Public Diplomacy in Lebanon: From Sectarian Division to Communitocracy

Abstract

It has been almost three decades since the war in Lebanon ended. A new post-war generation which does not have the same legacy and formative experience is now active in the civil however, it seems that this new generation is more apathetic than their predecessors, lacks a unified sense of “state” and is less willing to engage in changing the sectarian factionalism system. What contributes to such behavior if the legacy of war no longer applies? I argue that research needs to switch focus from discussing social, political, and cultural behaviors from a longue durée perspective, to evaluating the impact of communitarianism – seen as the antithetical paradigm to nationalism - on the politics of citizenship in Lebanon. The framework employed will be communitarian theory, which starts with the assumption that that integrative forces have fostered states’ interconnectivity, so that breaking events occurring in one country can directly catalyze reactions in others. These processes, in turn, have rendered impossible the ability of a single, centralized national authority to control power in a particular territory without being directly implicated by events developing in a far distant place. This paper will discuss the ways in which globalization and political dynamics in the Middle East have developed increasingly to force the mutation of the state towards the accommodation of communitarian aspirations and show how these processes have tilted the balance in favor of communitarian associations rather than pure national allegiance.



Author Information
Roxana Toma, State University of New York Empire State College, United States

Paper Information
Conference: ACSS2019
Stream: Politics

This paper is part of the ACSS2019 Conference Proceedings (View)
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Posted by James Alexander Gordon