HEZBOLLAH: ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, IDEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION, AND A RELEVANT THREAT MODEL A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of The School of Continuing Studies and of The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies By Michael T. Jackson, B.S. Georgetown University Washington, D.C. December 3, 2009 HEZBOLLAH: ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, IDEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION, AND A RELEVANT THREAT MODEL Michael T. Jackson, B.S. Mentor: John Voll, Ph.D. ABSTRACT As a movement and as an organization, Hezbollah represents an emerging model of oppositional contention in which a group is capable of coordinating the use of violence, social services, and legitimate political discourse in a coherent campaign of resistance. While the use of violence as a mode of contention within political discourse is not a novel concept, its manifestation in groups such as Hezbollah presents an intellectual challenge to the current conceptualization of terrorism and state security. Namely, Hezbollah is not using violence to pursue social or political change as an alternative to the existing political system in Lebanon; Hezbollah is using violence as a complement to its participation in the Lebanese sectarian system, effectively translating the use of violence into sufficient political capital to compel change from within the system. This dynamic presents a unique set of theoretical and practical challenges: will a group’s participation in legitimate political discourse necessitate the group’s moderation (e.g. will the group abandon the use of violence)? And perhaps more importantly, what are the risks involved in the process of moderation (e.g. what threat does a group pose as it participates in political discourse while it remains committed to the use of violence as a mode of contention)? ii To assess Hezbollah’s potential for moderation, this thesis presents case studies of the organizational development and ideological evolution that enabled Hezbollah to accommodate political discourse into its broader campaign of resistance and subsequently maintain a coordinated campaign of violence, social services, and legitimate participation in the Lebanese sectarian system. The case study findings indicate that there are significant organizational and ideological constraints to moderation: rather than compelling moderation, Hezbollah’s political success is largely dependant on its effective use of violence and thus encourages it to continue an active campaign of armed resistance to maintain structural integrity and ideological resonance. To assess the threat implications of Hezbollah’s organizational and ideological constraints to moderation and its continued use of violence as a complement to political discourse, this thesis evaluates Hezbollah’s role as a destabilizing force in Lebanon within an extending model of state security and stability. Extending the concept of state security beyond the traditional defense model (e.g. security as a measure of how effectively a state can defend its territorial integrity or national interests from external attack) to include the conceptualization of the security-stability model (e.g. security as a measure of the internal and external vulnerabilities that threaten governing regimes institutionally) indicates that Hezbollah has a destabilizing effect on Lebanon which makes it more susceptible to external influence from regional powers and more iii vulnerable to escalating interstate conflict, as evident by the Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006. iv CONTENTS ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………..ii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY……………………………1 CHAPTER 2: ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORKS…………………………………...…21 CHAPTER 3: HEZBOLLAH’S ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT…………...35 CHAPTER 4: HEZBOLLAH’S IDEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION……………………..62 CHAPTER 5: IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION………………………………..95 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………..124 v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY Since the end of the Cold War, organizations that use violence as a repertoire of contention have emerged as significant threats to global security and to local and regional stability. For a variety of internal and external reasons, many of these groups have experienced vastly different patterns of institutional development, specifically in terms of organizational structure and ideological adaptation. Structurally, while some have evolved into decentralized affiliations that share a common world-view but have limited operational coherency, others have developed into highly centralized hierarchies capable of coordinating vast networks of political activists, commercial enterprises, social services providers, and militant or terrorist wings. Ideologically, while some organizations have maintained relative consistency in the core tenants of their ideology, others have proved more willing to compromise, adjust, or redefine the core tenants of their ideology to accommodate structural changes. Since the catastrophic terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, America’s “Long War against violent extremist movements” 1 and the broader international “war on terror” have been described as “history’s first protracted conflict between nations on one side and networks on the other.” 2 Within this context, scholars and policy makers have 1 United States Department of Defense, National Defense Strategy (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 2008), 7. 2 John Arquilla, The Reluctant Transformation of the American Military: Worst Enemy (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2008), 3. 1 devoted a great deal of time to studying al-Qaeda’s development into an amorphous global Islamic jihadist organization as the model for the emerging threat of the network: the decentralized affiliation of organizations and even individuals that share an ideological worldview and are capable of striking autonomously or swarming with little warning. Such networks are difficult to accurately define and target because they do not have a traditional hierarchical command structure; instead, they rely on complex informal associations to recruit, mobilize, plan, resource, and execute operations largely outside of reach of legitimate government control. However, another dangerous variation of the network model is also emerging among terrorist groups: the centralized hierarchy that directly controls an entangled web of social, political, and military institutions to consolidate popular support, political capital, and military capability, while emerging as a quasi-legitimate national, regional, and global actor. This adaptation has had striking results, allowing organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas to coalesce from radical fringe terrorist groups to recognized political parties with broad national support and international legitimacy. The latter manifestation of the network, the centralized hierarchy, presents a unique set of theoretical and practical challenges: will a group’s participation in legitimate political discourse necessitate the group’s moderation (e.g. will the group abandon the use of violence as an alternative to the accepted forms of political participation)? And perhaps more importantly, what are the risks involved in the process 2 of moderation (e.g. what threat does a group pose as it participates in political discourse while it remains committed to the use of violence as a mode of contention)? It is convenient to discuss the potential for groups to become more moderate overtime through a continual exercise of the democratic process or active involvement in political discourse. The idea is both reassuring and in many ways logical. However, there is also the relevant and timely assertion that such a process involves risk. Quantifying this assertion requires rigorous analytical consideration within a flexible framework capable of accommodating complex organizational change and ideological evolution and interpreting their correlation to an expanded conceptualization of threat in the modern world. This is not to state or imply that active participation in constructive political discourse may not encourage organizations that use violence as a repertoire of contention to moderate overtime; instead, it highlights the need to understand the inherent risk of a naturally contentious process. The term naturally contentious means that the transition from violence to moderate political discourse will not be an automatic or natural sequence of events. Organizations that utilize violence due so for multiple and complex reasons; however, while ideological justifications and historical accounts differ, the fact remains that throughout history, violence has proven itself an effective tool for mobilizing support, gaining legitimacy, and producing either results or the perception of results. As long as an organization can maintain the use of violence as a 3 corollary to conventional means (e.g. as long the access to accepted political discourse and violence coexist) there will considerable tension to the idea of abandoning the use of violence. The nexus of that process lies in the organizational development of a group (e.g. the group’s hierarchal coherence and its internal decision making architecture), as well as its ideological evolution (e.g. its ability to conform the fundamental principals that maintain its popular resonance to changing political realities). Groups that Use Violence as a Repertoire of Contention and Terrorism. Groups that use violence as a repertoire of contention have always been active agents in political development and the political