DAFF 25A35 - Lebanon. Consociational Politics, Confessional Clientelism, and Political Violence
This course has three main objectives.
(1) At an empirical level, it aims at giving students a solid knowledge in Lebanese history, mainly in the major violent episodes of its trajectory: the civil war (1975-1990), Israeli occupation (1982-2000), and Hezbollah's intervention in Syria (since 2013).
(2) The point is also to present a specific understanding of a practice of power far removed from what can be observed in Western democracies. Without being an authoritarian regime, the Lebanese political staff has always had a particular definition of ruling, a special understanding of democracy, that go beyond the usual features shared by consociational systems everywhere else in the world (Switzerland, Belgium, Bosnia, etc.). This course will hence be thought-provoking for students in political science, as it will introduce them to models of ruling they are usually not familiar with, models that are more frequent than they can imagine.
(3) By doing so, this course will also aim at triggering a shared reflection on theoretical concepts of political science, and a questioning of the universality of some of what western political sociology sees as basic elementary truths and rules of the game in politics-in-practice.
At the end of the course, the students enrolled will have an advanced understanding of
(1) Lebanese contemporary history,
(2) the notion of militancy in contexts of violence,
(3) a critical notion of foreign intervention, peacemaking, peacebuilding, state building, reconciliation, and transitional justice,
(4) a good command of a particular case of consociational politics.
Aurélie DAHER
Séminaire
English
No prerequisite needed.
Spring 2022-2023
• 2 reports on video materials distributed by instructor (40% - 20% each)
• Final examination (60%).
Lebanese news can be followed by reading the dailies (English versions): − Al-Nahar (naharnet): pro-March 14 − The Daily Star (archives): pro-March 14 − al-Akhbar: pro-March 8.
For an introduction to the Lebanese historical and political universe, see: − SALIBI, Kamal, A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered, University of California Press, 1990, 247 p.; – TRABOULSI, Fawwaz, A History of Modern Lebanon, Pl
They should be complemented with: − HANF, Theodor, Coexistence in Wartime Lebanon: Decline of a State and Rise of a Nation, London, Tauris, 2013, 712 p. − FISK, Robert, Pity the Nation, The Abduction of Lebanon, New York, Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002, 752
For the events of 2005 and onwards: − YOUNG, Michael, The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon's Life Struggle, Simon & Schuster, 2010, 336 p. − BLANDFORD, Nicholas, Killing Mr. Lebanon: The Assassination of Rafik Hariri and its Im
On Hezbollah: − DAHER, Aurélie, Hezbollah. Mobilization and Power, Oxford University Press, 2019 – HAMZEH, Nizar, In the Path of Hizbullah, Syracuse University Press, 2004, 242 p. − NORTON, Augustus Richard, Hezbollah. A Short Story, Princeton University