Know thy enemy: Hizbullah, ‘terrorism’ and the politics of perception

Harb, Mona; Leenders, Reinoud

doi:10.1080/0143659042000322973

Cited by 71 publications

(20 citation statements)

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“…Furthermore, when pressed by health and environmental concerns, mayors expressed frustration at their poor budgets and their inability to address the scale of the problems they faced in these settlements. In that context, it is not surprising that political parties, most notably Hezbollah, have taken charge of service provision either by directly ensuring these needs or by negotiating with public authorities for their provision (Fawaz, 2005; Harb and Leenders, 2005).…”

Section: Informal Settlements Today and Neoliberal Reforms In Urban Gmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Neoliberal Urbanity and the Right to the City: A View from Beirut's Periphery

Fawaz

2009

Development and Change

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Drawing on Lefebvre's theorization of space in order to examine the compatibility of neoliberalism and the right to the city, this study investigates how the formation of informal settlements since the 1950s had provided lowincome dwellers in Beirut (Lebanon) a means to conceive of and engage in city making (neighbourhood production, management, and organization) at a time when state regulations and/or market constraints would have excluded them from the city. It also examines how the prevailing neoliberal ideology of the 1990s, as translated through Lebanon's sectarian-clientelist regime, is curtailing these possibilities. Evidence for the article was drawn from interviews with dwellers, developers and public officials, as well as from archival searches and aerial photographs.

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Section: Informal Settlements Today and Neoliberal Reforms In Urban Gmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hezbollah is also an established political party in Lebanon with ministers in the cabinet and deputies in the parliament. The party also runs several NGOs that provide an array of social services in areas of predominantly Shiite constituencies (Fawaz, 2005; Harb, forthcoming; Harb and Leenders, 2005).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Neoliberal Urbanity and the Right to the City: A View from Beirut's Periphery

Fawaz

2009

Development and Change

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“…1. Much of the specialised literature underscores Hezbollah's partisan ideological inflection, pragmatic insertion into electoral disputes, and normalised parliamentary dynamics (Harb and Leenders 2005;Norton 2007;Karam 2010). In 2006, Hezbollah and the Christian Free Patriotic Movement also signed an understanding encouraging national dialogue and supporting consensual democracy.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Frailties of Lebanese Democracy: Outcomes and Limits of the Confessional Framework

Calfat

2018

Contexto int.

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Lebanon is frequently referred to as a model of a plural and stable democracy in the Middle East: a multi-ethnic and pluri-religious society that guarantees political representation through a power-sharing confessional framework. Numerous authors also see the consociational model as the best democratic alternative given such a high degree of domestic heterogeneity. However, by emphasising Lebanese stability vis-à-vis a troubled regional scenario, these positive perceptions have neglected some elements of how democracy actually works in Lebanon. In this article, I analyse two domestic dimensions that hinder the success of the Lebanese democratic experience (the pre-attribution of seats and distortions of representation) and point to the limits, effects and consequences of consociationalism in this specific confessional reality. The results of this case study indicate that highly institutionalised consociational arrangements can lead to sectarianism, institutional instability, clientelism, and state frailty. I also lay out some lessons and implications that can be derived from such a framework in terms of harmful sectarian narratives at both the local and regional levels.

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“…Since its inception, Hezbollah has operated two sets of development institutions: those that provide services to targeted beneficiaries (widows, families of martyrs, wounded guerillas), and those that have a broader scope of service provision. Among the latter are Jihad al‐Binaa (Jihad for construction); Al Imdad (The Resource); Islamic Society for Health; and Al Qard Al Hassan (The Good Loan) (Harb and Leenders, 2005). My own research has been focused on Al Qard Al Hassan, which is Hezbollah's variant on the highly popular microcredit approach to poverty alleviation.…”

Section: The Infrastructure Of Populist Mediation: We the Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

“…If the people cannot talk, the stones will say it”. This is the case because Hezbollah is engaged in the creation of what it sees as a “resistance society” (Harb and Leenders 2005). To this end, Hezbollah conceptualizes its development work as a foundational element of resistance, a continuation of its open letter to the umma (global Muslim community) in 1985 that was a “declaration of the downtrodden in Lebanon and in the World” (Norton 1999).…”

Section: The Infrastructure Of Populist Mediation: We the Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

Civic Governmentality: The Politics of Inclusion in Beirut and Mumbai

2009

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This article is concerned with the politics of inclusion. It analyzes the institutionalization of participatory citizenship as the formation of regimes of "civic governmentality". Through the study of key civil society organizations such as SPARC and Hezbollah, it studies three dimensions of civic governmentality: an infrastructure of populist mediation; technologies of governing (for example, knowledge production); and norms of self-rule (for example, concepts of civility and civicness). However, such regimes of civic governmentality operate within frontiers of urban renewal and indeed often facilitate and manage such types of development. The article examines the limits and contradictions of the politics of inclusion in the context of the bourgeois city and also studies radical forms of citizenship that emerge to challenge these limits.

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Know thy enemy: Hizbullah, ‘terrorism’ and the politics of perception

Cited by 71 publications

References 1 publication

Neoliberal Urbanity and the Right to the City: A View from Beirut's Periphery

Neoliberal Urbanity and the Right to the City: A View from Beirut's Periphery

The Frailties of Lebanese Democracy: Outcomes and Limits of the Confessional Framework

Civic Governmentality: The Politics of Inclusion in Beirut and Mumbai

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