Bourdieu in Beirut: Wasta, the State, and Social Reproduction in Lebanon Martyn Egan (corresponding author) Paul Tabar European University Institute. Lebanese American University. 50014 (FI), Italy. 13-5053 Beirut, Lebanon. (+39)347 711 6020 (+961) 70 045729 [email protected] [email protected] Abstract This paper uses Bourdieusian theory to analyse the relation between the Lebanese state and the reproduction of unequal power relations, in particular through the phenomenon of wasta (an Arabic word referring to the use of connections to obtain scarce goods or services). We attempt to demonstrate how social reproduction in Lebanon has come to rely on the clandestine exchange of certain symbolic and material resources, exemplified in practice by the ways in which different social agents make use of wasta. We further attempt to show how such exchange, rather than the negation of the state, is in fact intimately connected to effects produced by the state in the organisation of these resources. We achieve this by analysing the particular configuration of resources and reproduction mechanisms produced by the Lebanese state, and demonstrating how these objective structures lead to determinate effects in the habitus of agents. These effects are expressed through variance in agents’ (social) reproduction strategies, which can be most vividly demonstrated by comparing the habitus of agents firmly embedded within the Lebanese social space to the “destabilised” (or “tormented”) habitus of agents less adjusted to it. In this way, we demonstrate how Bourdieusian analysis can reveal the means by which even supposedly “weak” states such as Lebanon’s may nonetheless produce strong social effects. Keywords: Lebanon; wasta; Bourdieu; state; habitus. 1 1 - Introduction Until relatively recently, few social scientists have taken the Lebanese state seriously as an independent unit of analysis, focussing instead on the nature of its consociational division of power (Leenders, 2012: 8). Yet the state is clearly of import for analysts: for what is the structure providing the spoils (monopoly positions, jobs, economic resources) over which the Lebanese elite so fiercely struggles? What gives force to the bewildering (and frequently demeaning) framework of rules and regulations which tell Lebanese how they can marry, inherit, and even make use (or not, as is more frequently the case) of their property? And what is the mechanism (or mechanisms) which ultimately reproduce Lebanon’s particular brand of sectarianism, and with it the specific structure of inequality prevailing there? In this paper, we argue that what is lacking in Lebanon is not so much a state, as an appropriate framework for analysing the state - that is, as a structure whose formal rules are seldom followed, and yet whose effects (in terms of the distribution of power and resources) are felt everywhere. We thus attempt to offer a theoretical tool for locating and analysing the Lebanese state as a social object: that is, as a structure producing regulated practices in social agents, and contributing toward the reproduction of a determinate social order (and especially that social order’s particular structure of inequality). It is a tool based upon Bourdieusian theory, and as such it locates the determinants of practice not in formal rules, but in the distribution of resources and power relations within an unequal social space. In particular, we analyse the interaction between what Bourdieu called reproduction mechanisms and reproduction strategies—respectively, the configuration of structures and practices which exist within a given social space, and which, taken together, constitute the system which tends to play the role of reproducing that space. As a particular instance of this 2 interaction in the Lebanese context, we analyse in detail the phenomenon of wasta, and especially its (variable) role in the exchange of scarce social resources, and hence— ultimately—in social reproduction. We are particularly interested in demonstrating how the disposition toward certain wasta-like practices varies according to an agent’s habitus. This habitus, we argue, is the product of an agent’s position and trajectory within Lebanon’s particular social space—a space which is structured according to the specific nature of the resources (forms and guises of capital, in Bourdieu’s terminology) produced and regulated by the reproduction mechanisms of the state. In this way, we provide a new way of looking at the Lebanese state: one located not so much in formal rules that are largely disregarded, or in structures and organisations which have been entirely subverted; but rather as a series of effects, which are most clearly manifested in the specific relation of agents both to each other, and to social practice. Such a model, we argue, can help explain some of the more persistent and enduring aspects of Lebanon’s social order, despite (according to prevailing Western norms), the apparent “weakness” of its state. As such, the paper is structured as follows: in the next section (two) the theoretical model is introduced, including the basic conceptual tools of Bourdieusian analysis and Bourdieu’s theory of the state. Once outlined, this model is then applied in section three to the Lebanese state, with allowances made for the specificity of Lebanon’s particular context. In section four we then present the findings of field interviews which we conducted on the topic of wasta, in order to demonstrate the effect of the structures outlined in section three on the practices of social agents. In this section we highlight in particular variations which emerged between the practices and perceptions of various social agents, and attempt to 3 demonstrate how these correspond to effects of field produced by Lebanon’s ‘state effect’. The paper then concludes by summarising the benefits which a Bourdieusian mode of analysis can bring to the study of states such as Lebanon’s. 2 - Theoretical Model Conceptual Tools We begin by briefly outlining the ‘conceptual tools’ which comprise Bourdieu’s sociological approach, and explaining how these may be used to analyse the (Lebanese) state. There are, essentially, three master concepts in Bourdieusian theory, which form the units of analysis in the majority of research inspired by his work. These are: habitus, field and capital. Habitus is ‘an acquired system of generative schemes objectively adjusted to the particular conditions in which it is constituted’; as such, it ‘engenders all the thoughts, all the perceptions, and all the actions consistent with those conditions, and no others’ (Bourdieu, 1977: 95). Fields, by contrast, are ‘systems of relations’ which produce a specific logic such that ‘the external determinations that bear on agents situated in a given field […] never apply to them directly’, but are rather re-structured according to that logic—Bourdieu’s preferred analogy was with a magnetic or gravitational field (Bourdieu and Wacquant,1992: 102-105). Finally, capital is understood in an enlarged sense as any socially efficient resource (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 11), over the possession of which agents engage in struggles within the field. While somewhat of a simplification, it is perhaps easiest to think of all three concepts in terms of relations: habitus is the embodiment, in schemes of perception and dispositions, of relations which exist objectively in fields. Inequalities in these relations are expressed through the variable possession of capital, which may take different forms and guises 4 according to the type of field in which such capital is produced, and the degree of that field’s autonomy. Following from this, Bourdieu’s major theoretical proposition (and hence the lodestone upon which his work either stands or falls) is that there is a correspondence between social structures and mental structures (Bourdieu, 1996: 7), i.e., the distribution of agents’ dispositions and perceptions—their habitus—varies according to their position within an objective social space (comprised of fields) governed by the possession of scarce, socially efficient resources (species of capital). It is this basic proposition which guides all Bourdieusian research, and which we rely upon in our exploration of the relation between reproduction mechanisms and reproduction strategies in the Lebanese context. Bourdieu’s Theory of the State Having briefly outlined the key units of analysis in Bourdieusian theory, we now turn to their use in analysing (and conceptualising) the state. While always concerned with social effects relating to the state, it was only towards the end of his career that Bourdieu began specifically addressing ‘that something we call the state’ as an object of enquiry in its own right (Bourdieu 1999; 2004; 2012). For Bourdieu, ‘the state is the culmination of a process of concentration of different species of capitals’ (Bourdieu 2004: 41) - a process which, in the Western examples he studied most deeply, occurred within the household of the dominant ruler. The process involved, essentially, the transmission from a principle of rule following the logic of social relations (‘the King’s House’), to one based upon the logic of a universal interest (‘the Reason of State’), fought out as a result of concrete struggles for power taking place within the royal household between nobles and clerks. For Bourdieu, the universal interest in a public good emerged as a ‘fictio juris’ [legal fiction] among these latter non- hereditary agents of the state, who would eventually