1
Between Entrenchment, Reform and Transformation: Ethnicity and Lebanon’s
Consociational Democracy
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Introduction
Consociational power sharing is increasingly being adopted as a major instrument of conflict
regulation in a range of violently divided societies. While consociations were once the result
of informal arrangements between rival elites, they are now embedded into postwar societies’
constitutional structures. Nevertheless, although consociations may initially solve the security
dilemma that led to civil war, they create fresh problems in the peacebuilding phase.1
The security dilemma is provisionally resolved as belligerent minorities once excluded from
power under a majoritarian system are enticed into ending violence by obtaining
constitutional guarantees of representation in the polity. Yet, in turn, through safeguarding
representation, a new predicament arises regarding how to transition to a more flexible
system that affords an opportunity for the depoliticization of ethnicity. Problematically,
consociations may assure inclusivity via fixed quota mechanisms that reserve political and
public positions for groups, and by the right of veto power within the executive branches of
government. Such mechanisms may reward ethnic hardliners and even foster a dysfunctional
democracy blighted by policy paralysis and fierce intercommunal conflicts over public
goods.2
Given the long-term hazards of fixing ethnic representation within consociations, an
important debate is the extent to which power sharing arrangements require revisions to
incentivize a softening of antagonistic ethnic differences. A major consideration, here, is how
far consociational institutions should accommodate ethnic identity. In addressing this
question, key proponents of consociationalism, McGarry and O’Leary, advocate “liberal”
rather than the traditional “corporate” variant of power sharing to improve the efficacy of
power sharing.3 In contrast to the latter, which fortifies ethnic identity through predetermined quotas, liberal consociations conspicuously lack such procedures. Rather than
preserving ethnic identities in aspic, as corporate consociations threaten, liberal structures
permit the emergence of a range of identities, including cross-cleavage encapsulations. For
proponents of liberal power sharing, “the dissolution of (undesirable) collective identities and
antagonisms may be more likely to occur after a period of consociational governance”.4
Assessing how consociations can be reformed or even transformed requires analysis in
relation to existing corporate consociations characterized by policy deadlock and deepening
social divisions. A germane example of this is Lebanon’s corporate consociationalism, which
was reintroduced, albeit in a revised form, following the civil war (1975-1990). Although
power sharing was formally re-established in Lebanon to bring peace, it has subsequently
come under critique for its long-term consequences. For Haddad, Lebanese
“consociationalism has failed in its task of providing stable and properly functioning public
institutions”.5
Since the issue of ethnicity change is central to discussions about reforming
consociationalism, it is essential to expose how political and civil society policymakers
apprehend ethnic identity. That is – for these individuals – whether ethnicity is seen as
relatively fixed phenomena, and therefore should be deeply institutionalized, or susceptible to
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a type of change that expedites a serious reform of power sharing. Utilizing interview data
from leading representatives of Lebanese political parties and non-sectarian civil society
movements, this paper analyses these actors’ views of ethnic identity change regarding
Lebanon’s fragile consociational system.6 Three heuristic debates on ethnicity and Lebanese
consociationalism are identified in this paper: entrenchment, reformism, transformationist.
In examining these debates, two interconnected arguments are advanced in this paper. First,
how political and civil society elites conceptualize ethnicity, and the degree to which it is
viewed as either hard or malleable, generate specific political programmes designed to revise
Lebanon’s consociationalism in decidedly contrasting ways. Second, these ideas about
ethnicity ultimately frustrate attempts to amend the consociational system. This situation can
be ascribed to the delicate but asymmetrical balance of power that undergirds Lebanon’s
corporate power sharing. Any effort to progress to a liberal power sharing model is
intertwined with a zero-sum formula in which any change is seen by one or more group as a
serious challenge to their position.
The significance of this research is apparent in a number of ways. While there have been
important studies of Lebanese elites vis-à-vis the causes of the civil war and the peace
agreement,7 the necessity of examining contemporary political and civil society
representatives is vital in light of the current problems confronting the state’s consociational
institutions. At a wider scale, this paper contributes to current debates about liberal
consociationalism as the preferred method of power sharing in deeply divided societies.
Although liberal consociationalism is often promoted as a means to engineer moderate
identities, the paper demonstrates the difficulties of creating change in the context of existing
corporate forms. Importantly, programmes designed by policymakers to promote liberal
forms of power sharing are required, as a proviso, to understand that transitions to liberal
consociations confront serious problems given how corporate arrangements discourage
opportunities for reform and transformation. Elite level discourses about ethnicity and
identity, I argue, place strict boundaries on fostering institutional revision.
A constructivist epistemology was utilized for interviewing political elites and civil society
activists and an interpretative framework for analysing them. In the constructivist
epistemology, the object of qualitative research is to understand that knowledge is gained
through the social constructions of the individuals we research. The interpretative framework
does not outline testable hypotheses, but instead focusses on understanding the social context
in which humans make sense of their subjective reality and attach meaning to it as the
situation develops.8 Thus, the object of research was to understand how these elites and
activists conceptualize ethnicity and how such understandings can be related not only to the
wider sociopolitical context but to definite political policies. Research was conducted during
two field-work phases (September 2012 and July 2014) and conducted with prominent
representatives of many of the major political parties. These parties include identifiably
Christian (Kataeb, Lebanese Forces, Free Patriotic Movement), Sunni (Future Movement),
Druze (Progressive Socialist Party), and Shia (Amal). Interviews with civil society activists
included Laïque Pride (secular), Helem (LGBT), and AUB Secular Society (secular).9
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The article progresses in three stages. First, I review key debates related to identity change in
violently divided societies and touch on the consequences of this on institutional choice.
Second, I examine some of the important literature that outlines reform or transformation of
consociationalism. Third, I provide some background to Lebanese consociationalism before
reviewing current political and civil society debates on revising current consociational
arrangements.
Consociationalism and Identity Transformation
The degree to which ethnic identities can undergo change is central to debates about the
appropriateness of consociationalism as a form of conflict regulation. Proponents of
consociationalism provide an analysis of ethnic identity that is broadly consistent with the
social constructivist approach. In other words, ethnic identities “are not stamped in our
genes”;10 rather, ethnic identities “can and do change over time”.11 Nevertheless, proponents
of consociationalism are sceptical about the extent that ethnicity can transform once it has
been mobilized in violently divided societies.12 McGarry and O’Leary claim that ethnicity in
divided societies can become “inflexible, resilient, crystallised, durable, and hard”.13 Thus,
the main groups are unlikely “to assimilate, fuse, or dissolve into one common identity at any
foreseeable point”.14
Given the putative propensity of ethnicity to resist transformation in divided societies,
consociationalism is predicated on the theory that conflict regulation is achieved through the
accommodation of the ethnic elites, institutionally anchored by inclusive coalitions and
proportionality in public appointments.15 In opposition to the idea that political stability is
achieved by integrating groups, proponents argue that rival ethnic subcultures can “peacefully
exist” if divisions are recognized, as such a process would promote political cohesion within
each subculture, thus allowing ethnic elites room to bargain with each other.16 In time, elite
level cooperation would allow scope for intergroup trust to develop even to the extent of
providing “a hospitable environment for the erosion of difference”.17
The capacity of consociationalism to positively transform ethnic identities is complicated by
the fact that consociations do not come in an identikit template. One practical reason for this
is that consociations are purposely designed to accommodate the specific character of the
conflictual cleavages in the divided society, which range from nationalism, religion, language
and ideology. Since institutional structures influence identity outcomes, a debate has
developed about the types of arrangements that incentivize intergroup moderation. Hartzell
and Hoddie argue that power sharing correlates strongly to peace when it is embedded in all
sectors of society, especially politics, territory, economy and the military.18 Cammett and
Malesky focus on electoral systems, specifically closed-list proportional representation (PR),
which creates “superior governance outcomes which, in turn, can promote stability”.19
Leading proponents of consociationalism recognize that certain forms of power sharing are
prone to deeply institutionalizing ethnic identities and thus require revisions. Arend Lijphart,
notably, made a distinction between two types of consociationalism – pre-determined and
self-determined – based on the salience of ethnic identities – fixed versus malleable – as well
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as their consequent approach to governance – constitutionally determined versus dependent
on electoral outcomes.20 The former system is one in which the constituent groups are predetermined in power sharing by means of guaranteed representation. As a classic case of a
consociation shaped by pre-determination, Lijphart notes that the Lebanese system is
“inevitably discriminatory” against “individuals or groups who reject the premise that society
should be organized on an ethnic or communal basis.”21 Addressing these shortcomings,
Lijphart recommended a revised version of consociationalism that encourages greater
flexibility in terms of how individuals and groups participate in political life by avoiding the
use of reserved ethnic seats in parliament. This form of self-determination, “works much
better than pre­determination because it does not make any assumptions about the strength or
weakness and the tenacity or fluidity of ethnic and other divisions.”22
Lijphart’s suggested reforms for consociationalism were subsequently reworked by McGarry
and O’Leary. Instead of pre-determined versus self-determined, they outline a distinction
between “corporate” and “liberal” consociations. Corporate consociations assume that “group
identities are fixed, and that groups are both internally homogeneous and externally
bounded”.23 This is achieved by the use of ethnic quotas and even ethnic based voting rolls.
Liberal consociationalism, however, “rewards whatever salient political identities emerge in
democratic elections, whether these are based on ethnic groups, or on … trans-group
identities”.24 In so doing, proponents argue that liberal consociationalism “is more likely to
transform identities in the long run”.25 Yet, while proponents of consociationalism favour
liberal over corporate institutions, the reality is that many peace agreements are initially
founded on corporate principles, including Lebanon.26
Lebanon and Consociationalism
Debates about reforming and transforming consociationalism are highly apposite to
Lebanon’s power sharing arrangements, or “confessionalism” as it is called in Lebanon.
Consociational democracy emerged within the context of Lebanese independence from the
French Mandate. In 1943 leaders from the powerful sects (mainly Christian, Sunni and
Druze) agreed to share power in the new state. Although the consociational system brought a
degree of stability to post-war Lebanon, it was not strong enough to withstand shifting yet
interrelated internal and external dynamics. An internal issue was the power sharing formula
that favoured the Christian population, especially the Maronite sect, by giving them the
powerful executive position of president and by creating the quota of seats in the parliament
and the public sector on a 6:5 Christian/Muslim ratio. This ratio stoked grievances among
Muslim groups as it gradually became clear that their size was equal to if not larger than the
Christian population.
The collapse of the state was complete during the civil war (1975-1990). The Taif Agreement
(1989) restored consociationalism to Lebanon by addressing its previous failures and by
accommodating a new balance of power that emerged during the war. With a wide-ranging
remit to end violence, Taif went beyond specifying the design of government institutions to
include, inter alia, reform of the judiciary, military and security forces, alongside education
and the economy.27 The agreement’s ethos – “no victor, no vanquished” – signified that no
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group could exercise dominance over the others within a finely tuned institutional apparatus
that managed competing group identities.28 In Taif, Christian hegemony was ended by
shifting a large slice of executive power away from the president, a post reserved for
Maronite Christians, to the prime minister, reserved for Sunnis. Some executive powers
transferred to the cabinet, thus expanding the prerogatives of the prime minister. The 6:5
quota was reconfigured to a 5:5 Christian/Muslim formula. Christians also accepted that
Lebanon’s identity was Arab while Muslims agreed that Lebanon’s independence and
sovereignty should be inviolable and not subject to outside powers. The hitherto marginalized
Shiites were allocated the speaker of the house (the parliament). The Agreement also made
provisions for Syria to act as protector of Lebanon, including the right to station its army on
Lebanese soil, as part of a transitory period until peaceful cooperation between elites became
evident.
Taif, and subsequent revisions to recalibrate consociationalism, reflect the contemporary
balance of power determined by endogenous and exogenous political exigencies. As part of
maintaining this equilibrium, Lebanon’s power sharing is a clear example of corporate
consociationalism.29 The quota system, especially, rigidly reserves and allocates executive
and legislative positions for the main groups, an arrangement mirrored across the public
sector. At the executive level, the positions of president, prime minister and speaker of the
house are reserved for Maronite Christians, Sunnis, and Shiites respectively. The quota
system is applied to the 30 cabinet positions and for 128 seats in the national parliament.
Parliamentary quotas are operationalized by the state’s electoral law – reformed in 2005 –
which divides Lebanon into 26 electoral districts. A quota of seats is reserved in each district
for specific sects based on what is estimated to be the district’s sectarian demography. Power
of group veto is granted since a two-thirds majority is required for important issues decided
by the cabinet (e.g. international treaties and the budget), and for the parliament to make
constitutional amendments.30 The quota system is also reproduced throughout the public
sector. Until 2009, all citizens had to carry identity cards demarcating ethnic identity in order
to apply for public sector jobs. Finally, under the terms of segmental autonomy, the
constitution devolves legal authority to the groups over a range of personal matters, including
marriage, divorce and child custody rights.
While Taif’s corporate arrangements aimed to deal with the root causes and impact of the
civil war, endogenous and exogenous alliances and power relations changed since its signing.
In the decade after Taif the functioning of consociationalism was severely limited by Syria’s
role in Lebanon. Instead of leaving Lebanon, as agreed, Syria exercised increasing control
over Lebanon by placing proxies in leading positions of power. In response, a new movement
encompassing major political parties and civil society groups emerged to demand that Syria
leave. Importantly, this movement was cross-cleavage as it embraced the Sunni bloc and a
number of Christian parties. This movement is known as the March 14 coalition and became
particularly visible and powerful in 2005 after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former
Prime Minister, allegedly killed by Syria. A counter-movement, the March 8 coalition,
mobilized to maintain Syrian patronage in Lebanon. The Shia bloc, led by Hezbollah and
Amal, headed the coalition alongside the largest Christian party and, eventually, the Druze.
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These two rival blocs eventually created a new cleavage in Lebanon in which political
contestation – occasionally violent – takes place.
Taif set out to regulate the traditional Muslim/Christian cleavage; yet since 2005 Lebanese
politics aligns along a Sunni/Shia division. In contrary to Taif’s call to preserve Lebanese
independence, the two blocs are proxies for powerful regional actors. The Shia dominated
bloc is closely linked to Iran, which funds and directs Hezbollah, whereas the Sunni led bloc
seeks assistance from Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent, the US. Christians, as noted above,
are discordantly split between the opposing blocs. Despite the reordering of historical
cleavages, Lebanese consociationalism did not expedite a transformation of the saliency of
traditional ethnic identities. Indeed, “the sectarian players have … redefined their roles but
the sectarian structure they are embedded in is still intact”.31
The dysfunctional character of the current system is evident in a series of political logjams
over important issues that have left the legislature unable to pass key policies and even elect
the president, let alone form a cabinet. These deadlocks led to the collapse of the “unity
government” – a coalition between March 14 and 8 blocs – in 2011. A major source of
dissension between the two blocs is whether and what aspects of Taif may be revised. The
Shia leadership claim that Taif concentrates too much executive power with the Sunnis, and
thus should be partially redistributed to reflect the fact the Shia are the biggest plurality in the
state.32 This call for change is resisted by Sunni leaders, who instead argue that the problem
with Taif is that Hezbollah has reneged on its obligation to decommission weaponry, which it
uses as a political tool. Christians seek to maintain their share of power outlined in Taif, but
are split as to which bloc would best help in this objective; the Druze, alternatively, have
strategically shifted their allegiance from March 14 to 8 in an attempt to preserve their
interests. It is to these debates that the paper now turns to via qualitative data.
Consociationalism: The Options for Change
The validity of consociationalism as a means to manage destructive conflict is broadly
accepted by Lebanese political elites. There is consensus on its role in helping to end the civil
war and as an institutional structure to theoretically accommodate diverse group interests.
Yet, simultaneously, a distinction is made between consociationalism as a normative
principle and how it is currently operationalized. The weaknesses of Lebanon’s current
consociational system is a discourse shared by political elites and civil society activists across
both March 8 and 14 blocs.
Rather than soften ethnic cleavages a spokesperson from Kataeb (Christians/March 14)
noted: “confessionalism is increasing in Lebanon”.33 A leading representative of Amal
(Shia/March 8) stated: “confessionalism is a vice of the sectarian system … confessionalism
in the long run creates ghettos and reduces citizenship”.34 A similar sentiment was expressed
by a Progressive Socialist Party (Druze/March 8) representative: “we have failed as Lebanese
to resolve and overcome the problems with the confessional system which remains more like
a tribal association”.35 A spokesperson for the Future Movement (Sunni/March 14) explained
that “confessionalism is about preserving sectarian interests”.36
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Despite consensus on the inadequacy of the current consociational system, contrasting
suggestions are advanced by the main groups to create improvement. These ideas are
deployed, in the case of the various political factions, to preserve and augment group-based
interests. As part of this, discourses on ethnicity are used to justify specific political projects.
Three narratives are identified: entrenchment, reformism and transformationist. In different
ways, these narratives are accepted or resisted by political elites to hinder meaningful and
cooperative change to Lebanon’s power sharing.
Entrenchment
Entrenchment is consonant with the principle of ethnicity being pre-determined in corporate
consociations. In entrenchment narratives, ethnic identities, though possibly constructed, are
reflective of social realities and predictive of individual political behaviour. Given that these
identities do not demonstrate any capacity for transformation in the short term, the exercise of
entrenchment is to secure them by ensuring that the respective groups are represented
according to the formula outlined in Taif. Political instability, therefore, derives from when
these identities are marginalized or underrepresented and such dynamics may further harden
identities, especially when groups are fearful for their security.
Advocates of entrenching Lebanese consociationalism argue that the system currently fails
because it does not adequately guarantee the representation of groups specified in the
constitution. In this analysis, group identities must be accommodated; once groups feel
secure that their identities are recognized, this increases the chances for identities to
transform into less antagonistic forms. Entrenching consociationalism means that ethnicity
should be pre-determined in institutions as a prerequisite stage to group identities changing.
Proponents of entrenchment largely come from Christian political parties, which claim their
group is progressively being excluded by the two dominant Muslim groups. A Kataeb
representative put it thus: “Christians live in a constant fear of being marginalized and they
are marginalized today, this is a reality”.37 A fundamental area in which Christian
representatives believe their community experience marginalization is the election of
Christian politicians to the parliament. Under the remit of Taif, Christians are reserved half
(64) of the parliamentary seats. Yet problematically, the Christian population in Lebanon is
currently estimated to measure between 28 to 32 percent of Lebanon’s overall population,
though they make up 38.2 per cent of registered voters. This situation means that in many
electoral districts, seats reserved for Christian candidates are elected by Muslim voters.38
Lebanon’s electoral system has been described as “integrative” since it is supposed to
“promote multi-ethnic coalitions and to soften ethnoreligious cleavages”.39 Since candidates
campaigning for office typically require votes from members of different ethnicities,
theoretically this could encourage them to advance moderate “national – and not just
sectarian – credentials in seeking votes”.40 In fact, post-war Lebanese elections have led to
“hardening, rather than ameliorating, sectarian cleavages”,41 since the majoritarian bloc-vote
electoral format maintains the “balance between the confessional elites in order to avoid
conflict”.42 Equally problematic, seats are reserved for sects in some of the large
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constituencies where there is only a relatively small minority of co-ethnic voters. The
outcome of this situation is that a number of Christian parliamentary representatives are
essentially clients of the locally dominant Muslim parties.43 Kataeb estimate that only 34 of
the 64 seats reserved for Christians ultimately go to candidates that represent Christian
interests because in these electoral constituencies the Christian population is insufficient to
elect Christian candidates. These Christian MPs, a Kataeb representative argued, “have no
relationship with their Christian electoral base because they don’t owe their mandate to those
Christians”.44
For Christian parties the problem of Christian underrepresentation in Lebanese
consociationalism is remedied by entrenching ethnicity. Consociationalism, in their analysis,
reflects social facts: that ethnicity is a politically meaningful category for Lebanese which
requires accommodation. Ethnic identity in Lebanon, writes one Kataeb advisor, remains
“sub-national and communal”.45 According to this logic, it is not possible at present to
transform consociationalism, since the “best guarantee for maintaining the stability of the
Lebanese state, to date, is the confessional political system”.46 A leading member of the
Lebanese Forces put it thus: “the confessional system exists and we cannot change it as we
change a nappy for a baby”.47
The issue of Christian underrepresentation found voice in the campaign to reform the
Lebanese electoral system with the so-called “Orthodox Law”. The concept of the Orthodox
Law is to turn Lebanon into one electoral district but retain the current quota system of
reserving seats on the 5:5 Christian/Muslim formula. To ensure that Christians, not other
sects, are selecting Christian candidates, the Orthodox Law stipulates that instead of a
common electoral roll, individuals will be allowed only to vote for candidates who belong to
the same ethnicity. There will be eleven different sect-based electoral contests, with MPs
elected by proportional representation rather than the current majoritarian system and
multiple mixed districts.48
Although proposals to limit voting practices within sects date to the 1960s, the campaign for
the Orthodox Law began in 2011 as the “Orthodox Gathering”. The Orthodox Gathering
quickly mobilized the support of the head of the Maronite Church, and even united the
hitherto discordant leaders of the main Christian parties (Kataeb, Lebanese Forces, Free
Patriotic Movement, and Marada Movement). In justifying the Orthodox Law, the Orthodox
Gathering claim they are protecting the spirit of Taif. As a Kataeb advisor explained the
Christian position: “as long as it is a 50/50 formula, let me get my 50/50 in full. This is what
the constitution says”.49
The Orthodox Gathering claim the Orthodox Law may eventually transform Lebanon into a
non-sectarian polity. A spokesperson from the Free Patriotic Movement claimed that the Law
is merely for a “transitory period in order to make an equilibrium today in the parliament, but
when we change the electoral law for good we will end confessionalism”.50 Thus,
paradoxically, by engraining ethnicity deeper into the fabric of society, this will provide a
context for identities to soften and change. As such, by addressing feelings of “injustice and
fear” among Christians, the process is seen as “a prelude to building true citizenship and
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starting to look into means to abrogate sectarianism”.51 The Orthodox Law will eventually be
“ushering in a new era of cross-communal cooperation on pressing national issues”.52 In
addressing the question of how Lebanon could transform into a non-sectarian society, a
Kataeb representative explained that it begins “by recognizing diversity, by recognizing
pluralism, by introducing governance mechanisms that will comfort people and make them
evolve. How do you make people evolve? You take out fear and fear is the primary obstacle
in eradicating sectarianism”.53
The Orthodox Law received severe censure for threatening to “institutionalize the already
entrenched sectarian divisions in Lebanon”.54 A member of the Progressive Socialist Party
(Druze) stated the Orthodox Law “is like digging deeper and deeper into the sectarian system
which will endure for ever and you will never have a chance to come out of it. This will
increase extremist discourse in the country rather than decrease it”.55 As a corollary, by
creating ethnic voting rolls, the Orthodox Law is seen as profoundly illiberal by negating the
right of exit for individuals from groups they are born into.
In response, a new identity category for the Orthodox Law was created. While Lebanon’s
consociational system recognizes 18 groups, the Orthodox Law creates “Register 19”. The
concept of “Register 19” is to allow citizens who reject ethnic categories register their
identity as “secular” and vote for candidates who self-identify as non-sectarian. As such, the
total number of non-sectarian voters will be added up after the election and, if above a certain
threshold, a seat will be allotted to this group. According to a member of the Orthodox
Gathering, Register 19 is consistent with liberal values: “most of us in the Orthodox
Gathering are human rights activists or believers, so we see Register 19 in line with the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights that stipulates freedom of conscience and religion”.56
The Orthodox Law came close to becoming Lebanon’s new electoral law after Hezbollah
supported the initiative to shore up their alliance with Christian partners in the March 8 bloc.
Although the Orthodox Law was endorsed by parliamentary committees in February 2013, it
ultimately failed when Christian parties from the rival March 14 bloc withdrew their support.
Notably, Christian representatives from March 14 interviewed for this project disassociated
themselves from the Orthodox Law. A Kataeb representative described the Law as acting to
“separate even more the Lebanese … in 2014, you cannot simply erase the individual”.57
One reason why Christian parties initially supported the Orthodox Law is understood in terms
of how these groups frame political agency. In this formula, political representatives are
merely tools of mass mobilization; they have to represent the fears of their constituency. A
Lebanese Forces spokesperson claimed that the Orthodox Law “is not something we can
support, never! We supported it as we were obliged to support it as we would have lost
votes”.58 The trope that Lebanon’s political elites are often unable to foster moderation
because they are instrumentalized by their radical, hard-line communities is common to
political representatives. A spokesperson for the Future Movement (Sunni/March 14) argued
that “it’s the street that is always ahead of the political elite … the political elite is saying
whatever the street would like them to say. They (politicians) are not forcing the change”.59
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By essentially negating agency, political elites are thus able to mobilize, as a Future
Movement representative argued, “sectarian discourse as a tool in a political competition”.60
Reformism: Low Fat Consociationalism
In reformism, ethnic identities can slowly change given the right institutional incentives. The
object of reformers is to craft institutional modifications to consociationalism which will
hopefully expedite moderation and even integrative dynamics. Instead of pre-determining
ethnic identity outcomes via the quota system, the idea here is to foster the conditions that
allow for a much more flexible sense of ethnicity that emerges through the process of
individual and group self-determination. The object is, in the first instance, not to completely
transform or even dispense with consociationalism; as a representative from Amal (Shia)
noted: “we cannot annul the confessional system but we should create a low fat version”.61
Such aspiration for reformism is supposed to be a shared goal for Lebanese political elites
and for the wider society. The Taif Agreement identified power sharing as a provisional step
towards ameliorating ethnic cleavages. First, a national council led by the president was
supposed to be established, whose goal was to “propose the means capable of abolishing
sectarianism”. Second, the Agreement called for the end of the quota system used throughout
the public sector. Finally, the election of MPs to the parliament would be operated on a “on a
national, not sectarian, basis”.62
This process of reform and eventual “deconfessionalism”, agreed in Taif, is dismissed by
political representatives from groups, particularly Christian and Sunni, which desire the status
quo of the quota system. Taif, in this view, represents constitutional guarantees that preserve
the main groups’ rights and any ill-conceived reforms could alter the delicate balance of
power that supposedly upholds peace. The rhetoric of deconfessionalism, according to a
Kataeb spokesperson, is merely a warning used by some groups to pressure Christians into
losing their engorged quota. The line in Taif requesting deconfessionalism, therefore, is
“poetry and it has no real value”, but “you have some politicians who use it from time to time
when they need something to threaten the Christians”.63 Likewise, for a representative of the
Future Movement (Sunni), Taif’s “timeline for deconfessionalism” is “like throwing a slogan
around. It’s like writing something but not having an idea behind it”. In this sense, “it’s very
bad writing in Taif when reform and the future is mentioned, but it’s good when it talks about
fixing representation.”64
Debates about whether Lebanon’s consociational system can be reformed to make it more
emollient of ethnic divisions reveals how Taif is subject to what can be described as
“constructive ambiguity”.65 In order for peace agreements to satisfy mutually exclusive aims,
they must allow for a relatively high degree of interpretative openness. In other words, many
principles which underpin agreements are often so nebulous that they can be interpreted by
the respective groups as highly complementary with their own political aims despite their
incompatibility vis-à-vis the rival group. However, in Lebanon’s corporate consociation,
different interpretations of Taif expedite conflictual narratives. According to a representative
of the Lebanese Forces, “we did not complete and fulfil the whole of Taif, because we
12
implemented Taif selectively”; instead, “we apply the agreement by the talons of power”.66
An Amal spokesperson argued that “different communities interpret the agreement to their
own interests”.67
Stimulus for reforming Lebanon’s consociational system largely comes from groups who
believe that change will favour them. In particular, the Hezbollah/Amal alliance, which
represents Shiites, demand reform at the executive and legislative levels. Although Taif
shifted substantial executive authority away from Christians, it did so by empowering Sunnis.
Shiite marginalization was partially addressed as they were given the position of speaker of
the house – currently in the possession of Amal – but while this post is influential within the
legislative process, it is secondary to the prime minister’s authority.68 Hezbollah/Amal
petitions for an executive which shares power between the three groups in a tripartite
structure. In this sense, executive reform envisaged by Hezbollah/Amal institutionalizes
ethnicity in a more symmetrical structure. More radical, Hezbollah/Amal propose the
introduction of proportional representation (PR) in which Lebanon is transformed into one
electoral district. Thus, instead of seats being reserved for sects, ethnic representation is the
outcome of party performance in elections, a process consistent with the tenets of liberal/ predetermined consociationalism.
Hezbollah/Amal’s advocacy of PR is mainly due to how it would doubtlessly improve their
political power. Shiites are currently estimated to be the biggest plurality in Lebanon (circa
35 per cent) and yet under the quota system set by Taif, Shiites are allocated 27 seats, 7 less
than Maronites and equal to Sunnis. Due to this assumed underrepresentation of Shiites, PR
would, in all likelihood, increase the number of seats obtained by Hezbollah/Amal, possibly
to 40.69 PR further augments Hezbollah/Amal representation by diluting the political
influence of its main rivals, the Future Movement, which currently exercises monopolistic
political control over the Sunni community despite not obtaining the entire Sunni vote. The
introduction of PR would probably fragment the Sunni vote by increasing the representation
of independent Sunni political parties that have hitherto been marginalized under the
majoritarian system. In a speech, Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, stated that “the
Future Movement insists on a single party domination within the Sunni community …
proportionality paves the way for multi-party representation for every sect”.70
Resistance to PR is voiced by the Future Movement and many Christian parties. For these
parties, PR is framed as contradictory to the tenets of consociational inclusivity, which aims
to maintain stability between the main ethnicities. In a speech, a leading Kataeb politician
claimed that “proportional representation runs contrary to equal power sharing … [PR] is an
elimination of an aspect of the diversity and the culture of Lebanon”.71 A representative of
the Hezbollah/Amal axis argued that efforts to hinder the introduction of PR are instead a
manifestation of the “vice ridden confessional system … The Future Movement say ‘we
don’t want this [PR]’ and use their veto … They are utilising politics for religious reasons”.72
Such deployment of veto prerogatives to bloc PR is read as a broader attempt to stymie
reform of Lebanese power sharing. A leading representative of the PSP (March 8) claimed
that “the Taif accord has stipulated that there should be a national committee to study the
13
means of abolishing sectarianism … fears, especially in the Christian communities, have
stopped it”.73
Transformationist: “Sectarianism – Danger!”
The transformationist approach rests on the belief that identities in divided societies do not
necessarily become terminally fixed. Ethnic identities are less durable than assumed and can
be depoliticized. In fact, “identities do not always remain stable and fixed … if they do
change, they may soften rather than only harden”.74 Given the fluidity of ethnic
encapsulations, transformationists in Lebanon effectively seek to dismantle the consociational
system by fostering a shared public identity that supersedes ethnic divisions. Lebanese
transformationists are mostly located within the sphere of civil society and a major objective
for these movements is to end what they see as state sanctioned sectarianism, like the use of
ethnic quotas and the influence of religion in the public sphere. These movements deal with
specific aspects of political sectarianism or generate broad-based platforms that encompass a
range of interconnected campaigns. Issues advanced by movements focus on civil marriage
(Laïque Pride), electoral reform (Take Back Parliament), domestic violence, women’s
reproductive rights (Nasawiya), LGBT rights (Helem, Meem), and even the introduction of a
shared history text for Lebanon’s school children (AUB Secular Society). Given the
intersectionality of issues these movements engage in, it is often the case that the membership
of these movements strongly overlaps.
A good example of a transformationist movement is Laïque Pride (“a secular movement for
citizenship”), which was started on Facebook in 2010. The movement stated its objective is to
mobilize “for a secular civil state founded on citizenship that guarantees the expression of the
country’s diversity, and secures social justice – one of the main foundations of civil peace”.75
Laïque Pride concentrates on spreading awareness of secular politics via social media and in
public demonstrations. For example, in April 2010 the movement organized a parade of 5,000
people marching on the Lebanese parliament in Beirut for a “Secular Pride March”, where
some protestors chanted “Sectarianism: Danger”.
A more focussed campaign is to introduce civil marriage. Marriage between members of
different sects is historically proscribed in Lebanon under the terms of confessional
autonomy, a key facet of consociationalism. All marriages in Lebanon are performed
exclusively by a religious authority, or a member of one of Lebanon’s 18 officially
recognized sects, and civil marriages, including intermarriage, were legally impossible in the
state. Given that marital homogamy is key to entrenching ethnic divisions in divided
societies, campaigners seeking to transform Lebanese consociationalism focus on legalizing
civil marriage. In fact, marriage is fundamental to the maintenance of the Lebanese
consociational system since it operates by allocating citizens into clear ethnic categories for
resources and public positions to be distributed to groups. The threat of increasing levels of
intermarriage risks disturbing the maintenance of clearly delineated ethnic boundaries in
which individuals are assigned to supposedly monolithic communities. As such,
intermarriage harbingers the creation of new, mixed identities that defy ethnic division.
14
At times, the campaign for civil marriage gained support from prominent political figures. In
1998 President Elias Hrawi failed in his bid to legalize civil marriage. Support has also come
from Michel Suleiman, the most recent president, and from Saad Hariri, current leader of the
Future Movement (2014). Hariri’s backing for civil marriage is significant as the religious
leader of Lebanon’s Sunnis issued a fatwa against any Sunni politician “trying to sow the
bacteria of civil marriage in Lebanon”.76 Opposition to legalising civil marriage is also
expressed by the Higher Shia council. Although the religious leader of Lebanon’s Maronites
– Cardinal Bechara al-Rai – voiced support for legalizing civil marriage, a Christian
politician noted that “all of the religious leaders are against this; they are all hypocrites and
liars. The Maronites are much more against it than the Sunnis”.77 Political support for civil
marriage varies. Hezbollah are consonant with the Higher Shia council’s hostility towards
civil marriage. Although the Lebanese Forces are, as a representative explained, the “Templar
of Lebanon”, the defenders of Christianity in Lebanon against Islam, they are “for civil
marriage”.78 A representative of the Free Patriotic Movement stated: “we propose this law for
civil marriage but we are resisted by the chiefs of the religious communities because they will
lose their authority”.79
Despite announcements in support of civil marriage, social movements for secularism are
sceptical of politicians’ desire to legislate change. A leader of a secular movement noted that
“it’s not just about the statements, you have to look at what they do inside parliament and are
they promoting this agenda inside parliament? They are not taking it serious”.80 As evidence
of this, in March 2011 a number of NGOs and secular organizations submitted a draft law on
civil marriage to Parliament, but the proposal was never debated.
Lebanese social movements promoting non-sectarian identities and a secular state confront
major obstacles within a consociational framework that protects the interests of ethnic elites.
Any attempt to introduce progressive legislation that fosters intercommunal, cross-cleavage
identities or encourages a secular public sphere rarely results in triumph. The success stories
typically result from activists finding loopholes in the legal, constitutional frameworks that
uphold political sectarianism rather than by political elites inspired by liberal values. There
are various ways that the political establishment effectively minimizes non-sectarian social
movement politics. First, any attempt to introduce legislative change, no matter how minimal
or incremental, designed to weaken political sectarianism is framed, tout court, by some
political elites as an issue that threatens security. In resisting a draft law for civil marriage,
the Lebanese Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, argued that the issue was too divisive, since “we
cannot afford a new dispute in this country”.81 Similarly, a Lebanese Forces representative
argued that while the party supported civil marriage, it is “not for national unity”.82
Second, political elites dismiss non-sectarian movements as populated by middle-class,
university educated cosmopolitans who do not reflect the deeply embedded character of
ethnicity in the lives of ordinary Lebanese citizens. A Future Movement representative
explained that “the confessional system is very resilient to change … for most of the
Lebanese it is a strong system, ingrained in the society and in the culture and in their
minds”.83 Likewise, for Amal: “we have excellent citizens of the various communities of the
sects … A citizen’s loyalty will primarily be to their community and their sect and then after
15
this a national citizen. Patriotism is minimized for the good of the confessional system”.84 A
Kataeb spokesperson remarked “I hate people from the civil society who think that
confessionalism is the devil … They are in denial of reality … the people that think like these
civil society groups are less than 0.1 percent in Lebanon”.85
Third, instead of movements challenging the logic of consociationalism, non-sectarian social
movements are accused of merely reproducing it. A former leader of the PSP’s youth wing
argued that the social movements’ “rhetoric is a rehashing of the sectarian, confessional
rhetoric into what’s called the civil society”.86 As such, these groups are accused of creating
new sect identities: “the head of a civil society movement in Lebanon acts like a sectarian
leader … they cultivate a cult like mentality”.87 Even a leader of an LGBT movement
(Helem) admitted that although the organization was intercommunal, “there are a lot of
LGBT people with a heightened sense of confessional belonging. They go to two churches,
the gay bar and the actual church”.88
The argument that non-sectarian movements do not reflect the saliency of ethnic identity for
the overwhelming majority of Lebanese citizens does not necessarily hold true. The so-called
“hidden third”89 of Lebanon – those individuals that disidentify from ethnic categories and
cultivate a national belonging – is not insignificant. Survey evidence demonstrates that
ethnoreligious affiliation comes second to a shared Lebanese national identity for members
across all sectors of society. In fact, Moaddel notes, given the “considerable agreement
among different sections of the Lebanese public on democracy, secular politics,
individualism, and national identity”, the “public is highly supportive of modern and
moderate politics”.90
Conclusion: A Model for Export?
Lebanon is an important case-study to examine because of its potential applicability for
conflict regulation in the Middle East. The historical mix of ethnoreligious groups in Lebanon
is particularly relevant given the emergence of new conflicts in neighbouring states that have
a similar ethnic demography, especially an emerging Sunni/Shia cleavage, evident in Iraq,
Bahrain and Yemen. Likewise, although Syria has a slightly different ethnoreligious cleavage
(Sunni/Alawite), the historical influence of Syria in Lebanon and the current role of Lebanese
groups in supporting the belligerent parties in Syria have led to some advocating power
sharing on the Taif model as a solution to the current civil war.91
This links to wider debates about the utility of consociational power sharing as an instrument
of conflict regulation in divided societies. Some scholars proposing power favour liberal
rather than corporate prescriptions, including for Lebanon.92 Liberal consociations provide
flexible institutional arrangements that allow for ethnic divisions to erode and even expedite a
transition to a non-sectarian democracy. Yet, in order to entice militants into abandoning
violence for consensual democracy, it is often the case that groups are given firm guarantees
during peace agreements that their identities will be accommodated. This generates a
consequential predicament about how to transition to a more liberal system that
accommodates a wide range of identities. Problematically, given the deeply rooted way in
16
which ethnicity is secured within corporate consociations, the potential for serious reform is
limited by a model designed to freeze the balance of power between the main groups.
Lebanon provides an example of this conundrum. Lebanon’s corporate consociationalism
was meant to be a short-term solution that allowed the main parties to exchange violence for
inclusion in the political establishment. The iterative process of elite level cooperation
engendered by power sharing was supposed to foster a culture of intergroup trust which
would eventually embrace all sections of society and thus allow for a less rigid form of power
sharing. Instead of this shift, Lebanon’s political institutions continue to be plagued by
dysfunction, corruption and periodic collapse. In contrary to the hope that sectarianism would
be diminished, antagonistic expressions of ethnic identity remain the key resource for
political parties to mobilize support.
Given that the propensity of ethnicity to transform is central to what type of consociation –
liberal or corporate – should be designed for a divided society, it is of vital importance to
analyse how Lebanese policymakers and activists conceptualize group identity. In courting
such understandings, a number of different suggestions to revise Lebanon’s
consociationalism were reviewed in this paper. These suggestions – entrenchment, reform,
and transformation – ultimately fail since any change to the structure is seen by one or more
groups as expediting a loss of power in favour of their political rivals. What this paper
illuminates is how such narratives on the malleability of ethnic identity expose various
political projects and their consequences on public policy in divided societies.
17
McCulloch, “Consociational Settlements.”
Andeweg, “Consociational Democracy”; McCulloch, “Consociational Settlements.”
3
McGarry and O’Leary, “Power Shared after the Deaths of Thousands”; Kerr, “Before the Revolution”; Wolff,
“Liberal Consociationalism.”
4
O’Leary, “Debating Consociational Politics,”19.
5
Hadadd, “Lebanon.”
6
I follow the convention of describing the main cleavages in Lebanon as “ethnic,” while recognizing that
alternative descriptors have been applied to Lebanon’s divisions, like “sects,” “denominations,” and “spiritual
families.” Le Monde Diplomatique, “Taef Agreement.” Nevertheless, a degree of consensus is apparent in using
ethnicity to outline Lebanon’s sectarian cleavages. For Hanf, “Lebanon is a multi-communal state comprising
many ethnic and religious communities,” while Khalaf notes that the politicization of communal identities has
led to the groups attaining “ethnic attributes.” Hanf, Coexistence in Wartime Lebanon, 40; Khalaf, Lebanon
Adrift, 66. In utilizing “ethnicity,” none of these scholars argue that the conflict is merely reducible to
primordial ethnic groups; instead, they demonstrate how these identities are constructed to serve dynamic
political agendas. I agree with these analyses and use ethnicity as a designation of a particular type of political
cleavage in a divided society. Yet, while such identities may well be constructed, they should be seen a social
facts to the extent that they shape political and social behaviour across society.
7
Hanf, Coexistence in Wartime Lebanon.
8
See Anfara and Mertz, Theoretical Frameworks in Qualitative Research.
9
All interviews were conducted in English. No interviews with members of Hezbollah, the main Shia party,
were conducted. However, the main representatives from its political allies are included, like Amal, the
Progressive Socialist Party, and the Free Patriotic Movement.
10
Van Evera, “Primordialism Lives!” 20.
11
Fearon and Laitin, “Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity,” 848.
12
Nagle and Clancy, Shared Society or Benign Apartheid?
13
McGarry and O’Leary, “Power Shared after the Deaths of Thousands,” 17.
14
Ibid. 26.
15
Andeweg, “Consociational Democracy,” 512.
16
Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation, 101.
17
Coakley, “Implementing Consociation in Northern Ireland,” 145.
18
Hartzell and Hoddie, Crafting Peace.
19
Cammett and Malesky, “Power Sharing in Postconflict Societies.”
20
Lijphart, “South African Democracy.”
21
Lijphart, “Power sharing and Group Autonomy in the 1990s and the 21st century.”
22
Lijphart, “South African Democracy,” 147.
23
McGarry and O’Leary, “Iraq’s Constitution,” 675.
24
Ibid.
25
McGarry, “Northern Ireland,” 124.
26
Other examples of corporate consociations include Cyprus (1960), South Tyrol (1972), Burundi (1993), and
Bosnia (1995). Only one contemporary consociation, according to McCulloch, can be described as
corresponding to the liberal model: Iraq (2005). See: McCulloch, “Consociational Settlements,” 507.
27
Hanf, Coexistence in Wartime Lebanon, 589.
28
Hadadd, “Lebanon.”
29
Hamdan, “The Limits of Corporate Consociation”; Kerr, “Before the Revolution”; McCulloch,
“Consociational Settlements.”
30
Tonge, Comparative Peace Processes, 99.
31
Knio, “Lebanon,” 226.
32
Hamdan, “The Limits of Corporate Consociation.”
33
Albert Constanian (Political Bureau Member).
34
Ali Hamdan (Head of the Foreign Affairs Bureau).
35
Rami Reyes (Head of Communications).
36
Khalil Gebara (Head of Good Governance Unit).
37
Albert Constanian.
38
Farha, “Demographic Dilemmas,” 85.
39
Cammett, Compassionate Communalism, 61.
40
Cammett, Compassionate Communalism, 229.
41
Salloukh, “The Limits of Electoral Engineering in Divided Societies,” 637-38.
42
Salamey and Payne, “Parliamentary Consociationalism in Lebanon,” 463.
43
Farha, “Demographic Dilemmas.”
1
2
18
44
Albert Constanian.
Katrib, “Realities of the Orthodox Proposal.”
46
Jean-Pierre Katrib (Foreign Policy Advisor).
47
Melhem Riachi (Head of Communications).
48
Cammett, Compassionate Communalism, 229.
49
Jean-Pierre Katrib.
50
Michel De Chadarevian (Head of Political Committee).
51
Now, “The Orthodox Proposal.”
52
Katrib, “Realities of the Orthodox Proposal.”
53
Albert Constanian.
54
Alakbhar, “Hundreds Rally against ‘Orthodox Law.’”
55
Rami Reyes.
56
Jean-Pierre Katrib.
57
Albert Constanian.
58
Ibid.
59
Khalil Gebara.
60
Ibid.
61
Ali Hamdan.
62
Le Monde Diplomatique, “Taef Agreement.”
63
Albert Constanian.
64
Khalil Gebara.
65
Dixon, “Political Skills or Lying and Manipulation?” 736.
66
Ibid.
67
Ali Hamdan.
68
Salamey and Payne, “Parliamentary Consociationalism in Lebanon.”
69
Harris, “Reflections on Lebanon,” 17.
70
Khariche, “Hezbollah backs Proportional Representation for 2013 polls.”
71
Daily Star, “Proportional Representation Only Option: Hezbollah.”
72
Ali Hamdan.
73
Rami Reyes.
74
Kalyvas, “Ethnic Defection in Civil War,” 1045,
75
el Houri, “On Laic Pride.”
76
Now, “Lebanon Grand Mufti Moves Against Civil Marriage.”
77
Albert Constanian.
78
Ali Hamdan.
79
Michel De Chadarevian
80
Issam Kayssi (Former President Students Association).
81
Daily Star, “Gemayel Slams Lebanon Mufti.”
82
Melhem Riachi.
83
Khalil Gebara.
84
Ali Hamdan.
85
Albert Constanian.
86
Rami Reyes.
87
Makram Rabat
88
Tarek Zaidan (Media Director).
89
Farha, “Hidden Dilemmas,” 92.
90
Moaddel, “Ethnicity and Values among the Lebanese Public.”
91
Rosiny, “Power Sharing in Syria.”
92
Kerr, “Before the Revolution,” 30.
45
19
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