Heterogeneity in Lebanon : A challenge to democracy ?

Lebanon is among the few countries in the Middle East which was known to be close to become democratic. Since its independence in 1943, events based on internal issues and external interventions as well have proved to have prevented the possibility of a democratic nature of the political system to flourish. My aim is to understand why this happened. I base my study on the fact that the nature of this country is heterogeneous, which was cosnidered by many scholars to be an important variable which affects the flourishing of democracy. My paper tries to study heterogeneity’s different theories advanced by thinkers and writers, and apply it to the case of Lebanon. The importance of heterogeneity is that it is linked to the concept of identity which creates different cleavages that can become politicized. How does heterogeneity influence the values, principles, perceptions, feelings, social norms, identity and ideology of citizens of a country and the different political parties? Does it enable the development of a democracy or in the contrary, it hinders it? Why did I take heterogeneity as an independent variable related to the democratic institutions and success or failure of the democratic system in a country? And how can this be applicable to Lebanon? I study the different events that occured in this country and apply the different theories that might explain the institutional attempts which failed to result in a democracy, and the absence of important democratic values. I raise questions on the attitudes of the elites and the masses, and I try to see if at some point after Lebanon’s independence, democracy was beginning to appear. Does heterogeneity itself play a negative role in the democratic consolidation of Lebanon ? These are questions to be found in this paper, by studying the behavior and decision making of elites since the independence of Lebanon in 1943, along with the attitudes, awareness, and actions of the Lebanese people, and the formation of political parties strongly divided by sectarian divisions. Whether heterogeneity is the independent variable to this absence of democratic system still needs to be found out, taking Lebanon as the main case study as it has a strong heterogeneous environment.