Tamirace Fakhoury
Dr. Fakhoury is an assistant professor of political Science at the Lebanese American University.
Lebanon is a multisectarian state in which Muslim and Christian groups share political power. The executive elite is composed of a Maronite president, a Shiite speaker of parliament and a Sunni prime minister. The legislature is split 50-50 between Muslims and Christians, and communities enjoy educational and religious autonomy. Two pacts act as regulatory frameworks for these political arrangements: the 1943 National Pact and the 1989 Taif agreement, which put a halt to Lebanon's 15-year civil war (1975-90).
While Lebanon's prewar political system (1943-75) was often framed as a paradigmatic case of consociational or power-sharing democracy,1 most observers today agree that this system is an anarchistic model for the devolution of power.2 Sectarian3 politics feeds on patronage ties and foreign alliances through which communities vie for control over resources. It further reifies partisanship in external conflicts.
One important factor that has contributed to the derailment of the Lebanese model is its rigid institutionalization, which makes the quota system unresponsive to social change.4 Moreover, the sectarian divisions entrenched in the system invite external involvement. Post-war Lebanon was under the tutelage of its Syrian neighbor until 2005. The latter's hegemonic role was justified on the basis that Lebanon needed an "arbitrator" to regulate its centrifugal nationalism. Various crises have since then tested the limits of Lebanon's postwar system. By 2004, Syria's role in Lebanese politics had led to mounting tensions between anti-Syrian and pro-Syrian factions. Following Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri's slaying in 2005, a series of protests culminated in the departure of the Syrian troops.
Still, polarization between the anti-Syrian and pro-Syrian groups — called the March 14 and March 8 Alliances, respectively — has blocked reform. Since 2005, Lebanon's competing political coalitions have dueled for dominance, and contention over core policy matters has thrown the country into episodic deadlock. Though both coalitions are multisectarian, their prescriptions for state building clash. The March 14 Alliance, perceived as closer to the Western world, calls for dismantling the military wing of the Shiite party Hezbollah, insisting that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) — convened to prosecute the perpetrators of Hariri's slaying — continue its course, despite initial findings that indictments would implicate Hezbollah members. Conversely, the March 8 Alliance, led by Hezbollah, seeks closer ties with the Syrian regime while asserting that Hezbollah's military arsenal is a strategic necessity and that the STL is nothing more than a politicized instrument.
While Lebanon can be said to have stood by as it observed the early contagion of the Arab uprisings, the Bashar al-Assad regime's crackdown in Syria constituted a critical juncture for the country. Since then, the small polity has increasingly incurred backlash effects from the Syrian crisis. The policy of dissociation that the Lebanese state has embraced vis-à-vis the Syrian uprising has been ineffective. Hezbollah's longstanding alliance with the Syrian regime prompted its engagement in the fighting, and the polarization of sectarian elites over the "Syrian question" has trickled down to their communities. Clashes between anti-Syrian Sunnis and Shiite-backed pro-Syrian Alawites in northern Lebanon are indicative of broader tensions simmering at the heart of the Lebanese sectarian patchwork. While the Shiites, broadly speaking, support the Syrian regime, the Sunnis are sympathetic to the uprising. Christians and Druze remain divided on the Syrian crisis.
Lebanese political divisions over Syria reflect competition for future political gains, as the shape of politics in Syria has broad ramifications for the balance of power in Lebanon.5 The country's deteriorating security situation and the breakdown of elite accommodation resulted in the postponement of the 2013 parliamentary elections, and two different governments have resigned since the start of the Arab revolutionary wave. Polarization over the STL, the drafting of an electoral law, and the Syrian uprising have deepened the split between the March 8 and March 14 coalitions. At the heart of this fracture is the struggle for predominance over the Lebanese state.
EU POLICY FRAME POST-2011
The EU's policy framework in Lebanon has been articulated through the prism of the 2002 Association Agreement and the 2006 European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) Action Plan. National Indicative Programs (NIP) lay out the scope of EU funding, and progress reports appraise their effectiveness.6 Whereas Lebanon's Association Agreement under the Barcelona process has been criticized for being vague in its support for political reform, the ENP Action Plan, divided into three tracks, has sought to address this gap, albeit with limited success.7 The first track, centering on political reform, aims to strengthen institutions, human rights and civil-society organizations (CSOs), while the socioeconomic track promotes reforms in Lebanon's market economy and educational sector. The third, dedicated to stabilization initiatives, deals with issues relating to infrastructure, decentralization and Palestinian refugee camps.
Instruments tailored to empower CSOs, such as the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, complement the ENP's overarching approach. The EU delegation in Lebanon, part of the European External Action Service (EEAS) created in 2009 to establish a more coherent EU foreign policy, coordinates political dialogue between the EU and the Lebanese government.
While the Arab uprisings represented an opportunity for the EU to reevaluate its role in the region, Lebanon has been only marginally integrated into key policy documents, reflecting the EU's discursive shift towards "a new neighborhood." 8
Understandably, Lebanon has triggered only minor policy interest, given that it was no Arab Spring front-runner. Its centrality to discussions related to the uprisings and EU policy mechanisms was, however, brought to the fore as three outcomes of the upheavals have backfired on its territory. First, Lebanon hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees. Second, it is slowly developing into a proxy battlefield for the Syrian regime's crackdown on its rebels. Third, its sectarian conflict lines now intersect with broader confrontations between Shia and Sunnis. This rivalry opposing Sunnis and Shia reflects the struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran and their respective allies over regional dominance.9
A look at the allocation of EU funding in post-2011 Lebanon reveals that crisis management and stability have been key. The largest chunk of EU funding, amounting in 2013 to €222.8 million, is earmarked for the response towards the Syrian refugee crisis on Lebanese soil. Notwithstanding this, new instruments like the Spring Initiative, intended to strengthen democracy and reduce social inequities following the revolts, have also targeted Lebanon.10 In 2012 and 2013, €45 million were allocated for the support of electoral reforms and an independent judiciary, as well as for the improvement of human rights and security. Lebanon has further benefited from the recently created European Endowment for Democracy (EED), which supports CSOs.
In line with the EU's new approach to the Arab world is the 2013-15 ENP Action Plan for Lebanon, unpublished at the time of this writing. On the one hand, it prioritizes institutional reform, human rights and the empowerment of civil society. On the other, it dedicates attention to mending social disparities and includes a section on fostering dialogue and cross-cutting ties within Lebanese communities.
THE SECTARIAN MODEL
The EU-Lebanon Action Plan has had a mixed track record.11 Lebanon has been called a "passive and superficial partner," because of its inability to live up to ENP commitments due to security concerns,12 and the EU's engagement there has been depicted as both lacking political leverage and grounded in ambiguity.13 Gaining insight into the dilemmas that make Lebanon a challenging case for the EU's Democracy Assistance (DA) policy requires more than a cursory analysis of the instruments employed. The issue can better be elucidated by assessing the quality of the match between the EU's normative approach to reform in Lebanon and the country's political and sectarian dynamics, as well as through an exploration of how the EU, as an international actor, interacts with the prevailing balance of power there.
The EU's Approach and Lebanon's Sectarian Politics
The EU strategy of trying to spur political reform in Lebanon through funding and policy linkages was left intact through the Arab uprisings. Its approach can be described as institutionalist,14 rooted in a liberal approach to democratization across the broader Arab world.15 This concept of democratization, rebaptized in the wake of the Arab revolts as the building of "deep democracies," emphasizes criteria beyond free and fair elections, extending to the promotion of an independent judiciary and the strengthening of civil and political rights. The EU approach to reform in Lebanon has been based on funding electoral initiatives as well as strengthening the judiciary and parliament. The recently renegotiated Action Plan sets electoral reform, including the alignment of the electoral law with international norms, as a key priority.16
The broadly framed approach that the EU promotes with regard to political transition in Lebanon17 remains too remote from Lebanon's "deeply rooted communalism."18 In its declaratory strategy, the EU evades the burning issue at the core of Lebanon's democratization process: the completion of a transition away from sectarian power-sharing, as set out as a longer-term goal in the Taif accords of 1989. Further, in an attempt to fit its approach in Lebanon into its broader response to the Arab world after the revolts, the 2011 ENP progress report maintains the importance of promoting a "deep and sustainable democracy" in Lebanon.19 However, it does little to expand on how such a conception of democracy is to be understood in relation to Lebanon's power-sharing model, in which democratization is inherently linked to the pact of accommodation between political communities rather than to a benchmark of elections.
While the EU's DA program is tilted towards strengthening institutions and civil-society organizations, the core of political power and decision making in Lebanon lies in extrainstitutional and nonformalized political spheres. Lebanon's sectarian elites monopolize effective power to the detriment of the country's formal institutions.20 Clientelism, the provision of services in return for a community's allegiance, is the main vector through which they entrench their predominance.
Moreover, since the end of the 1975-90 civil war, contentious issues have primarily been tackled through informal elite coalitions rather than institutional politics as platforms of deliberation. The Syrian-Lebanese security regime from 1990 until 2005, and Lebanon's executive ruling coalition in the 1990s, which was criticized for undermining institutions, are illustrative of this. Since 2006, the National Dialogue Committee, a noninstitutionalized platform composed of Lebanon's main sectarian leaders, has evolved into the core arena where thorny issues are tackled.21
Whereas the ENP policy framework emphasizes an institutionalist approach, the EU, in practice, acquiesces to Lebanon's informal political spheres and adopts a pragmatic approach to its mode of politics. It encourages the resumption of the noninstitutionalized National Dialogue process,22 even though the latter has not had any policymaking impact since 2006. Despite the Lebanese parliament's unconstitutional move to reelect its members in early 2013, the European parliament has maintained dialogue with its Lebanese counterpart.
An additional structural dilemma casting a pall over the EU's approach is what Clark and Salloukh have termed the "recursive relation" between sectarian elites and CSOs.23 Sectarian elites extend their clientelistic networks into CSOs, vitiating their power to alter the system while CSOs improve their status through sectarian politics. While Lebanese civil society remains active, a sharp gap between Lebanon's political and civil societies prevails. Elite control over decision making through informal bargaining methods prevents CSOs from challenging the establishment through institutional avenues.
Against this backdrop, one important question is how much EU aid policy vis-à-vis CSOs deals with this "recursive relation." Indeed, the relationship between elites and CSOs weakens the link between CSO empowerment and democratization, inhibiting the effectiveness of the aid in the first place. This gap has already been noted in Khatib's study on Lebanese perceptions of the EU's DA program.The EU has been asked to work beyond financial assistance in encouraging the Lebanese establishment to better respond to civil society.24
In the context of this recursive relation in which CSOs and sectarian elites share benefits, two compelling questions arise: (1) does the EU practice an effective politics of differentiation between grassroots actors that may challenge political leadership and CSOs penetrated by sectarian logic, and (2) does EU aid reach less visible social movements? Indeed, those local NGOs that gained exposure to the donor community through connections to the political establishment not only enjoy more visibility; they have also acquired the skills necessary to respond to EU calls for proposals.25
Discrepancy between Rhetoric and Implementation
Policy coherence on the part of the EU — that is, the extent to which policy implementation is harmonized within a discursive framework — is lacking in Lebanon. At the heart of this discrepancy lies the dilemma of bolder engagement in Lebanon's sectarian power-sharing.
On a normative level, the EU has highlighted the need for a "national pact" as a prerequisite to political reforms.26 In practice, however, it has avoided the issue, opting for a pragmatic engagement with Lebanon's political realities.27 The EU has avoided any politics of conditionality28 that might condemn the breakdown of power-sharing governments throughout episodic instances of political stalemate. Tocci has, for instance, noted the EU's silence when Hezbollah walked out on the Lebanese government in 2006.29 Following the cycles of governmental collapse that have taken place since the onset of the Arab uprisings, the EU has at best remained "an observer."30
The EU agenda for electoral reform is at the core of its normative approach to Lebanon, but in this field as well it has avoided conditionality.31 The stalled 2013 elections are a case in point. The EU simply expressed regret at Lebanon's decision to delay its 2013 elections and urged Lebanese parties to use the parliament's extended mandate to agree on a new electoral law.32 Dialogue with the March 8 and March 14 factions has been an iterative process for negotiating the lack of compliance with the ENP's declared goals.
The EU's reticence to forge a line of political conditionality in a divided society such as Lebanon's has complex underpinnings. While the EU fears that external manipulation may widen domestic cleavages,33 it has remained a realistic actor more interested in stability than in conflict-prone democratization processes.34
Some have questioned whether the EU's depoliticized aid policy helps entrench the status quo in Lebanon35 and undermines its credibility as an agent of change.36 There are yet benefits to the EU's delinking of aid from more coercive politics. First, it offers the cover of neutrality necessary to keep important avenues of dialogue and public diplomacy open.37 One notable example is how the EU has maintained its calls for electoral reform since 2005, despite Hezbollah's role as a major stakeholder in the Lebanese elections.38
Although the EU would like to maintain a soft approach to Lebanon's sectarian politics, its management of tensions during critical junctures may exacerbate internal rifts. That EU foreign policy is actually articulated though the individual policy of its member states has long been established. The EU was, for example, slow to react to the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel due to the clashing views of its member states on conflict regulation. Moreover, the EU has not fared well as a "force for good"39 in Lebanon's fragmented structure. The actions of the EU and its member states in an international setting often have internal implications for Lebanon's balance of power. The EU has supported the Hariri tribunal, one of the most divisive issues between the March 8 and March 14 Alliances that brought about the collapse of the government in January 2011. Further, France's backing of UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1559 in 2004, which called for the demilitarization of Hezbollah and the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanese soil, fueled rifts between the anti-Syrian and pro-Syrian groups prior to Hariri's slaying.
It is worth noting that, because Lebanon's political system entrenches divisions along sectarian lines, it invites actors to seek external allies and funding to protect their interests. The EU member states have historically been enmeshed in such interactions.One need only look to the historical rapprochement between the Lebanese Maronites and France and between the Druze and Britain for examples. 40 In their struggle for predominance, Lebanon's policy makers have capitalized on cooperation with the EU to bolster their positions. Hollis notes that the government that upheld Lebanon's ENP Action Plan in 2007 was the pro-Western Fouad Siniora government, eager to rally behind its European allies to weaken the pro-Syrian opposition.41
Tensions in the EU Approach
An additional dilemma posing a challenge for EU engagement is the tension between security and reform. This debate is an old one. The EU's policy framework in Lebanon cannot be detatched from its internal-security agenda.42 With the instability wrought by the Arab uprisings, the EU faces a trade-off between pushing through its DA agenda and prioritizing security imperatives that constrain deepening democratic politics. The EU stance towards Hezbollah and its role in managing the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon are key examples of how democracy promotion can be subordinated to security and stability concerns.
The EU has come to realize that it can no longer marginalize Islamists in its support for political transitions, but Hezbollah presents a tough case. It is part and parcel of Lebanon's power-sharing machinery, but still maintains a military wing with a regional agenda. After blacklisting Hezbollah's military wing for its suspected involvement in bombings of Jewish tourists in Bulgaria, the EU slammed Hezbollah's involvement in the Syrian civil war in June 2013.43 Support for sanctions on the part of EU member states has grown with Hezbollah's role in the Syrian war. 44
While the EU has pledged to work with any Lebanese government, even one including Hezbollah,45 it remains to be seen whether the EU will attempt to use stronger conditionality to extricate Hezbollah from further entanglement in Syria. In this view, Lebanon represents a trump card for the EU through which it could have leverage over some of the external players in the Syrian crisis. It is thus difficult to conceive that the EU's broader security agenda would not impinge on the politics of inclusiveness it claims to pursue. Prior analysis in fact reveals that it has been ambivalent with regard to Hezbollah's two-faced power.46
The EU role in helping the Lebanese state manage the crisis provoked by the influx of displaced persons from Syria highlights the primacy it places on maintaining stability. Since 2011, the EU has prioritized a cooperative relationship with the Lebanese government in spite of episodic breakdowns in the democratic process, partly because it sees it as necessary to the proper management of the refugee crisis. In doing so, it has refrained from exercising a politics of conditionality to ensure compliance with suggested reforms. Indeed, the EU's aid policy in the Syrian refugee crisis cannot be separated from its role as a regional migration regime seeking to manage the human flow in the Euro-Mediterranean zone.
EU ROLE IN POWER-SHARING
Due to the dilemmas discussed above, the EU can scarcely hope to wield any real influence in Lebanese politics. By prioritizing procedural criteria it fails to target the nonformalized nature of sectarian power and the social logic through which it is reproduced. It further fails to address the more delicate issue of how the institutionalization of sectarianism through power-sharing thwarts the very conception of the liberal democracy it seeks to advance. At best, the EU hopes that advocating for proportionality in elections and an independent judiciary, as well as empowering CSOs, might have spillover effects that could benefit de-sectarianization.47
One substantial weakness in the EU approach to a divided society such as Lebanon's is that it has so far treated democratization and power-sharing as two separate tracks.48 While its DA plan overemphasizes elections as a driver for deepening democratic processes in Lebanon,49 the latter has been thwarted by "adversarial decision-making."50 Antagonism among Lebanon's elites, which feeds on deeper existential fears and patronage networks, precludes the very consensus needed to uphold an electoral democracy. It is worth debating whether the EU's aid policy would be more effective if it were more conditional on a prerequisite of national reconciliation.51
Recent scholarship has attracted attention to the tradeoffs that power-sharing imposes on democratization in divided societies and has called for a policy approach synchronizing peace-building and democratization initiatives. 52 In this context, can the EU adopt a conceptual lens other than procedural criteria of democratization for its engagement in Lebanon? One complementary pathway for the EU in Lebanon in particular merits further study. Given that regional conflicts derail Lebanon's elite coalescence and exacerbate sectarian loyalties,53 some scholars argue for insulating Lebanon from external strains through a policy of "careful" alignment.54 This kind of strategy need not be specific to Lebanon; divided societies fare best in non-intrusive environments.
The EU may be able to draw on its identity as a regional actor to boost networks supportive of peace building in Lebanon, and this possibility merits further research. As the Northern Ireland case shows, positive external pressures have been crucial to power-sharing.55 Even though the EU was not a main player in Northern Ireland's political arrangements, it did provide a platform for key external stakeholders — the British and the Irish — to cooperate on the Belfast issue.56
Although the EU's potential to offer a "benign external environment"57 is primarily effective in countries that either enjoy EU membership or are involved in accession negotiations, its experience in that field may inform the debate on ways to back democratization initiatives with a conflict-resolution track in Lebanon. The EU has formally supported Lebanon's stance of dissociation vis-à-vis the Syrian crisis, but it could do more in practice to enhance Lebanon's capacity to uphold the policy. It could provide a broader arena for embedding policy networks sympathetic to Lebanon's politics of neutrality58 into a larger sphere of dialogue.59 Concretely, this means convening regional consultative processes on how to reduce external pressure on the Lebanese political system. These fora could address the issue of how the backlash effects of the Arab uprisings, in particular, continue to feed conflict and stalemate in Lebanon.
I would also urge policy makers to revisit the question of whether, and how, the EU's DA plan could be fine-tuned to Lebanon's specificities, particularly the issue of elite accommodation and its impact on democratization. There is likely potential for socialization60 between EU and Lebanese actors, privileging the impact of social learning on policy instruments. Much has been written on how socialization into Western values occurs between elites of the less democratized entity and the EU. 61 But the reverse trajectory remains underexplored. Examining interactions between EU officials and Lebanese actors and exploring how the former become socialized into the particularities of the Lebanese political system and shape their policy responses may inform the debate on ways to revitalize EU strategy in Lebanon. Concrete outputs of such studies would be to identify how the EU could couple its approach with strategies incentivizing elite coalescence.
This article cautiously suggests that restructured EU engagement in Lebanon should take into account the lessons learned from its involvement in divided societies. The broad DA toolkit that it applies across the Arab world does not provide enough of a differentiated lens to adequately address the dual goal of conflict regulation and democratization in Lebanon.
THE EU AND POLITICAL GOVERNANCE
The legacy of EU involvement in Lebanon has both academic and policy implications for its broader support for transitions in Arab societies. The breakdown of longstanding autocracies has taken the lid off Arab societies divided along ethnosectarian and ideological lines. There is increasing academic interest in revisiting how power-sharing settlements can provide a democratic design for Arab societies seeking to accommodate sectarian rifts, and whether Lebanon's model holds lessons for its neighbors.62 Such settlements pose challenges to international actors like the EU. Their role in mediation is not only contested; efforts to simultaneously advocate for democratic reforms and stability can create dilemmas.63
A challenge for EU engagement in the region will be whether it can hone its DA approach to address sectarian and political fragmentation in countries such as Syria, Egypt and Libya. Support for the design of governance structures that mends rifts among political communities will have a major impact on democratization benchmarks.
Despite its marginal role in the 2011 Arab protest wave, Lebanon presents a key opportunity to understand the dynamics underlying sectarian governance and alternative models of democracy. The small polity provides a benchmark case for assessing external assistance in a complex terrain of pluralistic politics. It also highlights the pitfalls of politicizing sectarianism through the bolstering or isolating of certain actors.
Most important, the EU experience in Lebanon shows that a "prescription for democratization"64 relying on procedural criteria has limitations when it comes to supporting transitions in ethnoreligious polities. Such criteria fail to tackle the complex ways through which sectarian and socioeconomic cleavages acquire political salience. Refraining from conceptualizing democracy assistance mainly in terms of procedural criteria and opening up to differentiated understandings of democracy could benefit the EU in its approach to this changing region. 65
1 This democratic typology devolves power among constituent groups. See Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (Yale University Press, 1977).
2 For an analysis of the performance of Lebanon's power-sharing system, see Marie-Joelle Zahar, "Power Sharing in Lebanon: Foreign Protectors, Domestic Peace, and Democratic Failure," in Sustainable Peace: Power and Democracy after Civil Wars, eds. Philip G. Roader and Donald Rothchild (Cornell University Press, 2005), 219-40.
3 I draw on Shirlow's and McGovern's conception of sectarianism as a phenomenon in which religion becomes "a marker of conflict representing a means to identify, express, historically root, legitimate and give meaning to resource competition." See Peter Shirlow and M. McGovern, "Sectarianism, Socioeconomic Competition and the Political Economy of Ulster Loyalism," Antipode 28, 4 (1996): 379-98, 381
4 See Lijpart, Democracy, 149.
5 See Mona Yacoubian, "The Crisis in Syria: What Are the Stakes for its Neighbors," Middle East Policy 20, no. 3 (2013): 4-7.
6 All policy documents regulating EU-Lebanese cooperation can be accessed via http://eeas.europa.eu/lebanon/.
7 Catinca Oncescu, "The European Neighbourhood Policy: Case Study, the EU- Lebanon Partnership," in Culture, Elites and European Integration, ed. Simion Costea (Prodifmultimedia, 2011), 109-24, 119-21.
8 See, for instance, European Commission (EC), "EU's Response to the 'Arab Spring': The State-of-Play after Two Years," MEMO/13/81, February 8, 2013.
9 Bassel Salloukh, "The Geopolitics of the Struggle for Syria," E-International Relations, September 23, 2013, http://www.e-ir.info/2013/09/23/the-geopolitics-of-the-struggle-for-syr….
10 EU Delegation to Lebanon, "EU Cooperation with Lebanon," October 2013.
11 Simone Pastorino, "The EU Political Cooperation with Lebanon: A Case Study of Democracy Promotion" (MA Thesis, University of Amsterdam, 2012).
12 Michael Emerson, Gergana Noutcheva, and Nicu Popescu, "European Neighbourhood Policy Two Years On: Time Indeed for an 'ENP Plus'," CEPS Policy Briefs 112 (2007), 1-32.
13 Sarah Anne Rennick and Ben Robert Jonsson, "A Durable Peace or Undesired Interventionism? ENP and the Middle East in a Changing Context," presented at BRISMES Annual Conference, December 15-17, 2008.
14 Institutionalism emphasizes the importance of institutional building in shaping democratic transitions.
15 The EU liberal democracy model achieves normative status as a key external policy instrument in the Arab countries before and after the uprisings. See Michelle Pace, "Paradoxes and Contradictions in EU Democracy Promotion in the Mediterranean: The Limits of EU Normative Power," Democratization 16, no.1 (2009): 39-58; and Andrea Teti, Darcy Thompson and Christopher Noble, "EU Democracy Assistance Discourse in Its New Response to a Changing Neighbourhood," Democracy and Security 9, no.1-2 (2013): 61-79.
16 Communication with EU official, Brussels, October 30, 2013.
17 While it can be argued that EU policy tools were not devised to be more specific, several scholars analyze their contradictions as they shape norms of cooperation and reify power relations. See Alun Jones and Julian Clark, "Europeanization and Discourse Building: The European Commission, European Narratives and European Neighbourhood Policy," Geopolitics 13, no. 3 (2008): 545-71.
18 N. Kliot, "The Collapse of the Lebanese State," Middle Eastern Studies 23, no.1 (1987): 54-74
19 EC, "Implementation of the European Neighbourhood Policy in Lebanon: Progress in 2011 and Recommendations for Action," Brussels, May 25, 2012.
20 For a survey of the categories of political leaders in Lebanon, see Marius Deeb, "Lebanon: Prospects for National Reconciliation in the Mid-1980s," Middle East Journal 38, no. 2 (1984): 267-83.
21 Launched in 2006, the National Dialogue process has not been able to feed into policy-making due to divergences over the STL tribunal and Hezbollah's weaponry.
22 See EU Delegation, "Ambassador Angelina Eichhorst Meets the President of the Republic Michel Sleiman," Press Release, July 22, 2013.
23 Janine Clark and Bassel Salloukh, "Elite Strategies, Civil Society, and Sectarian Identities in Postwar Lebanon," International Journal of Middle East Studies 45, no. 4 (2013): 731-49.
24 Kamleh Khatib, "How Promotion of Political Reform by the European Union Is Perceived in the Arab World: The Cases of Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories," International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (2009), 1-16, 11.
25 Interviews with Lebanese activist and policy maker, Beirut, November 11 and 22, 2013.
26 European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument, "Country Strategy Paper 2007-2013 and National Indicative Programme 2007-2010," 11.
27 Interview with Lebanese policy maker, Beirut, November 22, 2013.
28 EU conditionality, reframed as the "more for more" principle, links EU aid to progress on democracy, human rights and economic liberalization.
29 Nathalie Tocci, "The Impact of Western Policies towards Hamas and Hezbollah: What Went Wrong?" CEPS Policy Brief 135 (2007), 136-59, 148.
30 See Silvia Colombo, "Syria and Lebanon: Diverging Paths of State Unsustainability," MEDPRO Technical Report 6 (2011), 1-20, 15.
31 See Khatib, "How Promotion," 11.
32 EU Delegation, "The European Union Regrets That Elections Will Not Be Held on Time," Press Release, May 31, 2013.
33 Interview with UNHCR official, Beirut, October 22, 2013.
34 Interview with Lebanese policy maker, November 22, 2013.
35 See Colombo, "Syria and Lebanon,"14.
36 Interviews with Lebanese activists, Beirut, October 8 and November 11, 2013.
37 Interview with UNHCR officials, Beirut, October 22, 2013.
38 Interview with Lebanese activist, Beirut, November 11, 2013.
39 On this concept, see Esther Barbe and Elisabeth Johansson-Nogues, "The EU as a Modest 'Force for Good': The European Neighbourhood Policy," International Affairs 84, no.1 (2008): 81-96.
40 Justin Salhani, "Lebanon's Confessional System Could Change with Region," New Atlantic Post, October 28, 2013, http://www.theatlanticpost.com/politics/lebanons-confessional-system-ch….
41 Rosemary Hollis, "No Friend of Democratization: Europe's Role in the Genesis of the 'Arab Spring'," International Affairs 88, no.1 (2012): 81-94.
42 Lebanon's Action Plan allocates higher budgets to the support for Palestinian refugees and the combating of terrorism, concerns spelling trouble for EU's internal stability. See Peter Seeberg. "The EU as Realist Actor in Normative Clothes: EU Democracy Promotion in Lebanon and the European Neighbourhood Policy," Democratization 16, no. 1 (2009): 81-99.
43 See "EU-GCC Condemn Hezbollah's Involvement in Syria," Daily Star, June 30, 2013, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2013/Jun-30/222049-hezbollahs….
44 James Kanter and Jodi Rudoren, "European Union Adds Military Wing of Hezbollah to List of Terrorist Organizations," New York Times, June 22, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/23/world/middleeast/european-union-adds-….
45 EU Delegation, "Ambassador Angelina."
46 See Elif Özkaragöz, "Book Review: The European Union's Democratization Agenda in the Mediterranean," by Michelle Pace and Peter Seeberg, eds., Spectrum: Journal of Global Studies 3, no. 4 (2011): 111-14.
47 Interview with EU official, Beirut, October 16, 2011.
48 Monika Arcipowska and Beata Wojna, "European Neighbourhood Policy: How to Reconcile EU's Offer with Neighbour's Expectations?" PIIA Policy Paper 20 (November 2011), 1-10.
49 See Europaid, "Electoral Assistance for Parliamentary Elections in Lebanon," 2009, http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/documents/case-studies/lebanon_election-s….
50 Lijphart, Democracy, 101-02.
51 Tocci, "The Impact," 157-58.
52 On synchronizing power-sharing and democratization initiatives in divided societies, see Anna Jarstad, "Dilemmas of War-to Democracy Transitions: Theories and Concepts," in From War to Democracy, Dilemmas of Peacebuilding, eds. Anna K. Jarstad and Timothy D. Sisk (Cambridge University Press, 2008), 17-36.
53 Richard Augustus Norton, "Lebanon: With Friends like These," Current History (January 1997): 6-12.
54 Farid El Khazen, "Disengage Lebanon from Regional Turmoil," Daily Star, August 14, 2006, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_ID= 10&articl e_ID=74710&categ_id=5.
55 Michael Kerr, Imposing Power-Sharing: Conflict and Coexistence in Northern Ireland and Lebanon (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2005).
56 See Brigid Laffan, "Ireland, Britain, Northern Ireland and the European Dimensions," Institute for British-Irish Studies Working Paper 27 (2003), 1-17.
57 Expression coined by Laffan, 2.
58 International actors such as the Gulf countries and Turkey have shown interest in sustaining Lebanon's politics of dissociation. See Paul Salem, "Bombings in Beirut Indicate New Escalation," Middle East Institute, November 19, 2013, http://www.mei.edu/content/bombings-beirut-indicate-new-escalation.
59 The EU shapes region building in the Arab world through formal and informal policy networks.
60 Socialization is defined as "the process of inducting individuals into the norms and rules of a given community." See Liesbet Hooghe, "Several Roads Lead to International Norms, But Few Via International Socialization: A Case Study of the European Commission," International Organization 59, no.4 (2005): 861-98, 865.
61 See Tina Freyburg, "Democrats without Democracy? Linkage and Socialization into Democratic Governance in Authoritarian Regimes," NCCR Working Paper 37 (2009), 1-31.
62 See Stephan Rosiny, "Power-Sharing in Syria: Lessons from Lebanon's Taif Experience," Middle East Policy 20, no. 3 (2013): 41-55.
63 See Timothy D. Sisk, "Peacebuilding as Democratization: Findings and Recommendations," in From War to Democracy, 239-59.
64 Pace, "Paradoxes," 2.
65 Teti, Thompson and Noble, "EU Democracy Assistance."
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