, à quoi est dû le sectarisme marquant le parcours historique de la vie publique libanaise et la «configuration» de l'organisation constitutionnelle du pays. / The emergence of sectarianism in Lebanon is correlated with the particular development of capitalism in the Lebanese society, which seems different from the model of modernism in the Western and European society. This is how we can argue that the historical emergence of sectarian political formula was not a random or spontaneous phenomenon. It is clear that the institutionalization of sectarianism was the corollary of the deflection or deformation of capitalization and modernization; a sectarian system was established instead than the establishment of a modern state institution on the basis of the social contract that concretize national unity and social solidarity just like the contemporary European society. Thus, the penetration of Western capitalism and the articulation of the national economy into the world capitalist market embody Lebanon's position in the international economy as a peripheral area marginalizing its productive sectors. The commercial and banking bourgeoisie wins in the context of a rent economy by undertaking an intermediary function between West and East. This intermediate bourgeoisie controls the entire Lebanese system in coalition with the traditional aristocracy. It applies to restrict and stifle any form of syndicate or association mobility emanating from a struggle of social classes by creating confessional alignment and confrontation to which is due sectarianism that marks the historical track of the Lebanese public life and the "configuration" of the constitutional structure of the country.

This thesis examines the reconstruction of Lebanon following the war with Israel in the summer of 2006. Based on Stehr’s notion of the contemporary global economy (1994), the thesis offers a comprehensive account of how Lebanon used a global network to rebuild its infrastructure following the war and questions if the country is able to integrate fundamental elements of a knowledge-based society to participate in a worldwide economy and ensure future prosperity. Drawing on Luhmann’s social system’s theory (2002), the importance of shared objectives in collaborative projects and the recent importance of sustainable development theory in international relations, the thesis explores the communication practices used to organize this large-scale project. The study utilizes a qualitative research design with a macroscopic conceptual approach to offer a general understanding of the different systems that cooperate to aid in the reconstruction efforts. In-depth interviews are conducted with ten key informants, combined with the analysis of governmental reports, to identify significant investments offered by the international community and the different objectives of those involved in the project. A model illustrates the dynamics of these interactions, and helps to identify the areas most important to the country’s knowledge society. The protection of the country’s democratic system is identified as the overarching and shared objective of all those who contributed to the reconstruction of Lebanon, a value that is of great significance to a knowledge-based society.

This thesis examines the reconstruction of Lebanon following the war with Israel in the summer of 2006. Based on Stehr’s notion of the contemporary global economy (1994), the thesis offers a comprehensive account of how Lebanon used a global network to rebuild its infrastructure following the war and questions if the country is able to integrate fundamental elements of a knowledge-based society to participate in a worldwide economy and ensure future prosperity. Drawing on Luhmann’s social system’s theory (2002), the importance of shared objectives in collaborative projects and the recent importance of sustainable development theory in international relations, the thesis explores the communication practices used to organize this large-scale project. The study utilizes a qualitative research design with a macroscopic conceptual approach to offer a general understanding of the different systems that cooperate to aid in the reconstruction efforts. In-depth interviews are conducted with ten key informants, combined with the analysis of governmental reports, to identify significant investments offered by the international community and the different objectives of those involved in the project. A model illustrates the dynamics of these interactions, and helps to identify the areas most important to the country’s knowledge society. The protection of the country’s democratic system is identified as the overarching and shared objective of all those who contributed to the reconstruction of Lebanon, a value that is of great significance to a knowledge-based society.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Exeter, 1990. / BLDSC reference no.: DX94591.

This thesis examines how three Lebanese satellite stations and two print journals cover the Syrian civil war. It is useful to analyze Lebanon’s news programming because the relative lack of regulation over its media allows them to take drastically different political stances. Syria and Lebanon’s unique political and cultural connection causes the conflict to permeate both the debates over foreign and domestic policy. My paper is significant because it elucidates the specific ways in which the Syrian crisis divides the already fractured Lebanese populace. My analysis reveals how regional news sources give meaning to the Arab Spring using language drawn from local historical and political experiences. / text

This thesis addresses the determinants of militia decision-making. Focussing on the Lebanese Forces (LF), the major Christian militia in Lebanon's Civil War, it analyses the motives which drove the LF to accept the Ta'if Accord--an acceptance that stands in stark contrast to its rejection of two earlier settlement blueprints, the Lausanne talks and the Tripartite Agreement. Steering away from the literature's focus on ideology as the prime mover of militias, the research explores other dimensions of militia decision-making, notably the impact of inter-communal power struggles, of the extra-communal balance of power, and of the international setting. Particular attention is given to the impact of the process of institutionalization. By rendering decisions more sensitive to cost-benefit and other prasmatic considerations, institutionalization is insruumental in bringing the more hawkish of militias to the negotiation table and in opening a window of opportunity for lasting conflict resolution.

Sea water samples were collected from different sampling stations along the Lebanese coast in the summer of 1994. Chemical, biological and physical analysis were conducted to assess the recreational water quality in Lebanon. / Some 125 samples were then analyzed for the presence of Cadmium and Mercury by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Cadmium content, holding a mean 0.77 $ mu$g/L, was generally low for most areas with only a few elevated readings in Tripoli (1.89 $ mu$g/L), Checca (1.83 $ mu$g/L), Kaslik (0.79 $ mu$g/L), Beirut (1.19 $ mu$g/L) and Ramlet Al-Bayda (1.77 $ mu$g/L). Mercury content, holding a mean value of 0.06 mg/Kg (wet weight), was below the accepted tolerance limit of 0.5 mg/Kg for all sampling sites. / Some 128 samples were then analyzed for fecal coliforms (Escherichia coli and Streptococcus feacalis). Approximately, 50% of the sampling stations showed satisfactory results (less than 100 colonies/100 ml). High counts of fecal coliforms, over 500 colonies/100 ml, collected at Dora, Ramlet Al-Bayda and Antelias, reveal poor sea water quality and a public health hazards to swimmers and fishermen. / Some 36 samples were collected and analyzed for dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, salinity and temperature. For all sites sampled, DO averaged 4.03 mg/L, pH averaged 7.97, salinity averaged 38.77 ppt and temperature averaged 27.9$ sp circ$C. / The degree of pollution was found to be related to population density, industrial and human activity, continental runoffs and hydrological and meteorological conditions.

This thesis examines the reconstruction of Lebanon following the war with Israel in the summer of 2006. Based on Stehr’s notion of the contemporary global economy (1994), the thesis offers a comprehensive account of how Lebanon used a global network to rebuild its infrastructure following the war and questions if the country is able to integrate fundamental elements of a knowledge-based society to participate in a worldwide economy and ensure future prosperity. Drawing on Luhmann’s social system’s theory (2002), the importance of shared objectives in collaborative projects and the recent importance of sustainable development theory in international relations, the thesis explores the communication practices used to organize this large-scale project. The study utilizes a qualitative research design with a macroscopic conceptual approach to offer a general understanding of the different systems that cooperate to aid in the reconstruction efforts. In-depth interviews are conducted with ten key informants, combined with the analysis of governmental reports, to identify significant investments offered by the international community and the different objectives of those involved in the project. A model illustrates the dynamics of these interactions, and helps to identify the areas most important to the country’s knowledge society. The protection of the country’s democratic system is identified as the overarching and shared objective of all those who contributed to the reconstruction of Lebanon, a value that is of great significance to a knowledge-based society.