Marco regulatorio

It has been the aim of this chapter to outline the dynamics and particularities of the hybrid political system in modern Lebanon. It has, therefore, been important to examine the historical experience and social dynamics of the Lebanese transition to modernity in an attempt to conceptualise sociopolitical order in modern Lebanon. In light of this, it has been demonstrated that modernity in Greater Syria was triggered by the asymmetric encounter with Mehmet Ali’s modernising Egypt in the early-nineteenth century and modern-capitalist Europe in the mid- nineteenth century. Despite the common core of Arab modernities however, Lebanon exhibits a particular modernising experience given the impact of social and physical-geographic conditions on the ontologies of subnational collectivities.

Consisting of numerous, self-centred and relatively isolated ‘sects’, early-modern Lebanon did not develop the homogenising or ‘erasive’ unity characteristic of its Arab neighbours. Instead, political order in Lebanon entailed sophisticated power-sharing arrangements whereby rational ‘confessional ethnies’ were integrated in a modern, multi-centred, multi-confessional state. The state, on the other hand, was introduced to the previously-autonomous mountain dominions of the ‘sect’. The political system, therefore, is a hybrid system incorporating customary and conciliar forms of government; rational-cultural and legal-contractual relations; traditional and rational legitimations.

The transition to modern statehood in Lebanon, thus, did not produce a unitary nation-state in the Hegelian sense. Instead, the political paradigm was one of deep disarticulations: while it is a symbol of cultural backwardness and vulgarity to ‘be sectarian’, it is a symbol of patriotism and cultural refinement to acknowledge the ‘particularities’ of the ‘Lebanese mosaic’. Essentially, this demonstrates the perplexities of Lebanese modernity: on the one hand, it aspires to present Lebanon as modern nation-state with a claim to authenticity; on the other

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hand, it acknowledges that there was no principled break with the ‘sectarian subnationalism’ or the social relations of confessional-feudalism.

Consequently, ‘Lebaneseness’ entailed a chauvinistic nationalism akin to modern nationalism aimed at differentiating ‘Lebanon’ from the world beyond. This ‘identity’, it was hoped, would bring together the Lebanese in an ‘imagined community’ which is founded more on notions of ‘who we are not’ rather than ‘who we are’. It was in this light that a loose national identity founded upon notions of neo-Phoenicianism and the ‘ancient’ merchant republic were articulated and disseminated by the modern state. Lebanon’s neo-Phoenician identity was founded on the national/historical myth that (i) Lebanon is a ‘mosaic’ of peoples; and (ii) a freewheeling merchant republic governed by a minimalist state. This state was far from the centralised, unitary and ‘modern’ state. Instead, it was a meeting place for the representatives of the ‘spiritual families’ constituting the ‘Lebanese mosaic’.

In light of this, it can be argued that modern Lebanon is a multi-centred socio-political order based on the politics of accommodation between the ‘pillars’ or ‘spiritual families’ of Lebanese society – a repercussion of the particular historical formation and political economy of micro-powers and subnational group solidarities sharing and competing for spatial, temporal and reflexive territories.

As a result, government in early-modern Lebanon entailed complex decision-making procedures and precarious power-sharing arrangements involving tedious bargains and compromises between competing neo-feudal houses. Essentially, the Lebanese state was minimalist and sovereignty was divided amongst neo-feudal ‘political families’ claiming representation of ‘spiritual families’ – that is to say, confessional communities. This was in stark contrast to the centralised monolithic state in Mehmet Ali’s Egypt and beylical Tunisia in the mid-nineteenth century.

Moreover, given the peripherality of Lebanese capitalism and the evolutionary transition to the capitalist mode of production, feudal elites have been able to survive the transition and constitute a proportionally-large segment of the capitalist bourgeoisie. As a result, hybrid modes of production and, crucially, economic and extra-economic relations of coercion coexist in modern Lebanon producing a medley of identities based on different ontologies and epistemologies. The multiplicity of economic and socio-political structures, thus, resulted in a multi-centred order in contrast to the homogenising presuppositions of modernisation theory. In other words, not only is the Lebanese superstructure an example of ‘hybrid modernity’ insofar as it diverges from the prototypical nation-state model; it is also a political system

which accommodates multiple claims to the truth, worldviews and modus vivendi – that is to say, hybrid modernities coexisting within the ‘hybrid-modern’ consociational superstructure. While the political economy of Lebanese modernity and consociationalism will be discussed in the next chapter, it suffices to note that the implications of the minimalist, multi-centred state in Lebanon are twofold. Firstly, it allowed for the integration of pre-capitalist elites in the context of the unrestrained, freewheeling capitalism subservient to the economic interests of the dominant sector of the financial-mercantile bourgeoisie. Secondly, the confessional- consociational order allowed members of the dominant class to capitalise on their pre-modern social relations, reinforce clientelistic dyads and consolidate the status of political dynasties based on traditional legitimations.

In concluding, the multi-centeredness of the political economy in early-modern Lebanon and the multiplicity of ethno-sectarian ontologies and collective identities cannot be explained by the unitary and monolithic presuppositions of modernisation theory. The ‘vertical pluralism’ and the relationship between the multi-centred state and multiple ‘sectarian ethnies’ indicates ‘hybrid modernities’ or, at least, a deviation from ‘modernity’. Moreover, social formations within each vertical segment have developed in a ‘modern’ and ‘rational’ manner but based on and justified through different ontologies and epistemologies. ‘Modernism’ in the periphery, therefore, has taken place as a de facto reality, but through different foundational reasoning – hence, substantiating ‘hybrid modernities’ theory. Thus, as discussed so far and as argued and articulated in the following chapters, Lebanese political economy, horizontally and vertically, should be conceptualised within the theory of ‘hybrid modernities’.

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