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1. Lebanese Women and the Politics of Representation

Author:
Carmen Geha
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
Lebanese women have been leaders in the revolution that has shaken Lebanon since October 2019. This paper argues that the next stage will be critical if women want to transform their involvement into equal rights. For them to do so, they need to move beyond informal revolutionary politics to formal electoral and party politics with meaningful and substantive representation.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Human Rights, United Nations, Social Movement, Feminism, and Revolution
Political Geography:
Middle East, Lebanon, and Beirut

2. Twenty Days of Lebanese Protests: Between Continuity, Innovation and Uncertainty

Author:
Anis Chérif-Alami
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
This paper examines the uprisings that have been taking place in different parts of Lebanon since 17 October relying on direct observation of the protests and interviews with various participants. Acknowledging that the protest movement and the situation in Lebanon remain highly dynamic, it proposes some elements to better understand and contextualize the movement. Although Lebanon generally avoided the wave of protests that swept the Arab world in 2011, there were early attempts to criticize the sectarian system and dysfunctional public services. The paper outlines what current events owe to a recent history of protests in Lebanon, in particular, the short-lived 2011 protests demanding the fall of the sectarian regime and the 2015 “you stink” movement (Tala’at Rihatkum) which denounced the public mismanagement of garbage and called for accountability for political corruption. While the current protests have some roots in past citizens’ activism, it is also clear that there are new aspects that continue to evolve as protesters experiment day by day with new ways of doing politics.
Topic:
Corruption, Social Movement, Political Activism, Arab Spring, and Protests
Political Geography:
Middle East, Lebanon, and Beirut

3. From “Overthrowing the Regime” to “All Means All”: An Analysis of the Lebanonisation of Arab Spring Rhetoric

Author:
Fares Halabi
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
Only a few hours after the start of 17 October 2019 demonstrations in Lebanon, protesters started to demand the overthrow of the regime under the slogan “all [of them] means all [of them]”. What does this slogan mean in Lebanon today, eight years after it was first launched? And how has the discourse of overthrowing the regime developed since 2011? When I was a university student in 2011, I took part in several demonstrations calling for the overthrow of the regime. However, it quickly dawned on me that the immediate conditions for such a demand were not then available, making the slogan, without it being adapted to the Lebanese context, inappropriate relative to other countries. In this paper, I aim to revisit the 2011 campaign to critique it and highlight the reasons behind its failure. This is pertinent given its close affiliation with what have been observed in Lebanon since 17 October. In the last few weeks, I have had conversations with six people1 who were active in the 2011 campaign and are involved in the current revolution. We discussed their understanding of the developments in the Lebanese political landscape since 2011, the accumulated experiences that have pushed the Lebanese public to revolt against the regime in a broad mobilisation that has been ongoing for more than two months. We discussed how the slogan “overthrowing the regime” has developed into its current formulation of “all means all” which is met with broad public resonance.
Topic:
Social Movement, Arab Spring, Protests, and Revolution
Political Geography:
Middle East, Lebanon, and Beirut

4. The Lebanese Legislative Elections: Fragmentation and Polarization

Author:
Nayla Moussa
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
On 6 May 2018, Lebanon had its first legislative elections in nine years. But what was celebrated as a “victory for democracy” may have been merely a game of musical chairs between existing political actors. The elections may even be seen as a setback, with the return of major figures from the era under Syrian presence. For Lebanon, simply holding the elections – considered routine in most democracies – was seen as a victory. Parliament had extended its mandate three times since the last elections in 2009. Many obstacles had prevented the elections from taking place including the fragile security balance; the war in Syria and its polarization of Lebanese politics support for the Assad regime; the direct involvement of Hezbollah in Syria; and finally, a lack of consensus between major political parties and figures on a new electoral law. This last issue was the most crucial as the 2018 law emerged as a mix of elements designed to please all parties. Its key tenets were proportional representation and a division of electoral districts that satisfied most political actors. This paper explores the lessons learned from these elections and analyzes specific points such as the electoral law, political debate, and post-election perspectives.
Topic:
Religion, Social Movement, Elections, and Democracy
Political Geography:
Middle East, Lebanon, Syria, and Beirut

5. Women In The Lebanese Daily Newspapers Cartoons

Author:
Roy Jreijiry
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Alternative Politics
Institution:
Department of International Relations, Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey
Abstract:
Many thousands of people demonstrated on March 8, 2014 demanding the promulgation of the law to protect women from domestic violence. It was the biggest feminist manifestation in the history of Lebanon and which started after a number of cases largely covered by the media of women killed or beaten by their husbands. In this context we have decided to observe how the daily press reflected the emergence of the feminist movement and what place it has reserved for women during this period through the cartoons. This article proposes the examination of a corpus of cartoons in four Lebanese daily newspapers (An-Nahar, As- Safir, Al-Mustaqbal and al-Balad) during a period of one year. The result that we reached is that the Lebanese cartoonists give little importance to the feminine figure. At the same time the struggle conducted by the feminist movements during the period of the study were almost absent from the cartoonists’ work. These cartoonists seem to be led by stereotypes that they reproduce, a rearguard struggle. One of these stereotypes is the model of the beautiful and sexy woman, an erotic object par excellence.
Topic:
Social Movement, Social Media, Gender Based Violence, Feminism, and Protests
Political Geography:
Middle East, Lebanon, and Beirut