This thesis addresses the question of the shift in the sectarian framing of political conflict and violence in Lebanon by focusing on the period between 2000 and 2010. Lebanon represents an interesting case where the saliencies of sectarian dichotomies have been drastically remodelled in only a few years following the Hariri assassination in 2005. Whereas most studies focus on long-term ethnic and sectarian conflicts, few have addressed the issue of fast remodelling of sectarian divisions in times of political turmoil. How do sectarian schisms shift in a short period of time? Why do some political changes affect sectarian dichotomies and not others? What factors can push some people to take part in clashes framed as sectarian violence? In short, how does political closure happen along sectarian lines? In order to answer these questions, this thesis uses a triangulation of qualitative and quantitative methods to disentangle the relationship between political change and sectarianism. Building on the social movement literature, it argues that street mobilisations, understood as peaceful or violent collective action, are important mechanisms through which political conflict can assume sectarian overtones. It relies on a compiled dataset of protest events that occurred in Beirut between 2000 and 2010, and applies network analysis techniques in order to study coalition formations and shifts in alliances. This analysis is combined with semi-structured interviews with a sample of 29 residents of Beirut neighbourhoods that witnessed violent clashes in 2007/8. The analysis of my data suggests that the Hariri assassination marked a turning point in the dynamics of contentious politics in Lebanon, and acted as a catalyst for the emergence and consolidation of new coalitions and sectarian dichotomies. The study argues that sectarian political parties are the main channels through which political and sectarian depictions become interchangeable. It suggests that in order for a political shift to be understood in sectarian terms, two main factors need to be taken into account: (i) the competing political parties should represent sectarian communities that are able to compete demographically (in terms of size), and (ii) the competing parties should be able to represent the majority of their sectarian communities (intra-sectarian homogeneity). The analysis of my qualitative data explores the mechanisms at work during periods of collective violence, and shows that drivers such as peer pressure, neighbourhood-level networks, material grievances, pleasure in agency, ideology and previous fighting experience seem to explain individual decisions to participate in collective violence more than sectarian hatred. In fact, rather than being the primary cause of the violence, sectarian cleavages seem to have been crystallised by the 2007/8 episodes of violence. Consequently, this thesis concludes that whereas the conflict in Lebanon today is often understood and framed in sectarian terms, a closer analysis suggests that the conflict at a macro level is essentially political and its implications at the micro level can best be understood beyond the notion of sectarianism.

No description available.

This thesis examines political mobilisation into secular groups within Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. It focuses on context and identity in order to find out why and how Palestinians in the camps mobilise into these groups. The thesis uses a framework that incorporates three levels of analysis: structural; organisational; and individual. An ethnographic methodology is deployed involving interviews and participant observation in refugee camps in Lebanon. The thesis starts by looking at what sort of theoretical framework is necessary in order to understand the three key levels of analysis, including literature focusing on opportunities and constraints; human needs; resources; recruitment; social construction; and identity. The next focus is on context, looking at both the legal issues surrounding refugees - international, regional and local - as well as the historical context. The last three chapters examine the three levels of analysis individually, using them in conjunction with ethnographic research data to find out why and how Palestinians in the camps mobilise. The conclusion shows that, contrary to what one would imagine from most of the mobilisation literature, the Palestinians in the camps are not mobilising as would be expected. Instead the ethnographic research results found that the political groups within the camps are not as politically and militarily active as would be presumed. Mobilisation into these political groups is happening for different reasons than in previous findings – focusing instead on solidarity and social issues. This change has happened for contextual and financial reasons, including the end of the Civil War and the Palestinian Revolution in Lebanon, as well as a severe lack of resources available to the political groups. The research results found that although there is still mobilisation into the political groups, there was also disillusionment among many youths at the political groups' inability to facilitate their return to Palestine from Lebanon, as well as dismay at what they saw as disunity between the Palestinian political groups.

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.

Pas de résumé / Doctorat en droit / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This dissertation looks at democracy in Lebanon, a country that has a pluralistic society with many societal cleavages. The subject of this study is the consolidation of democracy in Lebanon, described by Arend Lijphart as a "consociational democracy". The research question and sub-question posed are: 1- How consolidated is democracy in Lebanon? 2- What are the challenges facing the consolidation of democracy in Lebanon? The preamble of the 1926 Lebanese Constitution declares the country to be a parliamentary democratic republic. The political regime is a democracy, but one that is not built on the rule of the majority in numbers, since the numbers do not reflect the history of the country and its distinguishing characteristics. The division of power is built on religion, which defies the concept prevailing in western democracies of the separation between church and state. As the internal and the external conditions change, sometimes in a violent manner, the democracy in the country still survives. Today, after the war that ravaged Lebanon from 1975 to 1990, the Syrian occupation that lasted until 2005, the Israeli war in the summer of 2006, and the roadblocks in the face of the overdue presidential election in 2008, democracy is still struggling to stay alive in the country. There is no denying or ignoring the challenges and the attempts against democracy in Lebanon from 1975 to the present. Even with these challenges, there are some strong elements that let democracy survive all these predicaments. The reasons and events of the 1975-1995 war are still being sorted out and only history will clear that up. Can we say today that the Consociational democracy in Lebanon is consolidated? To answer this question Linz & Stepan's three elements of a consolidated democracy are used as the criteria: the constitution of the land, people's attitude towards democracy and their behavior. The analysis examines the Lebanese Constitution, surveys about people's attitude towards democracy, and reported events about their behavior, such as political demonstrations and political violence narrated in the media. The findings of this study show that although the Lebanese find democracy as being the only game in town, the consolidation of democracy in the country still faces some challenges, both internal and external. The study also shows that the criteria used for western democracies need to be adjusted to apply to a society such as the one in Lebanon: plural, religious and traditional.

This study investigates Hizb'allah's successful but competing dual development as an extra-institutional Shi'a social movement and an institutional political party. Hizb'allah has traditionally been studied from the perspective of one of its many natures, such as a social movement, Islamic movement, resistance, or political party, each perspective bringing with it limitations and differing interpretations of its identity, motivations, and success. The motivation behind this research was to seek an interpretation of the movement's development and success that would encompass these multiple natures. Through an interpretation of social movement ‘life-cycles', a social movement ‘development model' is proposed that accounts for contradicting theories on the ‘success' of social movements, interpreting success instead as an ability to exhibit simultaneous institutional and extra-institutional natures. The hypothesis provided in this work is that it is an ability to simultaneously exhibit institutional and extra-institutional natures that can be a source of strength and success for a movement, drawing capital from both while avoiding accountability that typically accompanies institutional politics. This challenges traditional theoretical approaches in terms of linear life-cycles with few paths for the social movement to choose from. In turn, questions arise regarding notions of social movement life-cycles being uni-directional, continuously progressing towards ‘institutionalization' or demise. Ideas of an ‘end-date' or ‘inevitable outcome' of social movements are also confronted. This interdisciplinary study is conducted by means of media, archival, and empirical research (participant observation, interviews, and surveys), focusing on changing constituent perceptions of the movement between 1985 and 2013. It is also argued that Hizb'allah's strength is its ability to draw from both extra-institutional and institutional resources while simultaneously avoiding accountability. However, it was also found that, by forming the 2011 governing coalition, the movement upset this balance by subjecting itself to accountability inherent in governance, in turn leading to ‘schizophrenic behaviour' as Hizb'allah sought to serve conflicting constituent and state interests. The significance of this research is that it not only provides an explanation for Hizb'allah's success, but also provides an interpretation of social movement development that accounts for multi-natured movements.