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Pacifying Lebanon : Violence, Power and Expertise in the Middle East

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Pacifying Lebanon : Violence, Power and Expertise in the Middle East Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2012 Pacifying Lebanon : violence, power and expertise in the Middle East Kosmatopoulos, Nikolas Abstract: This dissertation is an ethnography of the emergence of peace as an object of knowledge as well as of the making of peace experts and expertise through specific political technologies in the Middle East in general and Lebanon in particular. Rather than analyse peace expertise as a professional field in terms of careers, institutions and funding, or in terms of an evaluation of its consequences for the resolution of the Lebanese conflict, the thesis attempts to trace how the aim of pacifying Lebanon is perused, atwhat sites, by whom and through what practices. It is a contribution to the anthropology of transnatåional processes using a post-colonial perspective, which unites two emerging fields: the science and technology studies with historical ethnographies of knowledge/expertise. The dissertation provides rich insights into institutional processes and expert practices in the making. It seeks to understand how a framework of “crisis” comes to be put into place to analyse the conflict in the region and to propagate certain solutions to it while marginalising und delegitimizing others. So instead of the use of “crisis”, “ethnic conflict” or “state failure” as descriptive categories as in much of the scholarship on the region, the dissertation turns this kind of labelling of the problem into an object of enquiry. It asks: who terms what to be a “crisis” or Lebanon as a paradigmatic case of “state failure”? What work does such an understanding of events and processes in those terms do? And for whom? What effects does it have? Altogether, the dissertation insists on locating the peace experts as part of the field of conflict and not as objective and neutral problem-solvers situated outside the field and as external to its dynamics. Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-164146 Dissertation Published Version Originally published at: Kosmatopoulos, Nikolas. Pacifying Lebanon : violence, power and expertise in the Middle East. 2012, University of Zurich, Faculty of Arts. Pacifying Lebanon Violence, Power and Expertise in the Middle East Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Arts Of The University of Zurich For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Nikolas Kosmatopoulos Accepted in the spring semester 2012 on the Recommendation of Prof. Dr. Shalini Randeria And Prof. Dr. Riccardo Bocco 2012 For Γωγώ, and for Mataroa 2 Copyright 2012 by Kosmatopulos Nikolas All rights reserved 3 Table of Contents List of Illustrations 6 Acknowledgements 7 Introduction 10 Expert Utopias 10 Global Peace 24 Lebanon in Crisis Geographies 38 An Ethnography of Critique 45 Methods Applied and Research Sites 48 Chapter One Lebanonizing Lebanon 50 Problematizations of Violence and Metropolitan Concepts 52 ‘Ethnic Groups in Conflict’: The Birth of a Metropolitan Paradigm 59 Academic Problematizations of Violence in Lebanon (1970-2008) 65 Village Anthropology: Missing the War? 65 The War of the Books 70 Lebanonizing Lebanon, Rewriting Violence 74 Salibi: ‘Many Mansions’ 76 Hanf: A Conflict of ‘ Foreigners’ 79 Khalaf: ‘Communal conflict’ 80 Johnson: ‘Honor-Shame’ 82 Conclusion: Who Needs ‘Ethnic Conflict’? 85 Chapter Two Lebanon’s Leviathan 90 Encountering the Leviathan: An Anthropology of State Failure 95 The Failing Leviathan: A Typology of Practices 99 Isolation: The Divided World of the Middle East 100 Pathologization: Conflict-Affected Countries 103 Sectarianization: Communal Tensions 105 Alienation: Non-state Actors 108 State Failure, State Talk, and the Switching Expert 111 Samir 111 Robert 113 The Political 115 Conclusion: The Productive Effects of Failure 117 Chapter Three The Power to Pacify 119 Beyond Crisis: Technologies of the Power to Pacify 123 After Violence: The Normalcy of Crisis 127 In Doha, the Emir hosts the ‘Lebanese National Dialogue’ 129 The Summit: Hobbesian Peace and the Making of Sovereignty 134 I. The Science of Summitry popularized: ‘Getting to Yes’ 135 II. A Technicalized Dialogue: ‘Focus on Process’ 141 III. The Expert Figure of the Mediator: ‘A Good Messenger’ 144 In New York, the UN Secretary-General ‘Strongly Condemns’... 149 The UN-SG’s Statement: Holocaustian Peace and the Making of Facts 153 I. An Aesthetic of Authority 155 II. A Rhetoric of Factuality 158 III. The Elimination of Disputes 160 Fieldwork Excourse: The Micro-politics of Labelling in Beirut 161 In Beirut, the ‘Lebanese Civil Society Responds to Crisis’ 165 The Workshop: Disciplinary Peace and an ‘Uncivil Society’ 169 4 In Washington and Brussels, ‘A Coup d’ État’ 172 The Think Tank Report: Actuarial Peace and the ‘Unruly Other’ 178 Conclusion: A Schematic Grid of the Power to Pacify 180 Chapter Four An ‘Un-Civil Society’ 182 Civil Society and its Discontents 189 The Workshop on Conflict Resolution 193 The Birth of the Workshop: Stirling debates 193 “Further Stirlings” 196 The Ethical: Constructing Communities of Civility 197 The Technical: Producing Professionals of a “New Discipline” 203 The path to professionalization 208 I. Anti-war activism 208 II. Peace Missionaries: Mennonites and the “Christian Afghanistan” 213 III. Peace Orientalism: Arab-American political scientists 215 IV. Peace Professionalism: The Lebanese Conflict Resolution Network 220 Tensions, Failures and Divisions 223 Conflict Resolution in Lebanon Today: Three Main Features 226 Schism 227 Transnationalization of careers 229 Tribalization of justice 230 Conclusion: Crisis and Discipline in Uncivil Societies 231 Chapter Five Knowledge laisser-passer 235 Terrorism as a Problem-Space: Conquest vs. Circulation 239 Controversy Part I: Assassinated Terrorists and Contaminated Experts 247 Conquest: Terrorism, Territory, Otherness 251 Killing An-Other 252 Eliminating Ambiguity 256 Controversy Part II: In Defense of ‘Hizbollah Scholarship’ 257 Circulation: Knowledge Laisser-Passer 261 The uses of knowledge: Production, Circulation, Pressure 264 A world at risk 268 The Population‘s ‚Support for Terrorism‘ 272 Actuarial Devices, in Circulation 276 Can the report speak? The End of Circulation 281 Conclusion: The Implications of Circulation for Humanity 284 Epilogue 287 Bibliography 290 5 List of Illustrations Table 0.1 Methods Apllied and Research Sites 49 Figure 2.1 Number of Publications on ‘Failed’, ‘Fragile’, and ‘Rogue’ States 98 Figure 2.2 Lebanon’s May Events Depicted on the Cover of TIME 100 Table 2.1 Summary of Criteria for Participation urvey in S 106 Figure 3.1. “Practice Peace”. Shop window in Jemmayzeh Beirut 129 Figure 3.2. Lebanese political leaders congratulate Doha each other in 131 Figure 3.3 ‘We all say: Thank you Qatar’ 131 Figure 3.4 Press Release SG/SM/11560 12 May 2008 150 Figure 3.5 Press Release SG/SM/11586 21 May 2008 151 Table 3.1 United Nations Press Releases s Series Symbol 156 Table 3.2. “Towards Fact” 160 Figure 3.6a “Invitation: Lebanese Civil Society Responding is” to Cris 166 Figure 3.6b “Invitation: Lebanese Civil Society sis” Responding to Cri 167 Figure 3.7 “Survey: Lebanese Civil Society Responding to Crisis” 170 Figure 3.8 “Hizbollah Attempts a Coup d’ État” ntary Carnegie Web Comme 173 Figure 3.9 “Hizbollah’s Weapons Turns Inward” ng ICG Policy Briefi 175 Table 3.3 A schematic grid of the power to y pacify in Lebanon, Ma 2008 181 Figure 4.1 “Schedule”, Third Annual Summer School for Conflict Transformation 204 Map 5.1 ICG Crisis Watch no. 100, Autumn 2011 269 Figure 5.1 May 2008 “Trends” 271 Table 5.1 “Average Support for Terrorism by country” 275 6 Acknowledgements No author can claim sole ownership. Similarly, the present dissertation is the product of a series of relationships, interactions, and encounters with people, ideas and moments of serendipity. Here, I wish to acknowledge those persons, who granted me with the energy and support necessary to complete this work. I am aware, however, that no words can fully express my gratitude nor sufficiently capture their influence on my ways of thinking and being in the world. In Beirut, some special people revealed to me the intensity and fascination of an expert lifestyle. I am truly thankful to Ghassan Mughaiber, Patrick Haenni, Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Nizar Ghanem and Siad Darwish for sharing with me valuable insights and personal experiences over a series of long meetings. I am especially indebted to Guus Mejer, who invited me to join the world of professional peace experts and gain a first-hand experience. I also thank Nizar Rammal, Karam Karam, Omayma Abdellatif, Gilbert Doumit, Michael Hujer, Fadi Abu Allam, Alastair Crooke, Nadime Shehadi, Ali Fayyad, Antoine Messara, Yussef Choueiri, Lukhman Slim, Rima Muawad, Joe Haddad, Leila Karamechi, Robert Fisk and Fawwaz Trabulsi for talking to me in length about the politics of peace- and warmaking in Lebanon and in the wider Middle East. Beyond those “experts”, the contribution of some other individuals was essential to the research. My thanks go to my flatmates, Bassim Chit and Johannes Baumann, for their readiness to discuss with me early research questions throughout late hours. I also thank my colleagues, Stratis Sourlagas, Hanan Toukan, Gustavo Barbosa, Muzna al-Masri and Mayssun Sukkarieh, who - in multiple ways - helped create a sense of a fieldwork assabiya. I thank my friends in activism Bernadette Daou, Ghassan Makarem, Bilal el Amine and Rania Masri for involving me in some of their projects. Special thanks go to political scientist Sofia Saade, architect Stephanie Dadour and art person Nadine Khalil, all of whom patiently discussed with me challenges during fieldwork. My fellow researchers in the KFPE-funded program “Jeunes Chercheurs” Lyna Comaty, Zina Sawaf, Susann Kassem have helped me in tremendous ways to grasp particular aspects of the complexity of the issues at hand. I also thank Rami Khoury and Karim Makdissi at Issam Fares Institute for being two extremely valuable program partners.
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