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Abstract
Lebanon is most often depicted as a ‘weak state’ lacking territorial sovereignty and thus fostering the proliferation of violent non-state actors that generate political instability and regional insecurity. In contrast, this essay explores the dynamics of security politics in Lebanon since 2005 through the lens of hybrid sovereignty. It shows how an assemblage of state and non-state actors has been able to navigate between rival understandings of insecurity, producing at times shared, but still contested, understandings which have sustained a system of plural governance over security that has been able to respond to a shifting geography of threats.
Notes
1. This concept is originally outlined in "Beyond the Weak State", 655–674.
2. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus.
3. Abrahamsen and Williams, “Security Beyond the State,” 3.
4. Schouten, “Theory Talk #39,” 7.
5. Miller, “Between the Revisionist and the Frontier State,” 106.
6. Miller, “Between the Revisionist and the Frontier State,” 107–108.
7. Atzilil, “State Weakness,” 772.
8. Ibid., 759.
9. Ibid.
10. Kosmatopoulos, “Toward an Anthropology of ‘State Failure’,” 116, 115.
11. Byman, “Should Hezbollah be Next?”; and Talbot and Harriman, “Disarming Hezbollah.”
12. Elden, “Terror and Territory,” 826.
13. Makdisi, “Constructing Security Council Resolution 1701”; and Zahar, “Liberal Interventions, Illiberal Outcomes.”
14. Makdisi, “Constructing Security Council Resolution 1701,” 9.
15. Niva, “Contested Sovereignties and Postcolonial Insecurities,” 148–149.
16. Ajami, “The End of Pan-Arabism”; and Hinnebusch, “The Middle East Regional System.”
17. On the Lebanese political system, see Salloukh et al., The Politics of Sectarianism.
18. Mitchell, “The Limits of the State,” 78. See also Stel and Frerks, “Lebanon.”
19. Bahout, “Armed Groups and Sovereignty”; and Nerguizian, “Lebanon at the Crossroads.”
20. Fregonese, “Beyond the Weak State.”
21. Hourani, “Lebanon,” 40.
22. Taleb and Treverton, “The Calm before the Storm.”
23. Cited in Barak, “Ambiguity and Conflict,” 177.
24. Fayyad, “Hezbollah and the Lebanese State,” 8.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Abboud and Muller, “Geopolitics, Insecurity and Neocolonial Exceptionalism.”
28. Cobban, “The 33-day War”; and Hirst, Beware of Small States.
29. Fregonese, “Beyond the Weak State,” 671.
30. US Embassy Beirut, “MP Boutros Harb”; and Hirst, Beware of Small States, 339.
31. Hirst, Beware of Small States, 329.
32. US Embassy Beirut, “Initial Reaction to Nasrallah’s Speech.”
33. Valbjørn and Bank, “Signs of a New Arab Cold War.”
34. Leenders, “How the Rebel regained his Cause.”
35. Cited in Hirst, Beware of Small States, 357.
36. Valbjørn and Bank, “Signs of a New Arab Cold War.” On the sectarian divides in Lebanon, see Telhami, “Lebanese Identity and Israeli Security,” 23.
37. Makdisi, “Constructing Security Council Resolution 1701,” 14.
38. Nerguizian, “Lebanon at the Crossroads.”
39. Ibid.
40. Nasrallah, “Interview with New TV.”
41. Salloukh, “Where Next for Hezbollah?,” 103.
42. Fregonese, “Beyond the Weak State,” 15.
43. On Hezbollah’s justification for this, see Fayyad, Fragile States, 65.
44. Fayyad, Fragile States, 64.
45. “The Preamble.”
46. Ibid.
47. Geukjian, “Which State for Lebanon?,” 148.
48. Nerguizian, “Lebanon at the Crossroads,” 4–5.
49. Noe, “A Fair Fight for Lebanon’s Army.”
50. See Qifa Nabki, “The Saga Continues”; and Nerguizian, “Lebanon at the Crossroads.”
51. Cited in Qifa Nabki, “The Saga Continues.”
52. Nerguizian, Lebanese Civil–Military Dynamics.
53. Hirst, Beware of Small States.
54. ICG, Drums of War, 13.
55. ICG, Drums of War, 14.
56. ICG, Drums of War, 25. See also Samaan, “The Strategic Bargain.”
57. Nasrallah, “Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah’s Speech.”
58. National Dialogue Committee of Lebanon, “Baabda Declaration.”
59. Ibid.
60. Sleiman, “Conception for a Comprehensive National Defense Strategy.”
61. Ibid.
62. Nasrallah, “Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah’s Speech.”
63. Ibid.
64. “Sleiman.”
65. Ibid.
66. Dakroub, “Compromise Policy Formula.”
67. Ibid.
68. Nerguizian, “Lebanon at the Crossroads,” 16.
69. ICG, Lebanon’s Hizbollah turns Eastward.
70. Noe, “Confronting the Islamic State.”
71. Salloukh et al., The Politics of Sectarianism, 133.
72. Harel, “Behind Nasrallah’s Message.”
73. Moussa, “The Battle for Qalamoun.”
74. ICG, Lebanon’s Self-defeating Survival Strategies, 16.
75. Kerkkänen, The Failure of the Security Paradigm; and Hazbun, “A History of Insecurity.”
76. LeVine, “Chaos, Globalization, and the Public Sphere.”