Democracy and Power-Sharing in Stormy Weather: The Case of Lebanon

471 Pages·2009·6.527 MB·English

by  Tamirace Fakhoury Mühlbacher (auth.)

Tamirace Fakhoury Mühlbacher
Democracy and Power-Sharing in Stormy Weather
VS RESEARCH
Tamirace Fakhoury Mühlbacher
Democracy and
Power-Sharing
in Stormy Weather
The Case of Lebanon
With a foreword by Prof. Dr. Theodor Hanf
VS RESEARCH
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Dissertation Universität Freiburg,2007
Gedruckt mit Unterstützung des Deutschen Akademischen Austauschdienstes
1st Edition 2009
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To the memory of Riad Fakhoury
Foreword
Is democracy possible only in homogeneous societies? Does heterogeneity ex-
clude a stable democracy? Throughout history, ethnic, linguistic, or religious
homogeneity whether by circumstance, coercion, or choice, has seemingly been
conducive to democracy. In France, democracy was established after the imposi-
tion of religious uniformity and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The United
States pulled in immigrants who renounced their original affiliations to forge a
new identity in a newly born state.
Still, defying assumptions, democracies have emerged in heterogeneous states
such as the Swiss Confederation, the Successor States of the Holy Roman Empire
and, later, those carved out of the previous colonial empires. One common feature
is the failure of – often violent – attempts to enforce homogeneity, or the lack of
any such attempt in the first place. In the course of time, these divided societies
have learned to live in diversity, to pacify their differences, and to find a path to-
wards peace or at least accommodation. In sum, they went beyond forms of sepa-
rating powers to sharing power. Whether defined by ethnicity, language, religion,
or even ideology, communities agreed to a pacton participating in a joint govern-
ment based on proportional or even equal representation.
It is noteworthy that political systems based on power-sharing were long margin-
al in mainstream political science which laid an emphasis on democratic transi-
tions in homogeneous societies and on socio-economic or cultural prerequisites
that facilitate the rise of democracy.
However, this changed in the 1960s with the emergence of a new “consociation-
alist” school which proposed treating power-sharing systems as a distinct type of
democracy capable of overcoming divisive cleavages and of securing coexistence.
Since then, the power-sharing model in divided societies has inspired a plethora of
writings.
Numerous studies elaborated theoretical frameworks that outlined the features
of this model and pondered the conditions facilitating or thwarting its applicabili-
ty. With time, the model acquired normative and prescriptive functions and was
even recommended for pacifying conflict-ridden societies in which forceful at-
tempts of homogenization had aggravated dissension.
Nowadays, in the wake of the colonial empires’collapse and later the break up of
the Soviet Union, which led to the creation of so many non-homogeneous states,
modes of governance based on power-sharing seem to become the rule rather than
the exception.
Still, the relevance of power-sharing systems needs to be analyzed with caution.
Cyprus’unstable consociational experience, Lebanon’s power-sharing breakdown
8 Foreword
in 1975 and the fragility of its post-war predicament, recent constitutional paralysis
in Belgium, doubts pertaining to the effectiveness of the power-sharing model in
Switzerland after the country’s largest political party was no longer represented in
government prompt daunting questions about the sustainability of power-sharing
models as well as about their effectiveness in times of polarization.
Hence, it seems of paramount importance to reassess the concept of power-shar-
ing, to re-explore its limitations and reexamine its prescriptive value.
This book is to be viewed as an eminent contribution to this undertaking.
Tamirace Fakhouryproposes to refocus attention on the power-sharing model of
governance by identifying its potentialities and its limitations as well as by sub-
stantiating suggestions for further theoretical study. She then proceeds to testing
the applicability of the model to a major case study which has provided an empiri-
cal benchmark to Arend Lijphart’s concept of consociational democracy: Lebanon.
After examining Lebanon’s pre-war power-sharing model as well as the factors be-
hind its collapse in 1975, the study focuses on Lebanon’s post-war order by depict-
ing on the one hand its democratic/autocratic components and its power-sharing
traits on the other hand.
With the ratification of the Ta’if Treaty in 1991, Lebanon’s consociational
democracy turned into an ambiguous system, characterized by a complex mix of
democratic, authoritarian, and power-sharing pressures. The emergence of a conso-
ciation heavily influenced by external factors impaired power-sharing devices, and
disfigured the politics of accommodation.
The book proposes a contextual framework for analysing the internal and exoge-
nous factors that affect Lebanon’s consociational system. It shows how, beyond the
variable of the “self-negating prophecy”, the small republic’s fate remains inter-
woven with its regional environment and heavily influenced by various institution-
al, communal and elite conditions. The interplay of internal and external factors in
the Lebanese case conditions the resilience of the power-sharing model of gover-
nance and reveals its dependence on an auspicious configuration without which
consociational settlements are prone to instability.
A further merit of this study is its attempt to link the theory of consociationalism
with the more recent works on transitology and democratic transition, bringing to
the fore the necessity of studying the democratic or un-democratic components of
the system as a major variable that impacts power-sharing dynamics.
Beyond the implications the study has on the Lebanese case, it reveals broader
insights that transcend the Lebanese experience as such and tell much about
the shortcomings and benefits of consociational settlements in deeply divided so-
cieties.
Theodor Hanf
Acknowledgments
The idea of writing a dissertation on Lebanon’s political transition, initially in-
spired by a discussion with Lebanese academics in 2001 in Beit Chabab (Mount
Lebanon), had several underlying motives. The most important one was an
earnest desire to understand the overlapping external and internal mechanisms
that contribute to Lebanon’s unstable predicament.
Yet, this would not have been possible without the precious help of my advisor,
Professor Dr. Theodor Hanf, who helped me evaluate Lebanon’s complex situa-
tion with an objective eye. I thank him for his immense assistance and mostly for
his confidence in me. I also thank him for offering me the opportunity to conduct
research at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute in Freiburg.
I would also like to thank my co-adviser, Professor Dr. Jürgen Rüland who of-
fered valuable guidance. A special thanks goes to Professor Heribert Weiland
who provided me with significant intellectual support during my stay at the
Arnold Bergstraesser Institute.
I also wish to thank the German Service for Academic Exchange (DAAD) that
funded my research project at the Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg.
Furthermore, I extend many thanks to my friends, especially Coralie Hindawi,
and Ulrike Ostertag, for their support during the writing phase, and to my col-
leagues at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute, especially to Margret Rae, Leslie
Tramontini, and Matthias Seifert, who assisted me with the correction. Many
thanks go also to my colleagues Martin Adelman, Petra Bauerle, Marcel Bau-
mann, Hannelore Fladerer, Angela Hermann, Clemens Juergenmeyer, Beatrice
Schlee, Jan Voelkel, and many others who have made my stay at the Arnold
Bergstraesser Institute pleasant and enriching.
I would particularly like to thank my family in Lebanon. I am mostly grateful
to my mother Amal and to my sister Tala for their encouragement and valuable
advice. I am also thankful to my brothers, Omar and Wael, for their inspirational
remarks.
A special note of gratitude goes to Jörg Muehlbacher who offered valuable
help during the writing and editing phases.
Finally, I hope that this study of Lebanon’s power-sharing and democratization
since 1943 will shed some light on Lebanon’s conundrum and prospects for sta-
bility.
Tamirace Fakhoury
Contents
Introductory Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
A general review of the literature on Lebanon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Statement of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Hypotheses and study structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Long-term implications and contributions of the study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
The method of research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Further methods of inquiry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
1. Review and Critique of the Literature on Consociational Democracy 35
Theorizing consociationalism: The evolution of the theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Consociational democracy as a prescriptive model in deeply fragmented
societies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
The other side of the medal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
A criticism of the consociational model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
A criticism of the consociational theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Lijphart’s reaction: A struggle against all odds? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
The survivability of consociational democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
The consociational model and its relation to our case study . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
2. Pre-War Lebanon:A Dance into the Abyss of Consociationalism . . . . 77
Consociational democracy in pre-war Lebanon: The characteristics of
the model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
The factors conducive to consociational democracy: Why are they
problematic? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Performance of the pre-war consociational model (1943–1975) . . . . . . . . . . 85
The strengths of the pre-war consociational model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
The defects of the pre-war consociational model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
An inevitable collapse? An inquiry into the reasons behind consociational
failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
A zone of turbulences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
The elite factor in the consociational breakdown (1967–1976) . . . . . . . . . . . 126
The economic factor in the consociational breakdown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Synthesis: The status of the favorable factors revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135