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Reconciliation, reform and resilience: Positive peace for Lebanon (Accord 24) - English version

Jul 2012

Lebanon’s model of post-war power sharing and liberal economic growth has been widely praised. But it has failed to deliver for most Lebanese. Repeated outbreaks of political violence since the 1989 Taif Peace Agreement, and today fear of spillover from insecurity in Syria, show that a fundamentally different approach is needed to transform negative and precarious stability in Lebanon into positive and resilient peace.

Policy brief – Reconciliation, reform and resilience: Positive peace for Lebanon

Jul 2012
A fundamentally different approach is needed to transform precarious stability in Lebanon into durable peace. Repeated outbreaks of political violence since the 1989 Taif Peace Accord show that Lebanon’s model of power sharing and liberal economic growth, while widely praised, has in reality failed to deliver a noticeable peace dividend. This 6-page policy brief summarises the findings of Accord 24 and sets out 10 priorities for change.

Ex-militia fighters in post-war Lebanon

Positive peace for Lebanon: reconciliation, reform and resilience
Jul 2012
Dima de Clerck reviews post-war rehabilitation of demobilised Lebanese militia, describing how this has been piecemeal, selective and politicised. Many former fighters remain unemployed and have been left to deal with the psychosocial scars of wartime violence. The fact that a new post-war generation of youth is being recruited through a heroic imagining of the war highlights the dangers of neglecting rehabilitation of ex-fighters.

The Taif Agreement

Positive peace for Lebanon: reconciliation, reform and resilience
Jul 2012
Karam Karam explains how both the content and implementation of the 1989 Taif peace agreement have precluded genuine political reform or social change, due to structural defects including: flawed revision of confessional power sharing arrangements and a dysfunctional executive Troika; surrendering core state responsibilities to Syrian tutelage; guaranteeing power to warlords; and the marginalisation of key social issues. Karam suggests constructive lessons for the future, based on a framework of political decentralisation and balanced reform ‘packages’ as part of a clear, incremental strategy.

Box 5 - Priorities for peace in Lebanon: opposing outlooks from 8 & 14 March Alliances

Positive peace for Lebanon: reconciliation, reform and resilience
Jul 2012
Interviews with Ali Fayyad (8 March Alliance/Hezbollah MP) and Samir Frangieh (member of the General Secretariat of 14 March Alliance and a former MP) present ‘opposing outlooks’ from Lebanon’s two main political blocs. They discuss: internal and external sources of tension; implications of Taif for contemporary political stability; developing the social contract in Lebanon; and priorities for the future.

Box 8 - UNIFIL's contribution to peace in Lebanon: a conversation with Timur Goksel

Positive peace for Lebanon: reconciliation, reform and resilience
Jul 2012
Timur Goksel analyses the UN Interim Force for Lebanon (UNIFIL), explaining that its role in patrolling Lebanon’s border with Israel is more political than military. It has correspondingly played key functions in facilitating liaison between Lebanese and Israeli militaries, as well as with local Lebanese in the south.

Reconciliation, reform and resilience: Positive peace for Lebanon (Accord 24) - Arabic version

Jul 2012

Lebanon’s model of post-war power sharing and liberal economic growth has been widely praised. But it has failed to deliver for most Lebanese. Repeated outbreaks of political violence since the 1989 Taif Peace Agreement, and today fear of spillover from insecurity in Syria, show that a fundamentally different approach is needed to transform negative and precarious stability in Lebanon into positive and resilient peace.

Paix sans frontières: building peace across borders

Jan 2011
War does not respect political or territorial boundaries. This twenty-second Accord publication looks at how peacebuilding strategies and capacity can ‘think outside the state’: beyond it, through regional engagement, and below it, through cross-border community or trade networks. Edited by Alexander Ramsbotham and I William Zartman, Paix sans frontières: building peace across borders includes 20 case studies from Asia, Europe and the Caucasus, to East, Central and West Africa, Central America and the Middle East. Articles also explore cross-border peacebuilding from global, systems analysis and legal perspectives, and focus on themes ranging from politics, governance and security, social and community relations, and trade and natural resources.

Powers of persuasion: Incentives, sanctions and conditionality in peacemaking

Feb 2008
Faced with the problem of how to respond to the challenges of intra-state armed conflict, international policymakers often turn to incentives, sanctions and conditionality in the hope that these tools can alter the conflict dynamics and influence the protagonists' behaviour. Drawing on case studies from around the world, Accord issue 19 suggests that while these instruments have in some cases helped tip the balance towards settlement, in many others they been ineffective, incoherent or subsumed into the dynamics of the conflict.

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