Refugee return and fragmented governance in the host state: displaced Syrians in the face of Lebanon’s divided politics

Abstract

How do host states with a refugee regime relying on a patchwork of competing and informal responses negotiate refugee return? Amid a stalemate, Lebanon has taken in more than one million Syrian refugees. As soon as conflict dynamics shifted in favour of the Syrian regime, politicians started calling for their repatriation. In this context, although conditions are not propitious for return, various state and non-state actors have rushed to devise return initiatives. The article discusses shifts in governing returns from the Lebanese state as the sole decision-maker to the dispersion of authority within competing structures. It shows how various actors have drawn on return as bargaining leverage. Their divergent agendas have enshrined disputed preferences over repatriation, obscuring accountability over refugee rights. Competing logics are to be contextualised in a historically informed analysis of the state and its refugee regime. They are further to be embedded in a geopolitical reading of the ways Syria’s war has cut across Lebanese borders. The Lebanese case conveys broader insights. Host states may draw on fragmentation and informality to blur responsibility over safe and dignified return. Additionally, fragmentation and informality within a state make it harder for international actors to rally support for principles governing repatriation.

Keywords:

• migration and refugees
• governance
• Middle East
• sectarianism and communalism
• refugee return

‘It’s dangerous to go back, but it’s dangerous to stay here also’.

(Alfred 2018)

Introduction

The international refugee regime recognises host states to be decisive actors in shaping conditions of refugee return in safety and dignity (Bradley 2009; Zieck 2004). But how do host states with a fragmented refugee regime in which there is no ‘single focal point of governance’ (Stel 2014, 55) negotiate their politics of return? The literature has generally focussed on the role of the host state as a unitary actor in deciding on returns. ¹ A paucity of research has investigated how competing responses within rather than between states influence return processes and conditions. In particular, we know little about how domestic groups may draw on return as bargaining leverage in competitive settings, and how this may complicate agreement on principles of return in safety and dignity.

Examining the governance frameworks of host states in the Middle East can be particularly relevant to filling in such gaps. In a region marked by a ‘patchwork of local responses’ and weak legal regimes (Chatty 2017a, 578), geopolitical conflicts and expressions of power dispersed within government, non-state actors and local communities have largely shaped refugees’ predicament (Culcasi 2017; Khallaf 2019), including their right to return in safety and dignity (Bradley 2009, 377; Sayigh 2001). In the context of porous borders and traditions of hospitality, host states have taken in refugees only to deny them local integration (Chatty 2017a). In this regard, informalised and restrictive practices have impacted refugees’ attitudes towards return (Kvittingen et al. 2019; Yahya and Muasher 2018). As the case of post-2003 displacement from Iraq shows, states have moreover hastily called on the displaced to go home even if conditions in the country of origin were not favourable (Zieck 2004, 45). In such a setting, scholars have explored how a host state’s geostrategic interests and informalised responses rather than its legal regime have shaped its asylum response (Norman 2019; Tsourapas 2019) and impacted the international refugee regime (Chatty 2017b; Culcasi 2017; Janmyr 2017a).

It is true that the Middle East provides a wealth of empirical cases to understand states’ restrictive and informal refugee practices (Khallaf 2019). Yet such practices are by no means particular to the region. Keeping refugees at bay, blurring refugee definitions, prematurely withholding protection and expediting returns have been commonplace practices at the heart of the world’s refugee regimes (Chimni 2004; Zieck 2004).

Positioning itself within these debates, the article builds on an in-depth study of Lebanon to understand how a state’s fragmented and informalised authority sites interact with its politics of refugee return. Governed by a political system in which religious communities share power, this small state has taken in more than one million Syrian refugees even though it is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention. In 2011, amid political stalemate and porous borders, the government adopted a policy that has hardly regulated refugee arrivals (Mourad 2017). In the context of prolonged displacement, political executives have, however, started calling for the rash repatriation of refugees, framing them as a difficult burden (Yusof 2018). At this juncture, various state and non-state actors have rushed to devise return initiatives (Mhaissen and Hodges 2019).

Against this background, the article unpacks a three-fold question: how have Lebanon’s major governance actors – namely government agencies, political parties and communal representatives – cooperated and clashed on return? How have they capitalised on return to maximise their gains? And how have their fragmented agendas coalesced in serving state strategies such as reproducing an everyday politics of refugee precarity and evading commitments on return in safety and dignity?

The article discusses shifts in governing returns from the Lebanese state as the sole decision-maker to the dispersion of authority within a plethora of competing structures. It argues that a variety of actors have drawn on refugee return as bargaining leverage for sustaining geostrategic alliances in the context of Syria’s conflict, and for influencing the domestic distribution of power in the face of that conflict. It also shows that such competing agendas cannot be considered in isolation from the state. The Lebanese host state, far from being a disengaged actor, thrives on fragmentation to fulfil the dual objective of sustaining its patterns of governance and eliding asylum reforms (Carpi 2019; Janmyr 2017b).

I proceed as follows. The first section embeds Lebanon’s divided politics over refugee return in a two-fold perspective. To gain an insight into this divided politics, we need to understand the linkages between Lebanon’s fragmented authority structures and its refugee regime, and, more specifically, how the Lebanese host state draws on its divided authority sites to strengthen its politics of refugee precarity. We also need to explore the factors that have transformed the issue of Syrian refugee return into a polarising and geostrategic matter. The second section maps the constellation of governance actors involved in the making of return initiatives and explores what conflicting logics some of these actors have endorsed. The third section turns to the complex configurations of power underpinning conflicting agendas on returns. It shows how the issue of return has intersected with Lebanese actors’ perceptions of their relative power in the shadow of Syria’s war. To that end, it explores key motives driving competing logics. Then it turns to some of the ways contending actors have sought to regulate the politics of return with a view to extracting gains. The fourth section unpacks how such divisions have served the host state’s restrictive refugee practices, complicated agreement on principles governing repatriation, and impacted refugees’ attitudes towards return.

The article builds on broader scholarship arguing that a state’s informalised and fragmented refugee practices are to be interpreted as part of a ‘performative act’ or a deliberate political approach (Carpi 2019, 83). A host state may purposefully adopt ambiguous policies (Nassar and Stel 2019), opt for ‘indifference-as-policy’ (Norman 2019) or rely on informality so as to evade asylum reforms, craft ‘multiple pathways to precarity’ (Baban, Ilcan, and Rygiel 2017, 42) or privilege certain geopolitical and humanitarian agendas at the expense of others (Danış and Nazlı 2019). In this perspective, seemingly contradictory practices such as combining ‘open-borders’ with ‘local closures’ or delegating refugee governance to local actors (Mourad 2019) enable the state to consolidate its politics of control over refugees while strengthening its set of governance structures (Danış and Nazlı 2019; Janmyr 2017a). From this perspective, Lebanon’s fragmented refugee apparatus becomes emblematic of a broader governance approach whereby informalised and incoherent practices drive states’ national refugee policy and consolidate their strategies for deploying power (Tsourapas 2019).

The article relies on the wealth of literature on Lebanon and its refugee politics. Moreover, between 2016 and 2019 I conducted a textual and media analysis of the various return initiatives that Lebanon’s key actors have formulated. To understand actors’ competing agendas, their drivers and implications, I relied on 12 in-depth interviews with officials from Lebanon’s key political parties and ministries, five interviews with officials from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the European Union (EU), that are the two key international actors involved in refugee access to services and protection in Lebanon. I also observed, between 2016 and 2020, more than 15 policy-oriented workshops on the issue. Given that sources on Syrian refugee return remain limited, I made sure that key informant interviews as well as compiled reports and media sources reflect multiple perspectives. Twelve interviews with Lebanese and international scholars working on Syrian displacement provided additional context for interpreting my findings.

Reading the divided politics over Syrian return

Lebanon’s response to Syrian refugee return has been largely the product of its fragmented and informal practices in which several actors seek to regulate and contest power (Carpi and Şenoğuz 2019, 127). This response has also intersected with Lebanese actors’ geostrategic interests in Syria’s war (Assi 2019). This is not new. Lebanon’s refugee regime has historically been the outcome of the state’s divided authority sites and actors’ instrumentalisation of refugees as geopolitical leverage (Sanyal 2017; Sayigh 2001).

The seemingly absent host state

To start with, governance in Lebanon has never been concentrated in a commanding institutional set-up. A power-sharing pact between Lebanon’s key Muslim and Christian communities has allowed for the diffusion of state authority. Formally, the Lebanese president is a Christian Maronite. The speaker of parliament is Shia and the Prime Minister is a Sunni. In the legislature, a multitude of political parties represents Lebanon’s sectarian communities. In practice, however, there is an absence of firm boundaries between state and non-state as well as between formal and informal governance (Fregonese 2012). Whereas formal governance refers herein to the institutions of the centralised state, informal governance encompasses stakeholders whose activities enshrine rules not anchored in institutionalist structures.

Throughout Lebanon’s political history, ‘complementary governance’ (Idler and Forest 2015) has shaped interactions between state and non-state actors. Governmental leaders have acted as informal Zuama or communal leaders mediating services between the state and their communities. Political parties have been the key vectors tightening linkages between formal and informal governance (Fregonese 2012). After the 15-year-long war (1975–1990), all political parties had to demilitarise except for Hezbollah, the Shia-based political party, mandated to fight Israeli occupation in Lebanon. In practice, however, political parties remained hybrid actors that can wear several hats. As institutional actors, they represent their constituencies in the legislature. Simultaneously, they are informal providers of security, welfare and patronage (Stel and van der Borgh 2017).

This scenario where non-state actors deploy authority and provide services to their followers has deeply shaped the conception of the Lebanese state and its refugee-hosting characteristics (Carpi 2019). The centralised state has developed little ‘bureaucratic autonomy’. Nevertheless, it has reproduced itself through ‘the political elite’s ensemble of control and cooptation’ and through ‘incentivizing’ competing ‘modes of mobilization’ (Salloukh 2019, 55). At the same time, fragmentation has provided an enabling terrain for various groups to wrestle over what Robert Dahl (2006, 4) frames as the ‘complete and final authority over the government of the state’.

In this landscape in which formal and informal practices mesh, Lebanon’s refugee politics is the outcome of a fluid interplay between layers of governance. The Lebanese state categorises refugees as displaced persons. Since 1963, it has entrusted the UNHCR with tasks of service provision and registration pending refugees’ resettlement or repatriation. Meanwhile, Lebanese politicians have resisted pressures to construct an asylum regime that allows for settlement in the first country where refugee is sought. Framing refugees as a threat to Lebanon’s demographics and security, they have often conflated the notion of ‘voluntary return’ with local integration (Janmyr 2017b). Within this climate, the state has adopted inconsistent and differential policies towards various refugee groups (Doraï and Clochard 2006). Political parties and local authorities have played the role of informal refugee managers in terms of providing services and regulating asylum norms (Sayigh 2001; Stel and van der Borgh 2017). Shifting and delocalised refugee practices have helped to reproduce the state’s patterns of governance. At the same time, they have consolidated its capacity to impose conditions of precarity among refugees, and enshrined the narrative of Lebanon as a no-asylum country (Doraï and Clochard 2006).

Against this backdrop, Lebanon’s response towards Syrian refugees has been characterised by institutional ambiguity (Nassar and Stel 2019). At the outset of the Syrian conflict, Lebanon did little to regulate the arrivals of displaced Syrians. In 2015, however, it closed its borders and instructed UNHCR to suspend refugee registration. Changing and restrictive policies have led to the production of various modes of categorisation for displaced Syrians (Janmyr 2017a), and consequently to the emergence of what Baban, Ilcan, and Rygiel (2017, 42) frame as ‘multiple pathways to precarity’. Syrians who registered prior to 2015 received a UNHCR registration certificate, while those who were unregistered or who approached the UNHCR after 2015 to ‘record’ their presence had to find a local sponsor. After closure of the border, both registered and unregistered refugees had to pay an annual 200 USD fee to renew their residency. Yet many could not afford this visa fee and were cast in a state of illegality.

In this setting, both state and non-state actors have applied inconsistent practices that have no legal anchor. Municipal officials have imposed arbitrary curfews restricting Syrians’ mobility (Al-Saadi 2014). Local actors such as landlords, landowners and security guards have regulated refugee spaces and access to services (Sanyal 2017; Nayel 2014). Higher security institutions have issued deportation orders without legal authorisation (Legal Agenda 2019). In processing Syrians’ residency permits, general security offices (GSOs) have applied changing procedures. In 2017, the government waived the 200 USD residency fee for Syrian refugees registered with UNHCR, but the fee waiver was applied selectively. Today, according to the UNHCR (2019a), more than 70% of surveyed Syrians above the age of 15 lack legal residency.

By 2016, as soon as Syria’s conflict shifted in favour of the regime, Lebanon’s political executives started calling for the prompt return of Syrians. Careful not to attract international condemnation over the principle of nonrefoulement amid a raging conflict, ² the government has however, shied away from articulating clear commitments on return (Alfred 2018). Yet it has devolved practices that indirectly instigate refugees to return to a mix of security agencies, political parties and municipal agencies. The GSOs have arbitrarily arrested Syrians who have no work permit and closed their businesses. Municipalities have limited refugee access to housing and employment in the hope that restricting their livelihoods will prompt them to return (Mhaissen and Hodges 2019).

As underscored, far from mirroring the absence of the host state’s regulatory power, inconsistent practices have driven the state’s response, construed as the logic of ‘indirect rule’ (Mourad 2017, 254). In these circumstances, not only have Syrian refugees been pushed into more vulnerability, but high uncertainty has affected their daily lives and prompted some to contemplate return or embark on dangerous return journeys (Human Rights Watch 2019a). Additionally, such practices have sustained the state’s mechanisms of control and rent seeking. Governing actors have stopped some refugee humanitarian projects to bolster their position in the Syrian conflict (Carpi 2019, 91). Municipalities have enforced restrictions either to strengthen their popularity or to signal tension in view of attracting international funding. ³

Geostrategic leverage

An inquiry into Lebanon’s patchwork of refugee practices is crucial to broadening our view of why several actors would want to govern return, and why, in turn, the host state may benefit from such a dispersion of power. Still, understanding the divided politics over return requires an insight into the reasons this specific issue has intersected with actors’ geostrategic interests. This is no novelty. Lebanese actors have historically drawn on the governance of refugee stay and return as a tool of authority and geopolitical leverage. Such practices have helped to preserve geostrategic alliances at the heart of the state’s mode of functioning. Palestinian refugees have been denied naturalisation under the pretext that this would not only tamper with Lebanon’s demographics but also weaken the Palestinian cause by overruling the right of return. In reality, politicians have exploited the issue of return as a bargaining chip to strengthen their domestic power and alliances in the Middle East Peace Process (Sayigh 2001).

In this specific case, displacement from Syria has intersected with Lebanese groups’ polarised positions towards the Syrian regime and Syria’s 2011 conflict (Assi 2019; El-Gamal 2019). These complex intersections have in turn impacted the state’s politics of balancing divergent interests (Assi and Worrall 2015). At the close of Lebanon’s war, the 1989 Ta’if agreement, which marked the cessation of hostilities, recognised Syria as a temporary trusteeship force set to ensure order. As Lebanon transitioned into the post-war period, Syria’s influence deepened, and its troops redeployed rather than pulling out. By 2005, international pressure compounded by domestic divisions over Syria’s presence led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops. By then, contentious debates over Syria’s presence had culminated in the polarisation of Lebanon’s political actors into two blocs: the pro-Syrian and the anti-Syrian coalitions, respectively called the March 8 and March 14 Alliances.

Since then, the March 8 Alliance has brought together Lebanon’s key Shia parties, Amal and Hezbollah; the largest Christian party, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM); other independent Sunni coalitions; and the Druze Democratic Gathering Party. Its constituent parties have consistently called for consolidating ties with the Syrian regime. Since the outbreak of Syria’s conflict, they have portrayed the potential demise of the Bashar al Assad regime as an opportunity for the ascent of extremist Sunni groupings (Assi and Worrall 2015). In 2013, the coalition’s leading actor, Hezbollah, announced its military engagement in Syria to back the regime.

Largely opposed to such views, the March 14 Alliance has brought together Lebanon’s largest Sunni party, the Future Movement (FM); key Christian parties, namely the Phalangist or Kata’ib Party and the Lebanese Forces (LF); and the Druze-led Progressive Socialist Party (PSP). Since the onset of Syria’s war, its key constituent parties have supported the rise of the Syrian opposition as well as regional powers such as Saudi Arabia that have pushed for sidelining the Assad regime. The Alliance has also been wary of Hezbollah’s rising influence in the light of its military involvement in Syria.

At this juncture, the issue of Syrian refugee return has become tied to a mutually constitutive dynamic: fragmented governance and geostrategic leverage. In the next section, the article explores key governance actors’ conflicting stances and actions on return. It then unpacks how the politics of regulating returns has interacted with actors’ competing interests and with the state’s complex modes of functioning.

A multitude of actors coordinating returns

‘Who are the policy workers, and what are they doing?’

(Bertelli 2016)

Lebanon’s key governance actors may agree today that displaced Syrians should return. Still, they have proposed and implemented so many initiatives that it has almost become impossible to determine a site of focal decision-making (Atallah and Mahdi 2017). To begin with, various formal and informal actors with overlapping jurisdictions have embarked on return initiatives. The Lebanese state has created an official channel for Syrians to apply for voluntary returns (Vohra 2019). Coordinated by the General Security Offices, 17 registration centres spread across Lebanon allow Syrians to apply for return via five border crossings pending the Syrian government’s decision on their applications (Enders 2018; Yusof 2018). According to the Lebanese government, around 170,000 Syrian refugees have so far ‘voluntarily’ returned to Syria, although the UNHCR estimates the numbers to be much lower (Sewell 2019). In parallel, some political parties close to the Syrian regime have devised committees to incentivise return and process applications. Such committees may coordinate with Lebanon’s GSOs and municipalities. Still, they constitute informal return pathways. Drawing on its close connections with the Syrian regime and its knowledge of regime-held areas in Syria (Atallah and Mahdi 2017), in 2018 Hezbollah established a return programme with contact centres and task forces. In these centres, Syrians could submit their applications for return alongside ‘documents for review by the Syrian regime’ (The Daily Star 2018a). Task forces would explain return procedures to refugees and provide them with incentives (Azar 2018). By September 2018, it was reported that more than 1000 refugees had signed up for return via Hezbollah’s channel (The Daily Star 2018b). That same year, promoting the narrative that calm has returned to most of Syria’s territory, the FPM established a return committee. Its functions are to share information on repatriation and facilitate return to Syria’s so-called ‘safe areas’ in cooperation with municipalities and the GSOs (Odiaspora.org 2018). Additionally, smaller political parties of little prominence, such as the Christian-based Lebanese Promise Party, which claims to have facilitated the return of 2000 refugees by 2019 (Sewell 2019), have initiated online and door-to door return campaigns. In such a context, key communal figures such as religious authorities have played a crucial role in bolstering return initiatives. Framing the return of refugees as a ‘sacred right’, Lebanon’s Supreme Islamic Shia Council called on Lebanon to cooperate with the Syrian government on return (National News Agency 2016). Similarly, given that most Syrian refugees are Sunni Muslims, Lebanon’s Maronite Christian Church called on the displaced to return home, as they constitute a threat to Lebanon’s demographics (The Daily Star 2019a).

Lebanon’s civil society and international actors, namely the UN and the EU, have decried such initiatives on the basis that conditions for safe, dignified and sustainable return are not in place (Yusof 2018). ⁴ Some Lebanese ministries and civil society organisations have additionally deplored the proliferation of informal return initiatives, ⁵ calling on the Council of Ministers to become the focal authority on the matter (Legal Agenda 2019; The Daily Star 2019b). Gripped by deadlock, the council, which brings together Lebanon’s sectarian groupings, has, however, abstained from crafting a policy frame over repatriation. ⁶ Instead, as noted above, it has delegated return logistics to Lebanon’s security agencies and has implicitly consented to return initiatives with no official anchor (Atallah and Mahdi 2017). ⁷

Competing logics over return

Central to this fragmentation are key governance actors’ conflicting preferences over what this politics of return is to look like. Profoundly disputed issues are the conditions governing return, Lebanon’s coordination with the Syrian regime over returns (Naharnet Newsdesk 2018) and its position towards international actors funding refugee stay and warning against rash return (Osseiran 2018).

There is agreement that the norms adopted by the UNHCR on voluntary, safe and sustainable returns provide the overarching framework within which repatriation processes should occur (Zieck 2004). Organising such processes entails on-the-ground coordination between the country of refuge, the country of origin and international agencies. In this context, Lebanon’s contending actors have clashed on interpretations of voluntariness, safety and sustainability. They have also diverged on the extent and nature of coordination with the country of origin and the international community.

Actors aligned with the pro-Syrian Alliance, such as Hezbollah, Amal and the FPM, have called on the Lebanese government to normalise its ties with the Syrian regime and coordinate closely with it to facilitate returns (Al Jazeera 2019). ⁸ Though they are not opposed to externally sponsored return initiatives per se, they consider the Syrian regime to be the main authority that can provide safety and ‘security assurances’ for returnees. ⁹ Refuting arguments that return should be linked to a political solution in Syria, key pro-Syrian actors have referred to the existence of regime-held safe areas, and to the Syrian regime’s readiness to negotiate on the status of returnees (Enders 2018). ¹⁰ In this context, some of these actors have sought to adapt the international norms that usually govern voluntary repatriation. The FPM has pushed for the notion of ‘safe’ rather than ‘voluntary’ returns as the only durable solution for Syrian refugees. In this view, equating voluntary repatriation with refugees’ ability to exercise free choice encourages permanent settlement (Sewell 2019). The party has, moreover, argued that Lebanon’s overstretched capacity and the lack of international burden-sharing (limited resettlement options and underfunded responses) have made it very challenging for a state under major strain to ‘indefinitely’ host displaced individuals. Still, in coordination with the Syrian regime, Lebanon can ensure safe returns and improve their sustainability in the context of regime-held areas. ¹¹ For its part, Hezbollah has argued for return by ‘persuasion’ rather than ‘coercion’ now that ‘large areas’ of Syria are ‘safe’ (AFP 2017). This entails facilitating returns by coordinating its modalities with the Syrian government, informing refugees that pathways guaranteeing their safety and security exist, and providing return incentives such as free transportation or exemption from unpaid residency fees (Enders 2018).

Actors favouring prompt returns have cautioned against injecting funds into refugee stay, and have called on the international community instead to offer ‘incentives’ ¹² and create ‘parallel funding channels’ encouraging repatriation. ¹³ Some have even gone so far as to confront international actors that cautioned against rash returns, such as the EU and the UNHCR (Geha and Talhouk 2018). In 2019, Lebanon’s former Foreign Minister, Gebrane Bassil, who is at the same time the leader of the FPM, called on the EU to divert funds to Syria, lambasting aid as a reason encouraging Syrians to stay (Astih 2019).

In contrast, key actors affiliated with the March 14 Alliance have generally opposed normalising ties with the Syrian regime if a political solution was not in sight. Additionally, they have expressed reservations against coordinating with the regime on returns (Dakroub 2017). Though they would like to see refugees return, they have doubted the narrative that conditions in Syria are favourable (Naharnet Newsdesk 2019). From their viewpoint, the Syrian regime is neither able nor willing to guarantee conditions governing safe and sustainable returns in the absence of a political settlement. ¹⁴ Generally, these actors have sought to align their public stances with the international community’s position on return, which underscores the voluntary, safe and sustainable return of refugees once a peace deal is in place. ¹⁵ Actors such as the PSP and the FM emphasised that repatriation schemes should not breach international legal principles (The Daily Star 2019c). ¹⁶ They have, moreover, adopted a stance of deference towards donors funding Syrian refugee stay. Aware that the refugee issue has provided the country with grants and loans, ¹⁷ the FM has supported the EU’s funding strategy in Lebanon (Uzelac 2017). Its leader, Saad Hariri, Lebanon’s former prime minister, called on the international community to bolster its donor commitment to both refugee and host communities (Geha and Talhouk 2018).

Table 1 shows how the two alliances’ key actors have contextualised the norms of voluntariness, safety and sustainability in relation to their position vis-à-vis the Syrian conflict, and how they have disagreed on framing multilateral coordination over return.

Table 1. Clashing narratives on return norms.

March 8 Alliance	March 14 Alliance
Pushing for what they frame as ‘safe returns’ through coordination with the Government of Syria	Expressing preference for coordinating returns with the international community (eg United Nations agencies) and in accordance with international legal principles
Expediting returns to regime-held areas prior to a settlement in Syria	Doubting that safe and sustainable returns can happen prior to a political settlement in Syria
Conflating the voluntariness of return with the potentially permanent stay of refugees	Highlighting that return is desirable yet acquiescing to the international community’s position that current conditions are not conducive to voluntary repatriation

Contending parties have debated these clashing narratives in various policy arenas (Jacob 2019). Still, to date, such debates have not translated into a national discussion on the Lebanese host state’s commitments to uphold the safety and dignity of returnees. Interpretations of voluntariness, safety and sustainability have remained shrouded in ambiguity. Refugees, practitioners and scholars have criticised the ambivalent ‘voluntary’ and ‘safe’ framings of returns (Içduygu and Nimer 2020; Sewell 2020). Security agencies may depict return operations as ‘voluntary’ insofar as refugees willingly sign up for return. In practice, return involves much more than facilitating transfers across borders. ¹⁸ Also, push factors, namely harsh policies, have conditioned refugee choices, introducing an element of compulsion (Human Rights Watch 2019a). In Syria, obstacles such as violence and lack of property rights have made return highly perilous (El-Gamal 2019). Alluding to the UNHCR’s conversations with Syrians on their return intentions, an official at that agency stressed:

Most of the refugees are not ready to return. They would rather place their return date sometimes in the future. In some instances, they do not necessarily refer to the timeline of return but rather to the fact that favourable conditions in Syria should be in place. ¹⁹

Indeed, when asked about the safety and sustainability of returns, political actors generally agreed that precarious security and livelihoods awaited returnees. ²⁰ Moreover, confusion prevails amongst various actors as to whether the narrative of ‘safe returns’ is to be promoted in the context of the large swathes of land captured by the regime or in relation to the so-called ‘safe areas’ where armed parties agree on a ceasefire. ²¹ As noted, however, such clashing narratives go beyond legal considerations on safe and dignified return. They project the complex ways in which contending actors draw on refugee policymaking to deploy authority and leverage, reproducing the idea of the state as an ‘ensemble’ of control and competition.

The politics of return as bargaining leverage in the shadow of Syria’s war

Within this climate, what specific motives have driven competing actors’ preferences over refugee return? And what prompted certain actors to embark on return initiatives that have no legal anchor? Additionally, how have competing actors sought to steer the politics of return to extract gains?

Gaining an insight into such questions requires an understanding of how refugee return intersected with Syria’s conflict which has cut across state boundaries, shaping Lebanese parties’ perceptions of their relative power (Uzelac 2017). Already positioned within a broader pro-Syrian or anti-Syrian constellation, contending actors were uncertain as to whether the war would shift in favour of their allies or not, and how its unravelling would affect the distribution of power. By 2014, Syria’s conflict, which has pitted various opposition groupings against the Syrian regime, had escalated into a war with regional implications. Iran and Saudi Arabia have vied for regional hegemony through their support of different groups in Syria’s war. Lebanon’s contending alliances, which have traditionally relied on different ‘foreign patrons’ to bolster their power (Assi and Worrall 2015), became entangled in the midst of this ‘regional reordering’ (Barnes-Dacey 2018).

Some of the constituent parties of the March 14 Alliance, who have had a tumultuous relationship with Damascus, ²² hoped that a post-Assad Syria mediated by Saudi influence would enhance their interests and weaken their domestic challengers (Assi and Worrall 2015). In contrast, pro-Syrian parties that rely on strategic and financial resources facilitated by the Syrian regime have aligned themselves with the Syrian regime and its staunch allies, namely Iran. By joining the Syrian regime in fighting its opponents, Hezbollah has sought to preserve some of its interests, such as ensuring that Syria remains a conduit for its military arsenal (International Crisis Group 2014). Nevertheless, Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria has upset Lebanon’s balance of power. Lebanese Sunni groups saw Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria as a threat to their own position. They were hopeful that the outcomes of Syria’s war would lead to weakening regional actors that have bolstered Hezbollah’s power (Salem 2012). By 2016, information about the balance of power in Syria had not only become clearer to both alliances in Lebanon but had also contributed to shifting their political weight. As the Assad regime regained control over most of Syria’s territory, pro-Syrian parties such as Hezbollah and the FPM have arisen as key domestic players with substantial veto powers, partly because of their steady alliance with the Syrian regime (Azhari 2019; El-Gamal 2019). In contrast, the anti-Syrian Alliance emerged as a brittle coalition that soon splintered. With the Syrian regime regaining the upper hand, anti-Syrian parties feared a renewal of Syrian influence in Lebanon. Further, they have had to acquiesce to Hezbollah’s military involvement in Syria. Confrontation with the party would have incurred high costs for Lebanon’s fragile peace (Salloukh 2017).

In the context of such rivalries, the politics of return evolved into an opportunity that Lebanon’s political players could use to leverage the outcomes of Syria’s conflict in their favour. Externally, they have sought to steer conditions of return in such a way so as forge beneficial alliances that would provide them with payoffs (Assi 2019). Domestically, they have sought to govern returns to strengthen their power base and deploy authority (Uzelac 2017). Such competing modes of mobilisation need to be situated within the larger context of the Lebanese state as an assemblage of ‘powerholders’ (Carpi 2019, 85) vying for control and leverage.

Forging favourable alliances

Lebanese factions have used bargaining over return as an avenue for forming and sustaining alliances that could help them to secure gains in the context of Syria’s war. Parties that have sided with the Syrian regime have perceived coordination on refugee return with the Government of Syria as a two-fold strategy. Close coordination with the regime would help them to consolidate their strategic alliances and expect payoffs once a peace deal is secured in Syria. It would also enable them to rehabilitate the contested legitimacy of their staunch ally, and signal to the international community that the regime has indeed regained control over its territory (El-Gamal 2019). By organising returns coordinated by both Lebanese and Syrian security agencies, they would promote the narrative of a ‘stabilized Syria’ (Yusof 2018). In contrast, anti-Syrian factions that have incurred losses in the light of the Syrian regime’s victory have capitalised on refugee return as a bargaining space through which they may still offset some of their losses. By contesting coordination on return with the Syrian regime, they sought to avoid any move that would either bolster the regime internationally or contribute to reviving its influence in Lebanon (Jacob 2019). ²³ Further, in the light of their declining domestic power, they capitalised on negotiations over conditions governing returns as an opportunity to derive potential payoffs. By aligning their stances on repatriation with Western powers, parties such as the PSP, the LF and the FM have sought to boost their power of advocacy, ²⁴ and to form multilateral alliances that could potentially help them to fend off pressures arising from their domestic challengers. Through showing support to the EU’s strategy of ‘shoring up refugee reception in the countries of first asylum’ (Uzelac 2017), the Sunni Future Movement, led by Saad Hariri, has worked towards strengthening its status notwithstanding its loss of popularity on Lebanese soil.

Deploying power and authority

The politics of refugee return needs also to be embedded in a reading of Lebanon’s ‘ordering structures’ in which actors draw on power-based interactions to deploy authority (Worrall 2017), sustaining the operation of the state as a site of control. With this background in mind, key actors have sought to manage returns to cement their power. By calling for the repatriation of Syrian refugees who are mostly Sunni, political parties and religious authorities have branded themselves as the gatekeepers of Lebanon’s communities. In the race for the 2018 parliamentary elections, leaders of Christian-linked political parties such as former Minister Bassil have escalated their calls for refugee return with the aim of securing votes. ²⁵ Hezbollah has expressed concern over the impact of displacement on Lebanon’s demographics (Assi 2018). In contrast, fearing electoral losses, the Sunni Future Movement has distanced itself from Hezbollah’s plea for coordination with the Syrian regime over repatriation. ²⁶

By seeking to organise returns, certain governance actors have additionally sought to cast themselves as power brokers. Parties such as Hezbollah and the FPM, which have emerged as triumphant actors in the light of the Syrian regime’s victory, have opened return offices. This has enabled them to become key players in the surveillance and regulation of refugee spaces and mobility. At the same time, it has helped them to signal their authority. In 2017, following its victory over Islamist militants from Syria in Northern Lebanon, Hezbollah negotiated on its own the return of more than 50 Syrian families without governmental oversight. One year later, after opening its return programme, it declared its willingness to capitalise on its connections and power base in ‘all areas within its reach in Lebanon and Syria’ to return refugees (Atallah and Mahdi 2017, 28). By regulating the movement of displaced populations, Hezbollah pursues a broader security agenda. At the same time, it brands itself as a problem solver that can propose solutions to both refugees and host populations amid political stalemate (AFP 2017). In a televised speech, Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah outlined in 2018 the reasons for the party’s return programme. He declared that the party was ‘ready to help’ until the contentious matter of return is settled. He also added that contact centres sought to provide reliable information to refugees who have been misinformed by local and international actors (Reuters 2018).

In addition to launching a committee for refugee returns, the FPM party’s leader, Gebrane Bassil, has sought in his capacity as the former foreign minister to readapt norms of return to Lebanon’s circumstances. ²⁷ In the 2019 Arab Economic and Social Development Summit, he lobbied against the voluntariness of return. Instead, he called for promoting ‘favorable conditions for return’ delinked from a solution in Syria (Rose 2019).

Table 2 summarises the main issues of contention over return and links them to the embedded interests that have motivated these competing agendas.

Table 2. Competing logics and underlying interests.

Contentious points		Interests
Coordination with the Syrian regime over return		Bolstering the legitimacy of the Syrian regime or seeking to loosen its grip over LebanonEnsuring payoffs as Syria’s conflict unravelsShaping Lebanon’s distribution of power
Timing, conditions and norms governing repatriation		Deploying and exercising authority
Position towards donors and international agencies funding and regulating refugee stay		Forming and strengthening alliancesSustaining networks of control and rent seekingGaining visibility and power of advocacy

The implications of informality and fragmentation for the host state and for refugees

As various actors have embarked on competing initiatives, fragmentation and informality have provided the state with benefits (Nassar and Stel 2019) and complemented its set of governance practices. ²⁸ By shifting governance from central state institutions to a proliferation of actors, the host state has enabled a set of nebulous practices that have pressured refugees into the so-called ‘voluntary returns’. At the same time, it has reiterated its narrative of Lebanon as a ‘no-asylum country’ while avoiding pressures to spell out commitments on a repatriation plan. Amid fragmentation, international actors such as the EU and the UNHCR found it hard to coordinate with a centralised body to push for a rights-based return agenda. ²⁹

The state has, moreover, drawn on the pluralisation of sites of authority to obscure accountability over conditions of return and shift the blame away. Key political executives have consistently pushed for rash refugee return. Yet, as underscored, the Council of Ministers has refrained from formulating coherent guidelines. Instead, it has delegated return tasks to security agencies and informal actors. This ambiguity has allowed the state to push for return through its local proxies while abstaining from formulating a policymaking frame that would compromise its reputation and repel funding (Osseiran 2018). In this context, it became difficult for international actors to assign responsibility over conditions and norms governing repatriation to one centralising institution. Illustrative is Hezbollah’s facilitation of a large-scale return in 2017 without the government’s intervention. Though the Lebanese Army accompanied the families to ‘border checkpoints’, the government officially stayed out of the negotiation process. Careful not to attract international criticism and exacerbate internal tensions, it tacitly approved that Hezbollah be the mediating actor coordinating returns (Atallah and Mahdi 2017, 5). Collaborative arrangements with the Syrian regime over return can still take place through limited security coordination yet not at the level of formal governments (Rida 2017).

While the state has derived benefits from fragmentation, competing agendas have hampered multilateral coordination on returns. Since the onset of displacement from Syria, international agencies such as the UNHCR have found themselves torn between international refugee law and Lebanese politicians’ adaptation of views on asylum (Janmyr 2017a). In the specific case of return, some political actors have called on the government to cooperate with UN agencies on principles governing returns. ³⁰ Conversely, some of their rivals have framed multilateral coordination on return as an infringement upon Lebanon’s sovereignty. Instead, they insisted on expediting returns. In June 2018, Lebanon’s former Foreign Minister, Gebrane Bassil, one of the key figures in Lebanon’s pro-Syrian Alliance, ordered a freeze of the UNHCR staff’s residency permits, accusing them of discouraging Syrians from returning home (Geha and Talhouk 2018). As the UNHCR failed to rally nation-wide support for guidelines on repatriation, it has had since then to observe returns at border crossings and help refugees intending to return to secure their documents. ³¹ The ambiguous climate in which restrictive regulations coexist with informality has impacted refugees’ perceived choices of stay or return (UNHCR 2019b). With the outbreak of Lebanon’s 2019 mass protests amid an unprecedented financial crisis, the numbers of Syrian refugees intending to return are expected to rise. At this juncture, some Syrian refugees have staged a daily sit-in in front of the UNHCR’s office, decrying precarious living conditions and a lack of rights (Sewell 2020).

Conclusion

The international refugee regime emphasises the mutually constitutive duties of the host state, the country of origin and the international community in facilitating returns in safety and dignity (Bradley 2009). Against this background, the literature has focussed on how host states may craft ‘exclusionary’ practices and prematurely push for refugee returns, compromising principles governing repatriation (Chimni 2004; Içduygu and Nimer 2020).

Expanding on this work, the article has focussed on how Lebanon has constructed its politics of refugee return through the lens of interlocking authority structures that do not solely lie in law and government. Competing and informalised agendas rooted in relationships and imaginings of power have shaped its response towards Syrians’ return. Such competing agendas have enshrined profoundly disputed preferences over repatriation, making collective action challenging and obscuring accountability over refugee rights. Competing logics over refugee return are to be embedded in a historically informed analysis of the state’s governance structures and the way the state’s authority is entangled with informal modes of regulation. These logics are further to be embedded in a geopolitical reading of the various ways Syria’s war has cut across Lebanese borders, turning the politics of return into bargaining leverage. In such a setting, informalised and restrictive practices have had consequences on the ground. They have not only pressured refugees to consider a dangerous journey home (Human Rights Watch 2019a), but also curbed international actors’ ability to demand accountability from the state (Human Rights Watch 2019b).

The Lebanese case mirrors wider trends of fractious and restrictive practices over return in Syria’s neighbouring countries. In Turkey, at the outset of the Syrian conflict, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party has favoured the naturalisation of Syrian refugees for various purposes. Examples range from scoring electoral gains to creating a continuum of ‘statuses’ exposing refugees to ‘multiple forms of precarity’ (Baban, Ilcan, and Rygiel 2017, 46). In contrast, its rival, the Republican People’s Party, has incessantly pushed for rash return. In Jordan, despite the state’s apparently unified policy frame, inconsistent practices across localities and from one officer to the next have impacted refugees’ attitudes towards return (Kvittingen et al. 2019). ³²

In a broader perspective, the Lebanese case informs us of the various ways a host state may construct its de facto return policy through sites of overlapping authority rather than clearly articulated legal norms. In so doing, a refugee hosting state may deliberately use fragmentation and informality to elide asylum reforms, complicating agreement on durable solutions including return in safety and dignity. The literature has thoroughly unpacked how host states externalise responsibility over refugees with a view to keeping them at bay (see Van Riemsdjik et al. in this issue). Still, we know less about how host states may externalise refugee responses to their own ordering structures and informal local proxies to obscure responsibility and sustain an everyday politics of refugee precarity. In this light, a state’s strategy to delegate powers ‘downward’ or acquiesce to informalised governance may amount to a deliberate calculus through which it shies away from refugee-related commitments (Mourad 2017; Norman 2019).

Keeping this in mind, scholars interested in the various ways host states shape return norms and practices may draw on this case study for further research. Firstly, variation in policies and practices within a single state may influence return outcomes (Koser, Walsh, and Black 1998; Içduygu and Nimer 2020, 11) and refugee propensity to embark on dangerous journeys. Secondly, fragmented responses within a host state may complicate even more the search for durable solutions in the international refugee regime, including agreement on principles governing repatriation. The various ways the host state may capitalise on its informal structures to blur responsibility may make it very challenging for international organisations such as the UNHCR to negotiate guidelines for return with a focal point of authority. In the absence of multilateral coordination, the risk is that returns will occur at the discretion of the host state’s own governance dynamics and at the expense of refugee rights (Içduygu and Nimer 2020). An insight into such dilemmas may contribute to the broader discussion as to why ‘vagueness’ over the notion of return in safety and dignity has often prevailed in both national and international discussions (Bradley 2009).

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. She also wishes to thank Christelle Barakat and Fidaa Al Fakih for their research assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The study was funded by Center for Global Cooperation Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen; and the Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

Notes on contributors

Tamirace Fakhoury

Tamirace Fakhoury is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Lebanese American University. Her research interests include refugee and migration politics in the international system, and power-sharing and democratisation in conflict areas.

Notes

1 Interview with Zeynep Mencutek, Duisburg, 27 July 2019.

2 Interview with Nora Stel, Nijmegen, 15  March 2020.

3 Interview with Lama Mourad, Harvard, 4 July 2019.

4 Interview with civil society activist, Beirut, 15 April 2019.

5 Interviews with representatives from the Ministry of Social Affairs, Beirut, 6 May 2019, and the Lebanese Forces, Beirut, 6 May 2019.

6 Interview with representative from the Lebanese Forces.

7 Interview with representative from the Kata’ib Party, Beirut, 10 May 2019.

8 Interview with representative from the Free Patriotic Movement, Byblos, 9 May 2019.

9 Interview with representative from the Ministry of State for Displaced Affairs, Beirut, 14 May 2019.

10 Interview with representative from the Free Patriotic Movement.

11 Interview with representative from the Free Patriotic Movement.

12 Interview with representative from the Ministry of State for Displaced Affairs.

13 Interview with representative from the Free Patriotic Movement.

14 Interviews with representatives from the Progressive Socialist Party, Beirut, 2 May 2019; the Future Movement, Beirut, 11 June 2019; the Lebanese Forces; and the Katai’b Party.

15 Interviews with representatives from the Progressive Socialist Party, the Future Movement, and the Katai’b party.

16 Interviews with representatives from the Progressive Socialist Party and the Future Movement.

17 Interview with representative from the Future Movement.

18 Interview with Dima Mahdi, Beirut, 23 March 2020.

19 Interview with UNHCR official, Beirut, 14 May 2019.

20 Interviews with representatives from the Ministry of State for Displaced Affairs and the Lebanese Forces

21 Interview with Dima Mahdi.

22 Interviews with representatives from the Lebanese Forces and the Katai’b Party.

23 Interview with representative from the Progressive Socialist Party.

24 Interviews with representatives from the Progressive Socialist Party and the Future Movement.

25 Interview with Nasser Yassin, Beirut, 14 April 2019.

26 Interview with representative from the Future Movement.

27 Interview with representative from the Free Patriotic Movement.

28 Interview with Lama Mourad.

29 Interview with EU official, Brussels, 12 June 2019.

30 Interviews with representatives from the Progressive Socialist Party and the Future Movement.

31 Interview with UNHCR official, Beirut, 17 January 2019.

32 Interview with civil society activist, Beirut, 25 November 2019.