Book Review
November 2013
Lebanon After the Cedar Revolution, edited by
Are Knudsen and Michael Kerr
By Joy Aoun
Executive summary
What are the forces driving political, socioeconomic and cultural dynamics in
­Lebanon in the aftermath of the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq H
­ ariri?
What has been the impact of the downgrading of Syria’s security and intelligence
footprint in Lebanon in 2005 after more than thirty years of continual presence?
How have Lebanese sectarian politics, the country’s fragile and uncertain s­ ecurity
dynamics, its leadership, and social cohesion evolved over the period 2005-11?
­Although there are no easy answers to any of these questions, no book published
to date so effectively unpacks the dynamics that define post-2005 Lebanon as does
Lebanon After the Cedar Revolution, edited by Are Knudsen and Michael Kerr.
Are Knudsen and Michael Kerr, the editors of Lebanon After
the Cedar Revolution (Hurst, 2012), have put together
a powerful, balanced and detailed book that explores
Lebanese political, socioeconomic, and cultural dynamics in
the aftermath of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri’s 2005 assassination and the subsequent withdrawal of Syria’s security
and intelligence apparatus, which had been present in the
country since 1976. In doing so, they bring together some of
the best and most experienced analysts, as well as new
contributors to the study of modern Lebanon.
While many books on Lebanon were published before or
immediately after the end of the 1975-90 civil war, very few
published after 2005 have successfully shed a truly interdisciplinary light on the study of Lebanon in the 21st
century. Most books deal with the 2006 Israel-Hizbullah
war, attempts at capturing the contemporary history of
Lebanon (often without addressing in detail the dynamics
after 2008), or narrow subfields of the situation in Lebanon
such as the battle between competing ideological visions
for the country that more often than not fall victim to the
ideological dividing lines that now define much of the
published analysis on Lebanon in the post-2005 period. The
publication of Lebanon After the Cedar Revolution fills
a critical gap in the study not only of Lebanon, but of the
interplay of local and regional dynamics that are poised to
define the future of the broader Levant.
Communal corporatism and the changing
regional order
Lebanon After the Cedar Revolution contextualises Lebanon
in a Middle East state system undergoing dramatic change.
Internal instability, state collapse, regime change, military
intervention, local and regional competition, and the
deepening of Sunni-Shia fault lines all have the potential to
shape at least the coming decade. The book also accurately
paints the resilience of Lebanese communal competition in
the face of these dramatic shifts. It goes on to argue that
while Lebanon’s fragile corporatist political system has
shown unique resilience in the face of decades of upheaval
and violence, the post-2005 period ought to be considered
a new and troubling chapter in Lebanon’s post-independence history.
The resilience of Lebanon’s post-war political order was
particularly challenged when it came to finding ways to
address fundamental grievances in how power-sharing
was to work in post-2005 Lebanon. Amal Hamdan, in her
chapter entitled “The limits of corporate consociation: Taif
and the crisis of power sharing in Lebanon”, argues that
the consociational precepts of the Ta’if Agreement were
never truly implemented, real grievances over unequal
power-sharing – especially between Sunnis and Shia –
continue to deepen, and the corporatist nature of the
agreement’s brand of consociational democracy continues
Noref Book Review – November 2013
to “[predetermine] state positions based on ethnic, cultural
or confessional group identities”. In short, all of these
factors ensure that if the Ta’if Agreement’s perceived
inequities are not addressed, the cycle of internal violence
and upheaval is likely to persist, if not deepen further.
The decay and diffusion of security politics
The limits and contradictions of power-sharing in Lebanon
inform the country’s patterns of political instability, military
underdevelopment and unconsolidated sovereignty.
Marie-Joelle Zahar’s argument in her chapter entitled
“Foreign interventions, power sharing and the dynamics of
conflict and coexistence in Lebanon” that the foundations
of Lebanon’s political instability can be traced back to the
interplay between domestic and regional dynamics in a
“two-level game” is compelling. The reproduction of underlying communal fears – centred on political survival,
marginalisation and exclusion – facilitates external intervention. However, events in the last ten years at the local
and regional level have also further downgraded the ties
between the state and the country’s warring communities.
They have also engrained the perception that the state can
neither “deter” intercommunal violence nor “assure”
objective, impartial, and sovereign governance in the face
of both internal and external pressures.
Building on the Lebanese state’s failures to meet the
expectations of competing political forces, the book
discusses the post-war reconstruction of the Lebanese
Armed Forces (LAF) and the consolidation of Hizbullah,
arguing that the security forces remained susceptible to
“fragmentation” and were often “privatised” in post-2005
Lebanon. Elizabeth Picard’s analysis in her chapter entitled
“Lebanon in search of sovereignty: post-2005 security
dilemmas” does not delve deeply into intra-agency competition, wherein warring sectarian factions aggressively
restarted to penetrate and regulate the internal dynamics
of the LAF and other state security forces after Syria’s
security presence in Lebanon was downgraded in 2005.
However, the analysis laid out in the book is invaluable in
exploring the role of corporatist sectarian competition on
interagency dynamics among Lebanese security organisations. This in turn helps readers to understand some of the
patterns that shape the relationship between the Lebanese
state and communal groups, on the one hand, and the
Palestinian refugee camps, on the other.
Defining and redefining political leadership
Understanding any of the patterns that define the post1990 period in Lebanon – let alone the post-2005 period
– would be incomplete without tackling the emergence of
new political forces and leadership. If nothing else, this is
because key leaders that shaped power and politics – such
as former prime minister Rafiq Hariri – were relative
newcomers to the Lebanese domestic scene, aided by class
politics and changes in Lebanon’s place in the global
economy. While these factors are critical to understanding
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new paths to power for Lebanon’s “new contractor bourgeoisie”, it is worth noting that the “confessionalising” and
“re-confessionalising” nature of Lebanon’s political-economic environment ensures that in the end, primordial
politics and corporatism remain dominant.
The convergence of ‘new’ wealth, politics and property
development is another important theme tied to the
emergence of Lebanon’s post-war corporate elite – led by
Hariri – and their impact on everyday urban Lebanese.
Here too the primacy of primordial politics and corporatism
is difficult to ignore – especially in how urban communities
affected by the new master plan for Beirut sought the
support of traditional confessional forces in an effort to
bandwagon against Lebanon’s “new contractor bourgeoisie”. Despite the contradictions inherent to Lebanese
society and urban development, the power of confessional
politics – and especially deepening dividing lines – is that
critical moments, such as the assassination of Hariri,
enable those new to the circle of Lebanon’s ruling elite to
transcend their origins, although whether they can do so
beyond the immediacy of sectarian competition will be left
to history to decide.
The politics of memory and justice
Corporatist sectarian politics, institutionalised insecurity,
and political competition have had other effects on post2005 Lebanon that the book goes on to unpack in great
detail. Almost a decade after the events of 2005 and some
two decades since the close of the civil war, the space for
debating narratives of Lebanon’s violent past has certainly
expanded; however, major challenges remain as state
institutions (including national education) and the country’s
competing political forces – many of which were once
parties to civil war – remain uncertain about how to
undertake the crucial next steps. The politics of geography
in Lebanon is no less challenging as sectarian politics
continues to shape and change how the Lebanese interact
with each other. Lastly, divisions about the legitimacy
surrounding the internationally backed Special Tribunal for
Lebanon (STL) investigating the Hariri assassination bring
the book full circle back to the realities of confessional
competition.
It should be noted that while the book goes to great lengths
to tackle collective memory, the use of public and private
spaces, the politics of the STL, and other themes, one key
area that could benefit from further analysis is that of
identity. Not unlike memory and the scars of civil violence
that mark the trajectory of Lebanese history, the politics of
identity and what it means to be Lebanese have always
been behind many of the fears and dividing lines that
mobilise competing sectarian forces.
… The more things stay the same?
As Zahar points out, the more things change around
Lebanon, the more one takes notice of the resilience of
Noref Book Review – November 2013
Lebanese confessional corporatism. That does not mean,
however, that events since the book’s publication can be
easily contextualised and accounted for. The period 2012-13
has seen Lebanon steadily decline into levels of instability
that threaten to eclipse the uncertainty and unrest of
2005-11. Lebanon is now home to an additional 600,000 or
more displaced persons and refugees fleeing Syria’s civil
war, compounding pressures tied to Lebanon’s pre-existing
200,000-400,000 Palestinian refugees. The country’s
Sunni-Shia divide also mirrors regional divisions surrounding the Syrian conflict as a wave of mass-casualty bomb-
ings of symbols of Sunni and Shia power in Lebanon
increasingly come to resemble sectarian violence in Iraq.
Civil war is not a prerequisite for the decisive destabilisation of post-war and post-2005 Lebanon. Furthermore,
systemic resilience – a theme discussed time and again
throughout the book – cannot be a substitute for ‘lasting’
stability. To that end, Lebanon After the Cedar Revolution
should be required reading as Lebanon struggles to define
the next chapter in its post-independence history.
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The reviewer
Joy Aoun is an adjunct fellow with the CSIS Programme on Crisis,
Conflict, and Cooperation. She advises the programme on the
Middle East, with a focus on Lebanon, Syria and the Levant. She
specialises in state-society relations and the effects of peace
treaties on the cohesion or fragmentation of national identities in
post-war societies. She received a BA in history and international
relations from Saint Joseph University in Beirut, Lebanon, and an
MS in political science from the University of Montreal.
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of view are those of the author and do not reflect those of the
organisation for which she works or NOREF. NOREF does not give
any warranties, either expressed or implied, concerning the c­ ontent.
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