The “Scramble for Lebanon”: Is Federalism a Way out of the Deadlock of Consociationalism?

Francesco Palermo & Lorenzo Somigli

University of Verona

Why this Symposium: Lebanon in the Fluid Global Context

What is happening in Lebanon deserves the utmost attention but discussion of it remains marginal in the global constitutional debate. As a unique junction point in the “Wider Mediterranean”, Lebanon is a forerunner of geopolitical phenomena that might spread out elsewhere and an extraordinary laboratory of constitutional principles – and of their clash.

The current situation is ever more worrying. At the end of 2021, tensions between the confessional communities began to rise again: irregular militias paraded contemptuously of the law through the streets of Beirut; some armed incidents took place, in precisely the areas where the civil war broke out, and some deaths were recorded.  The 2022 elections brought modest but potentially meaningful changes, with Hezbollah and its allies (Amal, Free Patriotic Movement, and others) losing their majority (from 71 to 62 MPs) and 13 MPs getting elected from emerging groups and civil society lists – an achievement in a sectarian electoral system that favours established political parties. Additionally, eight women were elected, an increase from six in 2018.

If, as some experts maintain, the global clash will increasingly be between “terrestrial powers” (Russia, China and Iran) and “maritime powers” (USA and the UK), Lebanon can become a key battleground. The country is indeed, as Braudel rightly pointed out, both “fluid” and “physical”, made up of “a garland of small ports leaning against the mountain, located on peninsulas and small islands, as if they wanted to remain extraneous to a continent that is too often hostile”.

All this requires that Lebanon be seen as an urgent case on the international scene and its (formal and informal) constitutional mechanisms be critically reviewed. The present symposium aims at relaunching the debate, briefly describing the main tenets of the sectarian power-sharing on which the country is based. It will present some different points of view by Lebanese scholars on the thorny issue of the consociational system and its (potential) relationship with the territorial setting of the country.

Too Permeable a Political System

The delicate historical balance on which the country is founded and grounded complicates the situation in Lebanon. The resumption of the “great game” – borrowing from Kipling – among the global powers following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the great global realignment that follows, and the general fluidity of the borders in the Middle East, accelerated by the Russian and Iranian presence, together risk an intensification of the “Scramble for Lebanon”.

A foot through the door in Lebanon guarantees a stable projection in the Mediterranean, the global sea by nature, closed and open at the same time, a diaphragm between the new blocs, and a global sea that, throughout history, has been and will be decisive in every war.

In this light, the current centralized and confessional system has produced fragmentation, internal conflict and above all extreme porosity. External actors can easily influence the internal Lebanese chessboard by moving their representatives who guarantee consensus thanks to the sectarian logic of sharing government posts, resources, and public money.

In this global context of a new clash between the blocs and the “Scramble for Lebanon” (as well as for the Mediterranean), a political and constitutional formula must be found that can allow Lebanon to prevent a conflict that is very close to re-exploding as the global clash. The only answer may be a political and constitutional solution that adapts to the characteristics of a socio-political path that is unique in our world.

Why Does Confessionalism No Longer Work?

The current stalemate has many roots. One of the origins of the current problems of the region prior to the very establishment of Lebanon is – not surprisingly – primarily geopolitical. It dates to the geometric partition of the post-Ottoman Middle East with the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, and to the choice of creating states from scratch, without paying due attention to ethno-religious aspects and above all without involving the people. As a result, a strongly centralized system was formed with the establishment of the Lebanese state in 1926, inspired by the French model, neglecting local autonomies, which have been given no substantial power or resources. This did not change with the subsequent reforms, including the 1989 Taif agreement. As a consequence, the Lebanese system, although highly centralized, has not led to the establishment of a common sense of (national) belonging or to a shared view of the interests of the country and its communities. Lebanon thus fails to guarantee an acceptable standard of living to its population, trapped as it is in a cemented sectarian division of its communities and in a political system marked by corruption and mismanagement. The conundrum of the country’s constitutional arrangements is the persistence of a strong centralized government which is unable to deliver in policy terms, leading to many actors continuing to prefer community membership over a national one.

The credibility of the Lebanese institutions is further undermined by the presence of irregular armies and by criminal organizations, which enrich themselves through illicit trafficking. The case of the Hezbollah militias – not the only irregular forces in the country – is emblematic of this. The presence of the militias has been addressed several times, including in the context of nuclear talks, but Iran has always managed to divorce the issues of the nuclear threat from the para-military presence on foreign soil. The idea that confessionalism alone could compensate for all these lacunas, accommodating the country’s huge diversities and the conflicting interests of several communities and of the neighbours, has been a failure across the board.

Federalism and the Bottleneck for Reforms

It is often contended that any reform that breaks with the inefficiencies of confessional power-sharing must include an expansion of the powers and role of local governments, the only institutions that have proven effective in part. Some proposals have gone as far as to suggest a federal structure as a means to reshuffle the confessional stalemate. However, federalism is often intended as a territorial cover for the same confessional cleavages (ethno-religious federalism) rather than as a tool to downplay them. As a consequence, federalism is an extremely contested and loaded term that means different things to different actors.

Be it as it may, the question remains as to whether and to what extent the inversion of the center-periphery relationship can increase stability and reduce community conflicts. Can federalism be secular in the Lebanese context? How should a new territorial setting be designed to promote peace and development through self-government? Furthermore, who is willing to politically support the reform process? At present, no parliamentary majority seems likely to be formed on such an agenda, especially after the last general elections of May 2022, nor it is clear whether there is or could be a real consensus among citizens for such a reform.

Despite this uncertainty, the ever more evident failure of the current system may accelerate the reform process and some debate is necessary, internally and internationally, to prepare the next steps in a rational, procedurally pre-determined way, ensuring that chaos and violence do not dominate the inevitable process of reform (in whatever direction it may go). The inevitability of change is testified by extreme calls for a UN resolution declaring Lebanon a failed state and a threat to peace, pursuant to chapter 7 of the UN Charter, imposing a top-down abolition of the confessional system and possibly establishing a committee on decentralization. 

The federal dilemma periodically re-emerges in the Lebanese debate despite the lack of transversal consensus or supportive political actors. The more acute the crisis, the more intense the need for constitutional ways out.

Francesco Palermo is Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Verona and head of the Institute of Comparative Federalism at Eurac Research in Bolzano/Bozen (Italy). He is the initiator of the IACL Research Group on Constitutionalism and Societal Pluralism

Lorenzo Somigli is a journalist. He analyses the “Wider Mediterranean” in Italian and international reviews such as Lesfide, Geopolitica.info and Transatlantic Policy Quarterly. He is the author of reportage in Lebanon following the August 4th protests in Beirut
Suggested Citation: Francesco Palermo and Lorenzo Somigli, ‘The “Scramble for Lebanon”: is federalism a way out of the deadlock of consociationalism?’ IACL-AIDC Blog (13 October 2022) https://blog-iacl-aidc.org/the-scramble-for-lebanon/2022/10/13/the-scramble-for-lebanon-is-federalism-a-way-out-of-the-deadlock-of-consociationalism.