The State of Consociationalism in Lebanon

Abstract

Deploying a critical juncture agency approach, this paper undertakes a genealogy of the adoption of consociationalism at colonial state formation in Lebanon to compare different consociational experiences as actually existing processes. It also aims to amplify the effects of variations in the sequencing of state formation and the adoption of consociationalism on state forms and political trajectories in the original European cases and in postcolonial contexts. Formal consociational arrangements in the European cases emerged after a long process of state formation that overlapped with state building and created substantial cross-pressures at the organizational levels that, in turn, militated for moderation and later de-pillarization. By contrast, in Lebanon, the postcolonial and postwar elite instrumentalized consociationalism to capture state institutions and resources to stymie state building (or rebuilding) and produce (or reproduce) sectarian politics. Unlike the experiences of the classic European states, then, and by capturing the institutions and political economy of the state in the name of power sharing and mutual coexistence as it was being formed during colonial state formation—or rebuilt during the postwar moment—the sectarian political elite denied the state any role in interest group intermediation, thus blocking the very possibility of de-pillarization and de-consociation.