Politics at the Periphery- Local Governance and Regime Consolidation in Postwar Lebanon

This talk will examine the local dimensions of order and disorder in contemporary Lebanon. Despite extraordinarily regressive social policies and poor public goods provision, Lebanon's postwar regime has remained in power and withstood recent anti-government mobilization. Relying on 18 months of fieldwork and original survey evidence, I argue that consolidation of control over local institutions has contributed to the extraordinary staying power of Lebanon's political elite class. I argue that Lebanon's governing elites began to assume de facto control over local (i.e. municipal) governments during the civil war, and assumed official control of many municipal governments after the conflict ended. Local governments affiliated with Lebanon's governing parties were given beneficial access to basic welfare services and public goods, while more electorally competitive areas were punished. These divergences also help explain local-level patterns of protest across different urban areas during Lebanon's 2019 protest wave.