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Growth Without Development: the Role of Lebanon's Legislative Agenda

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Growth Without Development: the Role of Lebanon's Legislative Agenda ISSUE BRIEF 10.10.18 Growth without Development: The Role of Lebanon’s Legislative Agenda Mounir Mahmalat, Dublin City University Lebanon grows without development. The of the civil war in 1990 with some of the World Bank’s Human Development Index most pressing developmental challenges. (HDI)1 for Lebanon shows an average A country’s political agenda represents annual growth of 0.14 percent from 2005 its priority list and reflects the topics a to 2015, in contrast to 0.47 percent in government pays attention to. To reveal countries with comparable levels of human the issues the government prioritized over development (such as Turkey, Mexico, or time, I identified 34 major issue categories Brazil). Comparing these growth rates to of legislation, including education, taxation, the growth of the economy can indicate public finance, real estate, and public works. how human and economic development are As the Lebanese polity is characterized disconnected. For example, while Lebanon’s by high degrees of polarization stemming HDI improved by 4 percent from 2005 to from a consociational power-sharing 2015, the economy grew by almost 60 system, policymaking suffers from percent during the same period. exceptionally high numbers of formal and The developmental challenges informal veto players.8 Enacting legislation Lebanon faces are multifaceted and pertaining to national issues therefore include insufficient electricity supply,2 requires a wide consensus across parties environmental degradation,3 and and sects, which tend to delay politically Core issues related to staggering inequality.4 The recent contentious decisions. Analyzing the political development, such “CEDRE” donor conference in April 2018 agenda hence identifies the issues on which as electricity, water, in Paris, for example, vividly brought to the priorities of political actors converge. education, environment, light the dilapidated state of the public This brief shows that core issues related infrastructure.5 Due to a mixture of fiscal to development, such as electricity, water, health care, and mismanagement, low taxation on wealth, education, environment, health care, and transportation, are and large-scale corruption in the execution transportation, are underrepresented in underrepresented of public infrastructure projects, the the government’s agenda. Moreover, these in the government’s government fails to funnel the additional categories have declined in legislative resources created by economic growth into attention over time despite the many agenda. Moreover, these developing the country’s water, education, pressing developmental challenges that categories have declined or public health care systems.6 confront the Lebanese authorities, especially in legislative attention In this brief, I argue that Lebanon’s considering the refugee crisis. Instead, over time. disappointing record of development is the government has emphasized issues reflected in the narrow political agenda of related to the macroeconomic environment, the Lebanese government. I use agenda- monetary stability, and taxation. Moreover, setting theory7 in order to match data the share of legislation pertaining to real on the legislative activity of Lebanese estate increased significantly and comprised governmental institutions after the end more than a third of all legislation passed RICE UNIVERSITY’S BAKER INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY // ISSUE BRIEF // 10.10.18 FIGURE 1 — TYPES OF LEBANESE LEGISLATION PASSED (1990–2016) 500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 2011 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Laws Decrees Resolutions SOURCE Author’s analysis by any Lebanese governmental body over legislation are limited, this abundance of the past decade. The narrow agenda of information requires prioritization in order the Lebanese government reflects several to allow policymakers to concentrate and governance challenges pertaining to respond to the most pressing issues. The political polarization, low administrative legislation the Lebanese government issues capacities, and the ideational foundations in response to its priorities represents of the Lebanese economy functions. To the government’s political agenda. Yet, make progress in education, health, or focusing on one particular issue might infrastructure, the Lebanese government divert attention from other domains, so needs to enhance its institutional capacities every policy choice impacts the diversity of to draft and enact legislation in order to a government’s political agenda.9 Agenda- diversify its agenda and address the diverse setting, then, describes the process by development needs of the country. which a government distributes its attention across issues. The analysis in this brief is based on SETTING AGENDAS: APPROACHING the Lebanese Official Gazette, the official THE LEBANESE CASE journal of the Lebanese government that publishes all legislative texts enacted by The Lebanese government is confronted any governmental body.10 Subdivided into with a constant stream of information 34 major topic categories, the data set about a wide variety of topics—including includes, for example, all laws enacted by security, education, immigration, and the the parliament, decrees by the Council of economy—to which it responds by issuing Ministers, or resolutions by the ministries. legislation. As the attention and resources Analyzing political agendas with data of a government to draft and enact on legislation matters for two reasons. 2 GROWTH WITHOUT DEVELOPMENT: THE ROLE OF LEBANON’S LEGISLATIVE AGENDA First, a standardized coding scheme to government’s attention and the trade-offs categorize the legislation makes the agenda between policy issues. International affairs, comparable over time across topics and taxation, monetary issues, and property institutional origins, such as a parliament, and acquisitions enjoy disproportionately Council of Ministers, or ministries.11 Second, higher levels of attention per year than legislation reflects the outcome of a most other categories combined. The successful bargaining process over political relatively higher degree of attention paid exchanges,12 which goes beyond mere to the core functions of the government— announcements of reform priorities in, for defense, international affairs, the economy, example, executive speeches. Legislation government operations, and the rule of law— data thereby enables an unbiased, holistic is not specific to Lebanon and rather a bias view on legislative activity for political inherent in all political systems.14 However, analysis. Since the data is comprehensive what is more pronounced is the emphasis rather than selective (i.e., the entirety of legislation is analyzed), this approach allows for an overall reflection of political legislative priorities. FIGURE 2 — AVERAGE AMOUNT OF LEGISLATION PER YEAR BY TOPIC (1990–2016) EVOLUTION OF THE International Affairs POLITICAL AGENDA Taxation and Customs Property, Acquisitions, and Public Works Among the most pressing and salient Coordination of Ministries issues Lebanese legislators had to Banks and Financial Institutions deal with in recent decades were the Education and Culture consequences of the Lebanese Civil War Agriculture (1975 to 1989). Legislative activity severely Public Institutions plunged in the latter years of the crisis and Trade and Economy almost came to a standstill in 1989, when Environment and Health Municipalities and Mayors only 24 legislative texts were published. Transport, Cargo, and Traffic Figure 1 shows that in the period after Correspondence and Communication 1990, legislative activity increased Unions and Professions markedly, a trend that is highly correlated Labor and Social Security 13 with various measures of state capacity. Tourism and Heritage This increase reached a local maximum in Defense and Security 2007 (690 legislative texts published) and Public Finance a global maximum in 2016 (912 legislative Constitutional Law texts published). Parliamentary activity, Personal Affairs and Sects however, does not follow this pattern after Water and Electricity 2000, and the number of laws parliament Judiciary ratified experienced a marked decline. On NGOs and Housing Construction and Real Estate average, parliament ratifies as many laws Industry and Oil today as it did at the end of the civil war in Social and Internal Affairs the early 1990s. Obligations and Contracts In addition, the attention paid by Sanctions and Penalties the Lebanese government to different Culture, Sport, and Arts issues after the civil war is highly skewed Press and Media across the 34 topic categories of the 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 data set. Figure 2 shows boxplots of the average distribution of legislation across these different categories from 1990 to NOTE The vertical bars in each box represent the median, and the enclosed boxes 2016. The large variation in legislative represent the 2nd and 3rd quartiles. The whiskers indicate the minimum and maximum values. activity reflects the different spikes in the SOURCE Author’s analysis 3 RICE UNIVERSITY’S BAKER INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY // ISSUE BRIEF // 10.10.18 FIGURE 3 — PROPORTION OF DEVELOPMENTAL LEGISLATION IN LEBANON (1990–2016) 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0 2011 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Water and Electricity Environment and Health Education and Culture Industry and
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