Hizbullah’s Shaping Lebanon Statehood

Abstract

Since the end of the civil war in 1990, the Lebanese second Republic has experienced a dual security governance in the southern borderland region. Up to the Syrian military withdrawal in 2005, the territorial and functional ‘areas of limited statehood’ between the State and Hizbullah worked as a cooperation. After the Syrian withdrawal, various forms of cooperation appeared, raising the theoretical interest for the ‘mediated state’ framework. It is conceptualizing the cooperation between the state and the non-state actor as an interdependency – with case study ranging from the marking of the Blue Line to the struggle against the jihadists groups.

Keywords:

• Hizbullah
• lebanese state
• governance
• sovereignty
• security
• interdependence

Notes

1. Droz-Vincent, “Authoritarianism, Revolution, Armies.”

2. Beblawin, The Rentier State in the Arab World.

3. Al-Rachid, “L’Irak après l’Etat islamique.”

4. Lamloum, “Retour sur les traces,” 222.

5. Risse, Governance without the state?

6. Mitchell, “The limits of the state,” 81.

7. Obeid, “Searching for,” 337.

8. Joseph Maila talked about ‘un Etat-trepied’ highlighting the emergence of three centres of power in a possible rivalry at the head of the state as a consequence of the Taïf agreeement. See Maila, ‘L’accord de Taëf deux ans après.’

9. Risse, “Governance Configurations in Areas of Limited Statehood,” 9–12.

10. Ibid., 9.

11. Krasner and Risse, “External Actors, State‐building,” 547.

12. Menkhaus, “Governance without Governement,” 78.

13. Stel Nora Marie. “Mediated Stateness as a Continuum,” 2–5.

14. Mervin, Hezbollah, état des lieux, 181–206.

15. Corm, Le Liban contemporain, 293–315.

16. Krasner and Risse, ibid.

17. As stated in the Memorandum of Understanding following the 1996 Israeli operation ‘Grapes of Wrath.’ See Hollis and Shehadi, Lebanon on Hold, 40.

18. Harb, Le Hezbollah à Beyrouth, 145.

19. Berthelot, “Quelle avenir,” 142.

20. Krasner and Risse, ibid.

21. Norton, Hezbollah, 118.

22. Khatib et al., The Hizbullah Phenomenon, 73.

23. See the Nasrallah Speech on Manar TV, 24 August 2017. https://english.almanar.com.lb/cat/news/lebanon/s-nasrallah-speeches.

24. The plaque reads ‘On 24 May 2000, the dawn of liberation broke (bazagha fajr al-tahrir) in the era of the President of the Republic, General Emile Lahoud’. See Volk, “When Memory Repeats Itself,” 304.

25. Meier, Shaping Lebanon’s Borderlands.

26. The report was published on 20 October 2005. See http://www.un.org/news/dh/docs/mehlisreport/.

27. Favier, “la spirale de la crise,” 15.

28. See for instance the 2006 special issue ‘The Sixth War’ of the online MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies. Available here: https://dome.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.3/177978/MITEJMES_Vol_6_Summer2006.pdf?sequence=1https://dome.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.3/177978/MITEJMES_Vol_6_Summer2006.pdf?sequence=1.

29. See point 10 of this resolution at https://www.un.org/press/en/2006/sc8808.doc.htm.

30. For detailed examples, see Al-Harithy, ed. Lessons in Post-War, chapter 2.

31. Lamloum, “retour sur les traces,” 222.

32. Chapuis, “La reconstruction post-2006,” 38.

33. Geisser, “‘The People want the Army’: Is the Lebanese Army.”

34. Finally, the opposite just happened few months later when the jihadists started to target the Shi’i suburbs of Beirut and the Iranian Embassy.

35. Alagha, Hizbullah’s Documents, 122–8.

36. El-Kazen, The Breakdown of the State.

37. Daher, Le Hezbollah, 104–17.

38. Lamloum, “L’histoire sociale du Hezbollah.”

39. Lamloum, “Retour sur les traces,” 217.

40. Norton, ibid.

41. While some of the heavy weaponry have been transferred in central regions of the country, several UN crackdowns in private houses unveiled hidding places of Hizbullah’s weapons in southern villages.

42. Meier, ibid., 199–201.

43. Blanford, “The Lebanese Armed Forces.”

44. Interviewed by Blanford, ibid.