Trying Again: Power-Sharing in Post-CivilWar Lebanon

International Negotiation 2: 103–122, 1997. c 1997 Kluwer Law International. Printed in the Netherlands.

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Trying Again: Power-Sharing in Post-Civil War Lebanon MICHAEL C. HUDSON Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, School of Foreign Service, 251 ICC, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057–1020, USA

Abstract. The paper situates Lebanon in the context of consociationalist theorizing about politics in deeply divided societies. It suggests that none of the four prevailing models of Middle Eastern political systems (liberalism, patrimonial, nationalist-authoritarian, and corporatist) explicitly addresses vertical solidarist formations. Consociationalism attempts to do so, but Lebanon’s experience with it has yielded negative as well as positive results. The paper reviews the contradictions of Lebanon’s recent history, examining first “the golden age” and then the era of the civil war and the “militia republic” (1975–1990). It then analyzes the “Ta’if Accord” which provided the basis for a post-civil war reconstruction, and while it notes some institutional improvements (hence the designation of the agreement as “consociationalism-plus”) it expresses skepticism whether the provisions in Ta’if that call for the gradual elimination of political confessionalism will be implemented. The paper draws attention to the presence of external players on the Lebanese scene, especially Israel and Syria, and discusses the two post-civil war parliamentary elections in 1992 and 1996. It concludes that Lebanon’s political recovery has been only partly successful.

Key words: consociational democracy, confessionalism (sectarianism), National Pact, Ta’if Accord, militias, elections, parliament

The problem of deeply divided societies has assumed new importance in the post-Cold War era. As Gurr (1993) has shown, all kinds of ethnosectarian protest has increased over the past several decades. In the post-Soviet world, American policymakers increasingly are concerned with the proliferation of small-scale but often very bloody conflicts that seem to be rooted in the unleashed hostilities of distinct and mutually fearful solidarity groupings. The formal structures of states and boundaries, of national cohesion, and “rules of the game” seem to be insufficient to deal with the apparently growing fragmentation in so many societies. While many of these “problem cases” are in the underdeveloped countries, they are also found in many Several paragraphs in this paper have been drawn from Michael Hudson’s article on

Lebanon in The Encyclopedia of Democracy (Washington: Congressional Quarterly, 1996).

Michael C. Hudson received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale. He has taught at Swarthmore College, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He has written widely on politics in the Arab Middle East and has a particular interest in Lebanon. He has held Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships and is a past president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America.

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wealthy industrialized societies, including our own. If the end of the Cold war has somehow unleashed ethnosectarian passions, so have the growing inadequacies of the state and its legitimizing ideologies. In the Arab world, for example, old unifying concepts of nationalism have lost their saliency, while the newer state structures have not succeeded generally in generating new “patriotisms.” States may be “fierce,” as Nazih Ayubi (1995) has argued, but they aren’t really “strong.” Changes in the global political and economic system have further contributed to the new saliency of ethnic conflict. The post-Cold war hegemony of the U.S. has brought with it the “victory” (as it were) of free-market, liberal capitalism. Global demands for economic structural reforms have created social stresses which in turn exacerbate ethnic insecurities. Globalism has its cultural dimension as well, as Barber’s aptly titled book, Jihad vs. McWorld (1995) suggests. While we may not accept Huntington’s thesis about the “clash of civilizations” (1993) we can see that in many countries people fear the onslaught of “Western” values that seem to threaten their religious or national heritage.

The Theoretical Debate Many (but not all) modernization and political culture theorists of the 1950s and 1960s suggested that religion and ethnicity were primordial, parochial orientations, and that modernization was steadily eroding them. This line of theory gradually elicited a counter-movement which insisted that these “primordial” identifications were in fact very durable; indeed, modernization might even enhance their saliency. Walker Connor sharply challenged the homogenization modernization thesis in a well-known article in World Politics (1972, 1994). Subsequently, a group of other scholars, notably Donald Horowitz (1985) and Milton Esman (1994) worked to rehabilitate “ethnicity” as a respectable concept among political scientists. Also notable is the work of Ted Gurr, especially insofar as it seeks to quantify “ethnic” behavior.

The new attention to ethnicity and its durability occasioned some interesting creative work on the part of political scientists, who were concerned about how these ethnic solidarities might be managed or integrated into the political system. Westminster-style majoritarian liberal democracy, with its insistence on the individual as the fundamental unit of political analysis, seemed to some to miss the point of “lumpy” ethnic communal units and thus be irrelevant to the problems of dealing with fragmented societies. From the opposite end of the political spectrum, “national projects” whose raison d’ˆetre was to try and erase ethnosectarian particularities in favor of a fusion model of national identity also seemed increasingly unable to handle “subnational” cleavages. It was not surprising, therefore, that new theoretical attention should be directed

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toward “power-sharing” formulas. In this respect the contributions of Arend Lijphart (1977), and his notion of “consociational democracy” were fundamental, as was similar work by Eric Nordlinger (1972) and others. Consociationalism involves government by a cartel of ethnosectarian elites, which can manage their respective “flocks” and get along with each other. Instead of promoting a monolithic national identity, the consociational state rests upon distinct ethnosectarian “pillars” – a confederation of protected identity groups.

In the Middle East we have seen these debates played out in a particularly vivid fashion. A region noted for its authoritarian politics has seen persistent and increasing ethnic tension and conflict (Gurr, 1993: 105). Modernization seems to be at least partially responsible for this fragmentation of identities, even though the original modernization theorists expected quite different results – the creation of larger, less parochial, more tolerant, more secular, more civic, “national” identities. The impact of Western political penetration – through mandates, protectorates, colonization, and spheres of influence – also seemed to exacerbate divisions, especially in those cases where European powers had utilized ethnosectarian minorities to try and thwart nationalist opposition movements.

In the turbulent period between the end of World War I and the nationalist surge of the 1950s a number of Arab political systems flirted (as it were) with Western parliamentary democracy, but these liberal experiments in countries such as Egypt, Syria, and Iraq were short-lived. Two other trajectories emerged as the dominant ones: the “traditional patrimonial project”, exemplified by monarchies like Saudi Arabia; and the “national unity” project, which sought to mold a homogeneous political culture through single-party, military-dominated regimes. Nasserite Egypt stands as the outstanding example of this type. As the populist enthusiasm of the nationalist projects waned, another model appeared – which some scholars (such as Ayubi, 1995 and Perthes, 1995) have called “corporatist” – in which rulers in effect struck deals with key economic elites. Syria under Asad and Egypt under Mubarak exemplify this type. What is interesting about all four of these models is that none squarely addressed the ethnosectarian challenge. The liberal parliamentary and corporatist models in effect ignored the existence of sub-national (or supra-national) solidarity groupings. The traditional patrimonial model sought to subordinate them and the national unity projects sought to suppress them. Consequently, most contemporary Arab political systems have failed to handle the delicate problem of ethnosectarian participation very successfully. Examples of this failure are everywhere: Algeria, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan come immediately to mind. Nor have

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non-Arab countries like Turkey, Iran, and Israel been spared ethnosectarian conflict at one level or another.

Conspicuous by its absence has been the power-sharing or consociational model that Lijphart argued had been quite successful in relieving the tensions in several deeply divided societies, mainly in Europe but also including Lebanon. Lebanon is the only Middle Eastern country to have engaged in explicit political engineering to develop a structural modus vivandi for its several sectarian communities. The founding fathers of independent Lebanon decided that a fixed, permanent formula for communal representation would be necessary in order to reduce insecurities and remove sectarian competition from the normal political process. Hence, the “National Pact” of 1943 stipulated that the powerful President of the Republic be a Maronite Christian, the less powerful Prime Minister be a Sunni Muslim, and the even less powerful Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies be a Shiite Muslim. By a ratio of 6 to 5, Christians would slightly outnumber Muslims in the parliament and in the higher ranks of the civil service and the military. Moreover, Christians were enjoined from linking Lebanon with the West and Muslims promised not to fold Lebanon into the Arab East.

But before leaping to the conclusion that consociationalism should be introduced throughout the Arab countries to solve their ethnosectarian problems, it might be prudent to look more carefully at how well it actually worked in Lebanon. This is, after all, the country that experienced one small civil war in 1958 and a second very large, long and bloody one from 1975 until 1990.

Scholars who follow Lebanon, and Lebanese intellectuals as well, debate among themselves whether consociationalism was an adequate solution or whether, on the contrary, it was part of the problem. The question is not simply academic, for one can argue that the Ta’if Accord which ended the last civil war restores consociationalism as a means of ethnic conflict resolution.

After reviewing the high and low points of Lebanon’s recent history, I propose to look briefly at the post-Civil War political scene with an eye to assessing whether the Ta’if solution (which I shall call “consociationalism-plus”) is promoting ethnosectarian reconciliation and good government.

The Contradictions of Recent History For three decades – from the early-1940s to the early 1970s – the newly independent Republic of Lebanon enjoyed economic growth and relative political stability. Unlike most of its neighbors in the Arab world its government was not very repressive and political life was open. The confessionalconsociational system designed by the banker-philosopher Michel Chiha, and his friends, seemed to be working splendidly. When the country began its rapid

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descent into chaos starting at the end of the 1960s, some analysts blamed it on external conditions – mainly the Palestinian-Arab/Israeli conflict – but others blamed internal conditions – in particular, political confessionalism – for emasculating the state at the moment when its decisive intervention might have saved the situation. The fact that the civil strife lasted so long is taken as an indictment of a system that institutionalized separatism at a time when a unified response was needed.

Lebanon’s “Golden Age” For American political scientists in the 1960s, concerned about the “problems of political development,” Lebanon presented an interesting – perhaps exceptional – case. It’s parliamentary democracy seemed secure. Elections had been held with almost complete regularity since 1943. Strife between Muslims and Christians was far less than expected. The Lebanese formula began to attract attention as a way of alleviating conflict in deeply divided societies.

Admiring work was done on Lebanon (see, e.g., Binder, 1966, Salem, 1973).

But there were two ominous countertrends, one internal, the other external.

With the inevitable inequalities that accompany strong aggregate economic growth, questions began to be raised about the legitimacy of the 6:5 formula between Christians and Muslims inscribed in the 1943 National Pact. Shi’a Muslims, who were particularly disadvantaged, were the first to develop a “system-challenging” leader, Imam Mousa Al-Sadr. The external challenge arose mainly from the ongoing, festering Arab-Israeli conflict. Lebanon had tried to stand aloof from this problem from its very beginnings in 1948, but this became increasingly difficult. There was a strong Palestinian elite and also refugee presence in Lebanon – and both sectors supported the renewed Palestinian resistance movement beginning in the early 1960s. Syria also had traditional security interests in Lebanon and would not stand idly by should Lebanon dissolve into anarchy or be seized by a hostile ideological movement. For their part, the Israelis at a minimum wanted to prevent Lebanon from becoming a haven or launching pad for Palestinian action. By the mid 1960s, had Lebanon been able to develop a more unified society, and a stronger state and army, perhaps it could have withstood the external challenges and moved to face the internal ones. Unfortunately, this did not happen.

How might one characterize Lebanon’s sectarian bargaining relations during this pre-civil war “golden age”? The French mandate period had been marked by the alienation of the Muslim community as a whole from what they saw as a French-Maronite hegemonic project. But the 1943 National Pact brought the Muslims into the system as Lebanon embarked on independence.

Although Muslim-Christian tensions were never erased, they were managed fairly successfully over the period from 1943 to 1975. Under President Bishara

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al-Khoury (1943–1952) a “grand coalition” of sectarian and feudal-business “notables” ran the country in a manner that roughly fits the consociational model. But his regime was brought down in 1952 by an opposition coalition which included not just some disgruntled notables but also the representatives of new political and ideological groupings – the product of a nascent and growing “civil society.” During the regime of Khoury’s successor Camille Chamoun (1952–1958) the growth of non-sectarian parties and interest groups continued, as did the growth of mass, ideology-driven politics. Pan-Arabism and socialism had particular resonance among Muslim communities and the poorer strata. But sectarian feelings were not eroded by these developments; on the contrary, there were new demands from Muslim organizations for a more equitable power-sharing arrangement. All of these developments must be viewed against the backdrop of rapid but uneven economic growth and of growing ideological polarization across the Arab world. The system broke down, albeit briefly, during the civil war of the summer of 1958, which was ended after American military and diplomatic intervention. What is interesting about the 1958 crisis was its basically non-sectarian character. Chamoun’s governing coalition sought to champion Lebanon’s “pro-Western” orientation against a threat from Egyptian-led “pan-Arabism.” While there was a sectarian subtext to this struggle – and one that finally burst into a brief period of violence – the President (a Maronite Christian) led a coalition that included important Sunni, Shi’a, and Druze notables, while the Opposition coalition enjoyed the sympathy of the Maronite Patriarch and numerous Maronite, Greek Orthodox and Druze notables as well as the secular-socialist-pan-Arab groupings.

The 1958 conflict was settled with the election of General Fuad Shihab, commander of the army, as the new President. An avowed modernizer with European social-democratic sympathies, Shihab set out on a mission to modernize the state, reduce social and regional inequalities, and reestablish a modus vivendi between the several ideological and sectarian camps. He was not radical enough to want to destroy the system of sectarian bargaining so much as to marginalize it. His accommodating stance toward Nasserist Arab nationalism and his attention to the neglected social sectors won this Maronite president substantial support from Muslims and from the political left. While some traditional Maronite politicians turned against him, he did enlist the support of the best-organized Maronite party, the Kata’ib, or Phalanges Libanaises, led by Pierre Gemayel. The main bargaining axis was between the Shihabist governing coalition, the Nahj, and the more conservative, pro-Western notables, led primarily by Maronites. Both camps, however, were multi-sectarian, and both included both old-line “feudal” personalities as well as politicians of a more “modern” middle-class background. Shihab

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was succeeded in 1964 by a weak prot´eg´e, and with the 1968 parliamentary elections the anti-Shihabist traditionalists were on the way to regaining hegemony. In the presidential election of 1970, Suleiman Frangieh, a tough za’im from the mountains of North Lebanon, defeated the Shihabist candidate by a single vote and moved to restore Maronite Christian hegemony and the “feudal” traditional leadership that had been defeated in 1958. Collisions with the intensely politicized Muslim constituencies were inevitable, in light of persisting domestic inequalities and a regional situation increasingly inflamed by Palestinian-Israeli hostilities. New elites and non-elites across the sectarian spectrum began to emerge – the beginnings of “the militia republic” of the civil war period.

If for the better part of this “golden age” bargaining was carried out by multisectarian coalitions, one might then ask what they were bargaining about.

Local, short-term issues were the “stuff” of daily politics: notables contesting for position and influence; competing for state resources and patronage, and so forth. For the most part, sensitive ideological matters were downplayed, at least until the late 1960s. There seems to have been widespread consensus in support of the liberal economy and, for a time, on the “balanced” foreign policy prescription of the National Pact. Sectarianism was a subject not broached in polite mainstream political circles. While it was always just beneath the surface, it was non-elite politicians that raised the challenge, and there were occasional eruptions. Unfortunately, as time passed there emerged a tendency to conflate the sectarian (Christian-Muslim) and the foreign policy (Arabism-Western) cleavages.

The Civil War and “The Militia Republic” Even before the violent incidents of March and April 1975 that precipitated the civil war, the Lebanese state was losing control of the country. The Christian president and Muslim prime minister were frequently at odds and the Army was showing itself unable to curb the growing violence involving Palestinians (of whom there were some 400,000 in Lebanon), and various Lebanese militias of the "Christian-right” and the “Muslim-left.” The war itself went through several phases, each marked by complex shifting alliances and dozens of failed cease-fire agreements. In the first phase, 1975–76, the Army proved unable to respond to clashes between a Christian militia and Palestinians, and it eventually split into four parts. Populist Muslim forces clashed with the Christian-dominated Army. Muslim organizations, now organized in the Lebanese National Movement, joined with Palestinian guerrillas to invade largely Christian areas, but they were repulsed by Syria which feared an Israeli invasion were the Christian forces on the brink of defeat.

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In the period 1977–1979 Syria gradually turned against the newly assertive Christian militias, which were now fighting each other as well as the Muslims. The situation in South Lebanon also deteriorated as Palestinian attacks against Israel led to a brief Israeli invasion in 1978 and the establishment of an Israeli-run “security zone” on the Lebanese side of the international frontier. Continuing Israeli reprisals in south Lebanon led to friction between Palestinian forces and the emerging Shi’ite Movement of the Disinherited, known as Amal.

Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and its occupation of the country up to and including Beirut, marked yet another bloody turning point. Having failed in its attempt to destroy the Palestine Liberation Organization and to establish a friendly, compliant government for Lebanon, the Israelis by 1986 had largely withdrawn. In their wake Maronite and Druze militias fought a brutal mini-war in the Shouf mountains. Meanwhile a new and more militant Shi’ite organization, Hizballah, had arisen with support from the Islamist revolutionary regime in Iran, leading to clashes with the Syrian-backed Amal.

In the course of these blood-soaked activities strange bedfellows emerged: at one point, for example, the Christian Lebanese Forces were cooperating with Palestinian forces against Syrian-backed Lebanese Shi’ites. Against a background of continuing intra-sectarian militia battles on both the Muslim and Christian sides, the civil war lurched into its final paroxysms: in 1989 a “war of liberation” was waged unsuccessfully by the Maronite General Michel Aoun against the Syrian army, which dominated two-thirds of the country, and in 1990 General Aoun went to war again, this time against the Christian Lebanese Forces militia.

What had happened to Lebanese democracy? What, indeed, had happened to the Lebanese state? In formal terms it can be argued that “legality” prevailed through virtually the entire period. The 1972 parliament, its mandate repeatedly extended owing to the impossibility of holding elections, continued to exist and in fact provided the institutional launching pad for the “Ta’if Reforms” of 1989 which are the matrix of Lebanon’s postwar order. In 1976 it elected a new president, Elias Sarkis, under pressure from the Syrians; in 1982 it elected his successor, Bashir Gemayel, under pressure from the Israelis, and when Bashir was immediately assassinated it elected his brother Amin in his place. But in 1988 the Parliament was unable to agree on a successor to Amin Gemayel, so in the last minutes of his term he appointed the Christian General Aoun as prime minister. The incumbent Muslim prime minister, Dr. Salim Al-Hoss, refused to step down, however, and the now headless state in effect split into two parts. Finally, in 1989 the Parliament elected Ren´e Moawad President (with Syrian blessing), and when he too was immediately assassinated it elected another candidate approved by Syria, Elias Hrawi.

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Not surprisingly, the structure of contestation in Lebanon changed markedly during the Civil War period. In fact, the change could be observed well before the outbreak of sustained violence in 1975. The resurgence of sectarian tension was evident during the Frangieh presidency (1970–1976). The most volatile sects were the Maronite Christians, who began forming “defensive” militias in the face of what they saw as a rising Palestinian-Lebanese Muslim threat, and the Shi’ite Muslims, whose non-elites were being mobilized for social protest by Imam Mousa Sadr – a new, charismatic leader and a challenger to the traditional Shi’ite leadership. After 1975 sectarian militias became the main bargainers in the Lebanese political arena. The Christian “Lebanese Forces” under the energetic leadership of Bashir Gemayel (the militant son of the founder of the Kata’ib) marginalized the traditional Maronite notables.

Imam Musa Sadr’s “Amal” movement did the same to the traditional Shi’ite notables. And while Lebanon’s Sunnis never fielded a comparably powerful dominant militia, their old leaders too were shorn of much of their influence.

The only sect to maintain its traditional leadership was the Druze: for Kamal Junblat (and later his son Walid) it was relatively easy to transform the sect’s political party into a militia. Vicious sectarian massacres far more serious than the occasional incidents of earlier years erupted at various points during the long conflict.

These new actors were not just bargaining about “local issues” such as perquisites and spoils. They were bargaining over territory, security issues, foreign policy, power-sharing, and (in the case of the radical Maronite and Shiite groups) the nature of the Lebanese state itself. Their bargaining instruments were guns and bombs, not just words; threats and coercion, not just promises and rewards. During the pre-1982 phase of the war the mainly Christian conservative forces and militias comprising the Lebanese Front struggled against mainly Muslim and left-wing elements grouped together in the Lebanese National Movement over three main issues: the power-sharing formula of 1943, demands for social change and equity, and the degree of Lebanon’s support (by virtue of its Arab commitments) for the Palestinian movement (Working Paper, 3). In the post-1982 phase, following the Israeli invasion, militias with a narrower sectarian character and agenda emerged as main actors: the Christian Lebanese Forces, the Shi’ite Amal Movement, and the Druze Progressive Socialist Party militia. Polarization deepened even further with the emergence of a Shi’ite movement – Hizballah – that was far more radical than Amal, and called for the establishment of an Islamic state in Lebanon. A similar radicalization occurred on the Christian side in the person of General Michel Aoun, who proposed to weaken Lebanon’s “Arab...belonging and identity” (as the Ta’if Accord, Article 1, Section B, put it) and, in particular, to disconnect Syria from the Lebanese scene, and

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for the removal of the Israeli occupation as well. These essentially Lebanese cleavages were exacerbated throughout the civil war period by the regional rivalries between Syria and the PLO, the PLO and Israel, Israel and Syria, and Iran and Iraq. By the 1980s Lebanon was less a sovereign entity with a constitutional government than a field of largely unregulated contestation between a dozen or so relatively autonomous actors.

In the era of the “First Republic” before the civil war the Lebanese state was weak but legitimate. If it did not measure up to purist definitions of democracy it nevertheless rested on an institutionalized process of limited representation. Elections were relatively free and somewhat competitive.

The Chamber of Deputies included a variety of traditional politicians of all major sects and clans and a smattering of “modern” political parties or movements. Presidents, duly elected by the Chamber, built broad-based coalitions and maintained working relations with most opposition elements through the time-honored practices of wasta (intermediation), patronage, and nepotism. Corruption lubricated the wheels of Lebanon’s notoriously inefficient administrative bureaucracies. Even in the somewhat atypical Shihab period, it cannot be said that Lebanon was a “republic of fear” in the manner of some neighboring regimes.

In the “militia republic,” however, these institutions nearly evaporated as real power devolved to ten or more autonomous political-military organizations, some run by traditional politicians (such as the Druze leader Walid Junblat) and others by newcomers (such as Amal, run by Nabih Berri; the Lebanese Forces, run by Samir Geagea; and Hizballah, run by hitherto unknown young Shi’ite militants). Up until 1982–83 the Palestinians, however reluctantly, also involved a half-dozen guerrilla groups in Lebanese politics. Syria and Israel, each with military forces deployed (or regularly deployable) on Lebanese territory, were equally important players, capable (as we have seen) of choosing a President; and one should also note the presence of Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Even the United States, which sent Marines to Beirut in 1982–84 as part of an ill-fated multinational force to protect Palestinian civilians, ended up being perceived as a partisan militia and paid for its inadvertent involvement with blood. What of Lebanese “civil society?” Parties without militias, interest groups, professional associations and unions, the intellectuals, public opinion and the press were all relegated to the sidelines, and the formal institutions of government, although present, appeared to float above the fray, irrelevant to it.

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Ta’if and After The National Accord Document for Lebanon issued in Ta’if, Saudi Arabia, on October 24, 1989, was composed with the active mediation of Saudi Arabia, discreet participation by the United States, and behind-the-scenes influence from Syria. Signed by nearly all of the surviving members of the 1972 Chamber of Deputies, it was the blueprint for the restoration of the Lebanese state and ending the long civil war. The Ta’if accords modify the “rules of the game” of the First Republic but they do not alter their basic character. Postwar Lebanon – in form – remains more-or-less a consociational democracy.

Sectarian proportionality is still there, but the proportion of Muslim to Christian legislators and officials has been increased to 50–50. The President of the Republic remains for the foreseeable future a Maronite Christian, but his powers have been substantially reduced. The Prime Minister remains a Sunni Muslim but the powers of the Council of Ministers, which he chairs, have been increased. The office of President of the Chamber of Deputies still goes to a Shi’ite, but his term has been increased from one year to four, and so has his influence. The power of the Chamber itself was increased by the elimination of the old provision allowing the Executive to pass “urgent” legislation without Parliamentary involvement. At the same time, Ta’if explicitly calls for a gradual phasing out of political sectarianism.

Other provisions of the Ta’if accords relating to Lebanon’s external relations were more controversial. “Lebanon is Arab in belonging in identity.”

This is a stronger expression of Lebanon’s “Arabness” than was found in the 1943 National Pact and thus alarmed some Christians. Even more alarming was the provision authorizing a “special relationship” between Lebanon and Syria, one which would give Syria a privileged position on matters relating to national security, among other things. Moreover, a pledge by Syria to redeploy its forces in Lebanon east of the Lebanon mountain range within two years of the formal ratification of the Ta’if accords, the holding of a new presidential election, and the formation of a new cabinet was also conditioned by “the approval of political reforms.” Two years later, with a new president and cabinet in place, the Syrians refused to redeploy on grounds that all of the political reforms (by which they meant beginning the process of desectarianization) had not yet been achieved. Furthermore, as long as Israel controlled its self-styled “security zone” in southern Lebanon Syria could justify keeping its own military presence in the country.

The Post-Ta’if Period In theory, Ta’if had much to recommend it. True, it restored a “temporary” confessional order but fine-tuned it to accommodate new realities. But Ta’if

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on paper indicated much more than a simple restoration of the confessionalism of the past. Its clear commitment to the dismantling of confessionalism and the strengthening of the public sphere through an enhanced judiciary was commendable. The nagging question remains, however: did those who were responsible for the document really believe in its liberal-reform provisions?

From a Realpolitik perspective it is easy to imagine that the Syrian government, the American government, and the Saudi government were minimalists, preferring to make tactical adjustments rather than risking a transformation that could threaten their respective Lebanese clients. The aging parliamentarians who collectively legitimized the Accord did not include many reformers.

One cannot repress the suspicion that Ta’if in 1989, like the National Pact of 1943, was merely paying lip-service to liberal reform. In any event, Ta’if in practice deviated significantly from Ta’if in theory.

The Parliamentary Elections of 1992 and 1996 General Aoun and many Maronite Christians either opposed Ta’if outright or accepted it with great reluctance. They also opposed the holding of new parliamentary elections in August and September 1992, but Syria refused all requests to delay them, even for technical reasons: how could the electoral rolls be updated following the vast demographic upheavals of the previous 17 years? The elections were held nevertheless, and notwithstanding the shadow of Syria and a boycott in much of the Maronite heartland of Mount Lebanon the new Parliament was welcomed in most other parts of the country as an important, if flawed, step on the road back to stable representative government. Comparison of the 1992 election with its predecessors revealed lower voter participation, especially in Mount Lebanon where it averaged around 16 percent, although it was closer to 40 percent in the Biqa and South Lebanon; the overall turnout in 1972 had been 55 percent. As for the composition of the new Parliament, new entrants not surprisingly filled 80 percent of the 128 seats; yet fully a third of the deputies had either been elected to earlier parliaments or were the close relatives (sons, sons-in-law, brothers, or cousins) of former deputies. Of 20 “parliamentary families” prominently represented in parliaments going back to 1943, 11 were found in the 1992 parliament, suggesting – for better or worse – a certain continuity.

The occupational background of deputies revealed a continuing steep decline in large landowners and lawyers and a large increase in the professions – doctors, journalists, engineers, clerics, retired civil servants, and professional politicians.

There were several striking trends in the political makeup of the new Chamber. Some 47 percent of the new deputies were affiliated with a political party or movement (as opposed to a traditional grouping or independent status),

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compared with 31 percent in the 1972 parliament. Some of the parties showed continuity – for example, the Ba’th, Junblat’s Progressive Socialist Party, and the Armenian Dashnak. More striking was the disappearance of many traditional Maronite actors – personalities like the Chamouns, Gemayels, and Eddes, and parties like the Phalanges. Absent too were prominent anti-Syrian militia chiefs of the civil war such as Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea.

Many Maronites of Mount Lebanon looked upon these results as depressing evidence of the end of Maronite hegemony, and some waited for General Aoun to return from exile in France to restore Lebanon as a “Christian” country. But not only were traditional Christian players missing, there were now new Islamist actors on the parliamentary scene: the Shi’ite parties Amal and Hizballah now constituted the largest blocs in parliament – 12 for Hizballah (and allies) and 20 for Amal. There was also small but significant representation from two Sunni Muslim Islamist parties. Even Lebanese observers who detested Syria’s involvement in Lebanese politics admitted that Damascus had on the whole acted skillfully to implant its influence in postwar Lebanon while allowing quite a broad spectrum of traditional and new political forces a place on the political stage. If Lebanon were to emerge definitively from its past agony the traditional Christians of Mount Lebanon would need to be brought back into the formal system one way or another. On the whole, then, the 1992 elections raised as many questions as they answered about Lebanon’s future stability. The simple fact that they had taken place was perhaps the most positive result, but they did little to help relegitimize the Lebanese political system. However, a reminder of Syria’s hegemony in Lebanon was the decision in November 1995 to amend the constitution to extend the mandate of President Elias Hrawi – a Maronite “outsider” – for an additional three years.

The elections of August-September 1996, therefore, took on particular significance. In many ways they advanced Lebanon’s political recovery. Voting participation rose to 44 percent, still well below the 1972 level, although the Interior Minister claimed that the “real” figure might have been 66 percent, owing to the number of absent and dead voters on the electoral rolls (The Lebanon Report, Fall 1996, p. 24). The results were a decisive victory for the post-Ta’if regime led by Prime Minister Rafic al-Hariri, thus further entrenching the Syrian-dominated, post-Ta’if establishment and enhancing (for better or worse) its stability. Many of its 128 members had been affiliated with the once-dominant militias of the civil war period; others were wealthy businessmen, many of whom had profited from the civil war. It was estimated that perhaps 85 of the 128 deputies were independently wealthy or had income sources other than their salaries (The Lebanon Report, Fall 1996, p. 23). Hariri came into parliament with a bloc of 30-40 deputies, and he was supported by eight other blocs, led by Nabih Berri (Shi’ite, Amal leader), Omar Karami

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and Ahmad Karami (Sunnis) in the North, Walid Junblat (Druze, from the Chouf district of Mount Lebanon), Hizballah (Shi’ite, in the South and Biqa’ districts), an Armenian bloc, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, and the bloc of President of the Republic Elias Hrawi. This parliament was not expected to present any serious challenge to Prime Minister Hariri or to Syrian policy in Lebanon. While Islamists continued to be represented, their numbers actually shrank somewhat: Hizballah lost one seat (out of 8) and several allies, while two Sunni Islamist parties were completely eliminated from Parliament.

On the negative side, however, the 1996 elections were marked by significant irregularities, according to an independent monitoring group, the Lebanese Association for the Democracy of Elections. Furthermore, the marginalization of the Maronites and of the traditional political establishment continued. True to form, the Christian opposition split apart, with a group of notables in exile (General Aoun, Raymond Edde, and former President Amine Gemayel) calling for another Christian boycott, while another group inside Lebanon insisted on participating – and for the most part losing. The government, meanwhile, moved ahead with legislation to shrink the electronic mass media, leading the opposition to accuse it of curtailing freedom of expression. Certainly there seemed to be few pressures on it to improve its unimpressive performance in institutional reform or social policy.

The 1996 results seemed to confirm several post-Ta’if trends. The structure of sectarian bargaining had certainly changed, even though sectarian consciousness (by many Lebanese accounts) remained high. The Maronite establishment, including even the Patriarch, had been marginalized, and former Maronite militia leaders totally excluded. The Druze and Shi’ite militia elites seemed very much intact even though their militias (except for Hizballah, fighting the Israeli occupation in south Lebanon) had been demobilized.

Most of the old Sunni and Shi’ite traditional politicians were gone. Money appeared to be talking loudly, to the extent that one could speak of an oligarchy of the very rich. In some ways the handful of main power brokers in the 1996 parliament resembled the small oligarchy of traditional leaders who had run Lebanon in the 1940s. Might one then expect the emergence of a new – and multisectarian – grouping of socially conscious, ideologically driven activists to challenge this cozy order, as happened in the early 1950s? And would such an ideology submerge sectarian chauvinism in the interests of a broader constituency of the neglected? The Syrian factor, of course, would be important though not necessarily decisive in future bargaining configurations.

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Lebanon’s “New Republic”: An Assessment Enough time has elapsed since the Ta’if Accord (1989) and the end of the fighting (1990) for the main contours of Lebanon’s “new republic” to become evident, making at least a preliminary assessment possible. In doing so it is important to note that Lebanese politics is not simply a matter of sectarian power-sharing. One must also consider socioeconomic cleavages, patronage and clientelism, ideological movements, and extraordinary external involvement.

That said, however, there is no escaping the centrality of sect. Ironically, despite the marginalization of “clerical” leaders like the Maronite Patriarch, the Sunni Grand Mufti, and the President of the Higher Shi’ite Council, and despite the ubiquity of intra-sectarian cleavages, the mythology of sectarianism not only persists but has probably become stronger as a result of 15 years of often savage internal warfare. Ta’if in theory restores a consociational sectarian order, albeit with salutary alterations in the power-sharing formula, but it also explicitly states a procedure for ending institutionalized sectarianism. But Ta’if in practice thus far has ignored that procedure or any other for desectarianizing the political system. Furthermore, Ta’if in practice appears to have deepened sectarian segmentation, especially in the top executive institutions. In prewar Lebanon, during the relatively tranquil periods, the President of the Republic, although a Maronite, also enjoyed widespread support from the Muslim communities. But in postwar Lebanon executive power is distributed among a “troika” whose leaders are more narrowly identified with their respective sectarian constituencies: Prime Minister Hariri (Sunni), Speaker of the Parliament Berri (Shi’ite), and President of the Republic Hrawi (Maronite).

If one could analyze the mood and concerns of the country’s major sects in the post-Ta’if period so far, one would probably find a general lack of confidence in the reconstituted institutions of government combined with a heightened concern about sectarian status and security. Some, to be sure, are more unhappy than others.

• The Maronites are significantly disaffected. Stung by Ta’if’s diminution of their formal, former hegemony, they have been even more disturbed by Syria’s post-Ta’if behavior. Many believe that the Syrians were responsible for the assassinations of two (Maronite) presidents: Bashir Gemayel in 1982 and Ren´e Moawad in 1988. Much of the traditional Maronite aristocracy is disaffected, including the Gemayels, the Chamouns and the Edd´es. And the younger generation of Maronite populists who had worshipped General Aoun are biding their time, waiting for the opening that would give them revenge for Syria’s crushing of the Aounist crusade in 1990. To be sure there are some respected centrist Maronites oper-

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ating “within the system” (such as Nassib Lahoud, former ambassador to Washington), but on the whole the once-proud Maronites are feeling defeated and marginalized. Given the polarization of Lebanese politics over the course of the civil war, some Maronites also have had to bear the burden of their collaboration with the Israelis; and given the popular attitude toward the Israelis (especially after their brutal bombardment of southern Lebanon and Beirut in April 1996) it does not make the task of inter- confessional reconciliation any easier.

• At the other end of the ideological spectrum, the Shi’a find themselves united against Israel but ambivalent about post-Ta’if Lebanon. To be sure, the Shi’ite speaker of the Parliament now enjoys a longer term and more influence. Shi’ite officers are also more prominent (along with Maronites) in the reconstituted Lebanese army officer corps. But the more militant Shi’ia revolutionaries (those who had been influenced by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini) must be wondering whether the civil war, with all its suffering, has really led to an improvement in the hitherto downtrodden condition of the Shi’a in Lebanon. Clearly, the Shi’a community was divided. On the most militant extreme are the partisans of Hizballah, even though their spiritual guide, Shaykh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, has withdrawn Hizballah’s earlier demand to make Lebanon a Muslim state. Despite its strong Iranian backing, Hizballah is now reaching out to other Lebanese communities and trying to present itself as a peaceful non-governmental organization, committed to social welfare projects and “normal” political party participation. Hizballah has won a considerable prestige from other Lebanese communities for its aggressive resistance activities against the Israeli occupation in south Lebanon. Closer to the middle of the ideological spectrum is the Shi’ite Amal movement, led by parliament speaker Nabih Berri. Closely linked to Syria, Amal provides a useful check against Hizballah (over which the Syrians may have had some apprehensions) and also an instrument against the Palestinian guerrilla organizations. Even though Hizballah has considerable representation in Parliament, it is Amal that has the biggest influence in the post-Ta’if Lebanese government. Another, and more moderate, tendency among the Shi’a is represented by Shaykh Mahdi Shamseddine, president of the Higher Shi’ite Council and a leader with good connections to the Maronites, to the Shi’ites in the army officer corps, and to the Americans.

For the time being the traditional Shi’a zu’ama, led by Kamel Al-As’ad, are sidelined. On balance, the Shi’a probably feel that they have not gained enough from the civil war, especially in that they are the largest single sectarian community in the country.

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• The Sunni Muslims, on the whole, must feel considerable satisfaction with Ta’if and the position of their community. Considering that they had dominated Lebanon of the pre-civil war “golden age” (albeit in second position behind the Maronites), and considering also that they had never been able to field a militia presence comparable to the Maronites, Shi’ites and Druze during the civil war, they have emerged as the principal sectarian winners in the constitutional “fine-tuning”: their leader, the Prime Minister, is now primus inter pares in the “troika” along with the Maronite President and the Shi’ite Speaker of Parliament. And in Rafic Hariri, the Sunnis have a dynamic, wealthy, and well-connected prime minister. Even though he is not widely popular, Hariri’s commercial connections and his leadership in the redevelopment of Beirut’s devastated downtown business district make him a figure to reckon with. In the Republic of Ta’if the Sunnis obviously have considerable leverage. The Sunnis also field a respected opposition candidate, Dr. Salim al-Hoss, whose regional and international supporters are numerous. Why, one might ask, should such a prominent Sunni be in the opposition? Clearly it is not because he feels his sect is under-represented. He criticizes the domination of the country by a small (multi-sectarian) group of wealthy businessmen and notables who in his opinion are choking off full democratic participation, especially from secular, progressive elements.

• The Druze cannot be very happy with the new arrangements. Although their principal leader, Walid Jumblat, holds a cabinet position (albeit a secondary one), the community is not substantially represented in the higher reaches of the civil service or the military. Moreover, Jumblat is challenged on traditional grounds by the Yazbaki faction within the Druze community. The Yazbaki Druze include some of Lebanon’s most prominent businesspeople and intellectuals, but Walid Jumblat has sought to keep them out of politics and even out of the country. The Druze traditionally have played a role in Lebanon far beyond their meager demographic weight (around 7 per cent of the population), but this role seems to be shrinking. Indeed, Walid Jumblat had to work hard to have the electoral laws of 1992 and 1996 written in a manner to give him a safe seat in the mixed Maronite-Druze governorate of the Shuf.

Although a certain uneasy sectarian balance seems to have been restored, the instrument of that restoration – a Syrian-influenced, clientelistic, wealthy ruling coalition, only semi-legitimized by flawed elections – both generates or exacerbates other problems. First, as we have noted, executive and legislative power in post-Ta’if Lebanon is concentrated in the “troika.” But the degree of distrust among those leaders, and their preoccupation with clientelistic concerns over public policy appears to account for the government’s

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lackluster and uneven governmental performance (The Lebanon Report, Fall 1996, p. 18). Second, the government’s efforts to curtail the news media and to marginalize the opposition through electoral manipulations risks generating a popular backlash of the kind that toppled two Lebanese presidents (Khoury and Chamoun) in the past. Third, Prime Minister Hariri is accused by the enfeebled opposition of running Lebanon as if it were one of his many businesses. By bypassing the traditional political and administrative establishment he has made enemies in his own community and outside it. Traditional Lebanese politicians do not easily accept to be bypassed by technocrats and nouveau-riche entrepreneurs with business school diplomas. This is something that General Fuad Shihab discovered to his dismay back in the 1960s.

Fourth, there does not appear to have been any significant development of the institutions of civil society since the end of the civil war. There is still no party system and no individual parties with any kind of national constituency. While there are numerous traditional and modern NGOs, there is little evidence that they affect the policymaking process. And the government’s clampdown on the media hardly encourages the development of a “public sphere” in Lebanon. Fifth, while the country has made considerable progress in reconstruction and in overall economic growth, there is a growing problem related to economic inequality. In the summer of 1995 there was major labor unrest, and there was another crisis in March 1996 which was only averted by the military declaring a curfew in order to avert bloody strife between striking laborers and the government security forces. The Hariri government has given its priority to the development of Beirut’s devastated central business district while neglecting the growing – and increasingly visible – problem of disparities between rich and poor. Considering the catastrophic disruptions caused by 15 years of internal conflict, the country has problems of poverty, homelessness, and unemployment that would challenge far more wealthy governments. In Lebanon, acute economic crises can explode into sectarian political conflicts.

While these observations are impressionistic, it is hard to avoid concluding that post-war Lebanon’s political recovery has been only partly successful.

The most important achievement has been peace and quiet. People have had time to recover from the depression induced by years of civil strife and can now see the bright possibilities for recovery. Even before real stability has been achieved, overseas Lebanese investment capital has begun to return home. Reconstruction of Beirut’s central business district, despite criticism, moves ahead dramatically. But on the political level things are not so bright.

Even though there have been salutary adjustments to the old consociational formula, there has been no progress toward dismantling the system of confessional representation. And casting its shadow over the entire political scene is

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the continuing presence of external powers in Lebanon. Israel’s occupation in south Lebanon continues to generate instability and misery – as its devastating bombardments in April 1996 illustrate once again. Syria thus has a continuing rationale for keeping its own forces in Lebanon – not as an occupier but as a “brother.” Similarly, Hizballah is allowed – even encouraged – to maintain its militia as the only possible armed resistance movement against the occupation. None of this is good for the normalization of political life. But we should not be completely pessimistic. Ta’if was, after all, not just a return to consociationalism, with all its negative side-effects, but also a call for deeper structural reforms in the Western liberal mode which might (if enacted, in phases) move Lebanon beyond political confessionalism toward a more legitimate and effective system of governance. Were this “consociationalism-plus” model actually being implemented one might be more optimistic. One can make a case for a consociational-type sectarian bargaining formula at certain historical moments. One such moment was independence in 1943, and the National Pact provided “growing time” for the new republic. Another such moment was in 1989 when the Ta’if Accord bought time for the embattled and embittered sects to reconstitute a viable unified state. But in both cases, the power-sharing solution outlived its usefulness and in fact impeded what might have been the transition to a more inclusive political order that would provide not just for sectarian participation but the growth and integration of a larger, more complex civil society into the body politic.

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