LEBANONIZING THE STATE: NGOS IN A CONFESSIONAL SOCIETY by PATRICK JONES A THESIS Presented to the Department of International Studies and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts September 2011 THESIS APPROVAL PAGE Student: Patrick Jones Title: Lebanonizing the State: NGOs in a Confessional Society This thesis has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in the Department of International Studies by: Dr. Anita M. Weiss Chairperson Dr. Alexander B. Murphy Member Dr. Frederick S. Colby Member and Kimberly Andrews Espy Vice President for Research & Innovation/Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded September 2011 ii © 2011 Patrick Jones iii THESIS ABSTRACT Patrick Jones Master of Arts Department of International Studies September 2011 Title: Lebanonizing the State: NGOs in a Confessional Society Approved: _______________________________________________ Dr. Anita M. Weiss This thesis, based on field research in Lebanon, explores how the confessional nature of the Lebanese state affects the construction of civil society. It elaborates on the state's role as a social service provider and its legal and bureaucratic relationship with the Lebanese NGO community while also exploring how the state's role as a service provider is perceived in the Lebanese media. Pulling from a variety of archival sources in Lebanon, this thesis surveys 26 Arabic language newspaper articles published between 2006 and 2008. It also utilizes a myriad of primary sources including government and donor documents, unpublished NGO studies and statistical data. This thesis argues that confessionalism inhibits the state's capacity to provide social services efficiently. The politicization of these services conditions the relationship between the state, sectarian political parties and the NGO community. This phenomenon is reproduced in the Lebanese media and allows confessional relationships to infect civil society. iv CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Patrick Jones GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene American University of Beirut, CAMES summer Arabic Program, Lebanon University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington DEGREES AWARDED: Master of Arts, International Studies, 2011, University of Oregon Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy, 2005, University of Puget Sound AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Region: Middle East Topical: Media, nationalism, identity, and foreign policy PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Research Intern, Arab Center for the Development of the Rule of Law and Integrity, Beirut, Lebanon, Fall 2010 Gradaute Teaching Fellow, University of Oregon, 2008-2011 Office Manager, University Tutoring Service, Seattle, Washington, 2007-2008 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Thurber Fellowship, Department of International Studies, 2011 International Studies Departmental Award, 2011 Summer Teaching Award, 2010, 2011 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude to my advisor and committee chair, Dr. Anita M. Weiss for her patience, guidance, and constant encouragement throughout my time in this program. Her insights and focus throughout the development, writing, defense, and submission of this thesis were critical to its completion and clarity. Special thanks are also due to Dr. Alec Murphy and Dr. Rick Colby for their support throughout this project. I would also like express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Joshua Hendricks, who played a crucial role in helping me develop this project in its formative stages. I also want to thank my friends and fellow grad students in the International Studies Department who read drafts, lent a patient ear, and who constantly inspire and amaze me with their questions, ideas, generosity, energy and originality. Finally, I would like to thank my parents and sister for their constant support, unending patience, and enduring love throughout these many years. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................... 1 II. LITERATURE REVIEW........................................................................................ 12 III. SOCIAL SERVICES AND THEIR HISTORICAL ROLE................................... 27 IV. THE STATE AND NGOS..................................................................................... 42 V. THE MEDIA AND CONFESSIONALISM........................................................... 69 VI. CONCLUSION...................................................................................................... 93 APPENDIX: ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF ARABIC-LANGUAGE MEDIA ARTICLES ...................................................................................................... 101 REFERENCES CITED................................................................................................ 170 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Map of Lebanon..................................................................................................... 62 viii LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. NGOs by Mohafazas.............................................................................................. 63 ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This thesis investigates one way in which confessionalism acts as the predominant obstacle to socio-political reform in Lebanon, interacting with a variety of other factors to stymie the growth of civil society and true democratization. It explores the relationship between the state and the NGO community in Lebanon, and investigates the economic, bureaucratic, and legal contexts which frame the interaction between the state and the NGO community. This thesis also analyzes the way the state, confessionalism, NGOs, and social services are discussed in the Lebanese media. This project builds on recent scholarship done in other countries in the Middle East that elucidates the way that politicized social services are used to shape identity and reinforce the legitimacy of political parties. It also adds to the scant literature that currently exists concerning civil society and the state in Lebanon. This literature generally asserts that the primary obstacle to strengthening civil society in Lebanon is the corrupt confessional state. I contend, however, that confessionalism not only corrupts the state but also, and more problematically, civil society. In this vein, I argue that sectarian NGOs act as a conduit between the confessional state and civil society, allowing service provision to become politicized. Sectarian NGOs explicitly politicize service provision, undermining the state's ability to expand upon its existing social service portfolio. 1 In an effort to explore how the politicization of social services impacts the perception of the state and civil society, I also investigate how the media portrays sectarian NGOs, the state, and confessionalism. Focusing on articles from the period of political unrest that enveloped Lebanon between December 2006 and May 2008, I argue that although various newspaper sources seem to view confessionalism as a socio- political problem, they also use the need for confessional reform to advance either thinly veiled sectarian agendas or conceptions of Lebanese citizenship premised on sectarian affiliation. In the end, I argue that to truly understand the failings of Lebanon's confessional system, we cannot simply focus on the corruption of the state apparatus. Rather, we need to understand confessionalism as an endemic social problem; its corrosive effects pervasive in Lebanese civil society as well as the state. Framing the Project: Research Questions Lebanon is a confessional society. This means that every Lebanese person must belong, officially, to a sect. In my experience, most Lebanese, when asked about Lebanon's socio-political problems, respond with political answers, superficially implying that political agendas occupy a more important sphere in Lebanese political life than sect or confession. However, invariably, if one probes further, sectarian attitudes or confessional weariness surface in a passing remark, in the way a person talks about what it means to be Lebanese, or even in the way he or she discusses Beirut's geography. Confessionalism and sectarianism shape Lebanese politics in an existential way, leading, in my experience, most Lebanese to blame them for all their problems. Likewise, 2 literature on Lebanon usually seeks either to render sectarian groups political, separating sectarianism from its political expressions, or it simply assumes that confessionalism is the primary source of Lebanon's socio-political difficulties. My project stems from a desire to understand how confessionalism creates many socio-political problems in Lebanon. I chose to explore how social services are politicized through sectarian NGOs because of my interest in Hezbollah and other confessional parties in Lebanon. These sectarian organizations use social service networks to build political capital and reinforce sectarian political ideologies. The politicization of social services therefore provided me a discreet way of accessing the relationship between confessionalism in the state and sectarianism in civil society. In reviewing the academic and development literature on social services in Lebanon, I noticed that a robust discussion of the state was largely absent. When it is mentioned in the scholarly literature,