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"They are using religion as a weapon to control people and to get votes!" : En kvalitativ intervjustudie med unga vuxna i Libanon

The purpose of this essay is to examine how religion is implemented in Lebanon’s political system. Where the main purpose is to examine how the informants in this study between the ages of 23-32 consider that religion should be implemented in the country’s political system. To reach the purpose of this study, the method that is being used is a qualitative method in form of semi-structured interviews. This study has conducted five semi-structured interviews, where all informants have or are taking post-secondary education.  Historically religion has been a big part of Lebanon, both in terms of looking at the political sphere and the private sphere. Religion has had a prominent role in the identity of the Lebanese population, at the expense of a common national identity. The civil war in Lebanon between 1975 to 1990 was based on a religious context and the unfair proportion of the political positions. To end the war an agreement called Ta’if Accord was implemented in the constitution. Ta’if Accord refers to that the political positions should be distributed between the different religions in the country. Built on the praxis, where the president must be Christian Maronite, the prime minister Sunni Muslim and the chair speaker of the parliament must be Shia Muslim. Therefore, it is of interest in this study lies in examining whether the informants think that religion should be implemented in the political system and if they consider the praxis of the Ta’if Accord to still be relevant in today’s Lebanon.  The study will be using theoretical aspects to reach the purpose. The theoretical perspectives that are being used are primordialism, constructivism, passive and active identity, micro, and macro perspectives. This will be used as a tool to understand how religious and political identity is created in a situation where religion is implemented in the political system. The study shows that all five informants in this essay, think that religion and politics are and should be two separate things. They emphasize that a lot of the conflicts that are occurring in Lebanon today are because religion and politics are closely linked to each other and that political leaders use religion as a tool to justify political decisions.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:sh-48215
Date January 2021
CreatorsSaliba, Felicia
PublisherSödertörns högskola, Religionsvetenskap
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageSwedish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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