The Politics of Sectarianism in Postwar Lebanon

by Bassel F. Salloukh, Rabie Barakat, Jinan S. Al-Habbal

The Arab Spring unsettled regimes across North Africa and the Middle East, from Morocco to Oman. Lebanon, however, proved immune. How can that be explained? What features of Lebanese politics and governance could account for the system’s ability to withstand the domestic and regional pressures unleashed by the Arab Spring?
 
The Politics of Sectarianism in Postwar Lebanon builds on extensive field work to find the answers to those questions and more. Bassel Salloukh, Lebanon’s leading political scientist, analyses the mix of institutional, clientelist, and discursive practices that sustain the sectarian nature of Lebanon, revealing an expanding sectarian web that occupies ever-more-substantial areas of everyday life in Lebanon. It also highlights the struggles waged by opponents of the system, including women, public sector employees, teachers, students, and NGO-based coalitions, and how their efforts often fail to bear fruit because of sabotage by various systematic forces.

Genres: Lebanon, Politics, Nonfiction, Middle East, Religion, History

240 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 2015

Reviews

[Mano Chil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lebanon in a nutshell: political/sectarian elite have a strong hold of Lebanese throat.

[Ahmad Abu Rumman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought it was a brilliant comprehensive study of the socio-economic structures that define Lebanon's domestic politics and style of governance. And though I may disagree with the authors on matters of state economics and compensation of civil servants, because I am more of a fiscal conservative, I thought the facts were rationally presented. And I further believe that a similar work of every other Arab state, post the Arab Spring, is warranted.

I recently visited Lebanon for the first time and my choice of souvenirs was literature by local writers. I was not disappointed neither by this book, which is excruciatingly technical, and the visit.