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Abstract
The article takes recent research on the difficulties for the EU in successfully promoting democracy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region as its point of departure, with a specific focus on the European Neighbourhood Policy EU-Lebanon Action Plan. It is shown that, in spite of the fact that Lebanon does not present the same authoritarian institutions and character as most of the other countries in the region, the EU seems to have difficulties dealing with the political realities of Lebanon. This has to do with its consociational system and the existence of political elites in Lebanon, who see avoiding another breakdown of the political system as the decisive political issue. In addition, the existence of a ‘dual power’ situation, where two sources of authority are competing for power and legitimacy, constructs a Lebanese reality which the EU chooses to address by neglecting its own normative, democracy promotion ambitions. The article concludes that the vagueness and inconsistency of EU policies in Lebanon cannot only be explained by tactical considerations, but also imply that the EU pursues a realist agenda: in other words it is a realist actor dressed in normative clothes.
Notes
Del Sarto and Schumacher, ‘From EMP to ENP’; Bicchi, ‘Our Size Fits All’; Pace, The Politics of Regional Identity; Dannreuther, ‘Recasting the Barcelona Process’.
Dannreuther, ‘Recasting the Barcelona Process’, 46.
The negotiations with Lebanon on an EU–Lebanon Action Plan were concluded in May 2006, just before the start of the July–August hostilities.
Dannreuther, ‘Recasting the Barcelona Process’.
European Commission, European Neighbourhood Policy EU–Lebanon Action Plan.
This is discussed in Bicchi, European Foreign Policy Making. See also Seeberg, ‘European Security and the “Clash of Civilisations”’.
See for instance Jones and Emerson, ‘European Neighbourhood Policy in the Mashreq Countries’; Herman, ‘An Action Plan or a Plan for Action?’; Del Sarto, ‘Wording and Meaning(s)’.
Emerson and Youngs, ‘Political Islam and the European Neighbourhood Policy’, 5.
Rees and Aldrich, ‘Contending Cultures of Counterterrorism’.
Youngs, Europe and the Middle East. For an introduction to Hezbollah, see the section ‘Hezbollah and the ‘Dual Power’ of Lebanon’ in this article.
El-Husseini, ‘Lebanon: Building Political Dynasties’.
See Waterbury, ‘Democracy Without Democrats?’.
Hinnebusch, ‘Authoritarian Persistence, Democratization Theory and the Middle East’.
Ibid., 391.
Ibid., 389.
Perthes adds, in defining the politically relevant elites, that they ‘contribute to defining political norms and values, and directly influence political discourse on strategic issues’. See Perthes, ‘Politics and Elite Change in the Arab World’, 5.
El-Husseini, ‘Lebanon: Building Political Dynasties’, 241.
Ibid., 261.
For an introduction to the emergence of Hezbollah in Lebanon, see Norton, Hezbollah. A Short History.
Jones, Negotiating Change. The New Politics of the Middle East, 9.
Ibid., 247.
Kamali, Revolutionary Iran. Civil Society and State in the Modernization Process.
Ibid., 203. See also Schirazi, The Constitution of Iran.
See Skovgaard-Petersen, ‘Democratization and the New Arab Media’, 97.
In developing this concept of a ‘dual power’ in Lebanon I was inspired by Becker, ‘The Struggle for Power in Lebanon and the Middle East’, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BEC20061210&articleId=4117. See also the paper by political analyst Kammourieh, ‘Hezbollah's “Dual Legitimacy”: Origins, Evolutions and Vulnerabilities’, http://artsci.wustl.edu/∼ppri/StuConf07Papers/kammourieh.doc
See Byman, Deadly Connections. States that Sponsor Terrorism, 93.
Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, 154.
See Norton, ‘The Role of Hezbollah’. See also Norton, Hezbollah. A Short History.
Reported by Arabicnews.com, 12 September 2006, http://www.arabicnews.com
See Nasr, The Shia Revival. How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future. See also Nasr, ‘When the Shiites Rise’. Note the comment by Faour, ‘Counting Shiites’.
Commission of the European Communities, Commission Staff Working Paper. Annex to: ‘European Neighbourhood Policy’. Country Report. Lebanon, http://ec.europa.eu/world/enp/pdf/country/lebanon_country_report_2005_en.pdf
Commission of the European Communities, ‘European Neighbourhood Policy–EU-Lebanon Action Plan’.
Ibid., 4.
Ibid.
Gambill, ‘Syria after Lebanon: Hooked on Lebanon’.
The central problems of the Lebanese economy are well documented in the Lebanese section of The Middle East and North Africa 2008.
Evidence in Israel in the aftermath of the war has, according to Telhami, shown that Israel for years worried about the build-up of strike capability by Hezbollah and that, therefore, Israel had for long time been preparing contingency plans to attack these capabilities. See Telhami, ‘Lebanese Identity and Israeli Security’, 21.
Norton, ‘The Role of Hezbollah’, 485.
Telhami, ‘Lebanese Identity and Israeli Security’, 23.
Ibid.
For a thorough description of the consociational democracy of Lebanon, see Ziadeh, Sectarianism and Intercommunal Nation-Building in Lebanon.
In his campaigning before and during the elections in May–June 2005, Michel Aoun called for the abolition of ‘political feudalism and the religious system that dates back to the 19th century’. Jordan Times, 12 May 2005.
For a description of the alliance, see Seeberg, ‘Fragmented Loyalties. Nation and Democracy in Lebanon’.
El-Solh, Lebanon and Arabism.
Hanf, Coexistence in Wartime Lebanon and ‘The Sceptical Nation.’
Hanf, Coexistence in Wartime Lebanon. For an analysis with focus on the contradictions within the Shi'ite population, see Norton, Amal and the Shi'a.
Telhami, ‘Lebanese Identity and Israeli Security’, 26.
Ibid., 5.
European Commission. European Union Election Observatory Mission. Parliamentary Elections. Lebanon 2005. Final Report. http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/human_rights/eu_election_ass_observ/lebanon/final_report.pdf
Commission of the European Communities: European Neighbourhood Policy, EU-Lebanon Action Plan, 7.
Seeberg, EU and the Mediterranean.
See El-Khoury, ‘Lebanese Palestinian Dialoque Aids Refugee Prospects’, http://www.euromesco.net/images/a_elkhoury.pdf
Ibid., 8.
Ibid.
‘Impact Of Paris III’.
See Quilty, ‘Winter of Lebanon's Discontent’, 7, http://www.merip.org/mero/mero012607.html
This perspective on the ENP is also developed in Youngs, Europe and the Middle East, 111ff. The impression that the issue of conditionality within the framework of the ENP is not sustained by precise benchmarking is supported by interviews by the author with senior EU officials in April/May 2006, Brussels.
See Aliboni et al., ‘Putting the Mediterranean Union in Perspective’.