Hybrid Governance: Lebanon

Abstract

Governance interventions are often subtle, taking the form of incremental, behind-the-scenes changes in how governments operate and how they deliver services. Those who promote governance interventions tend to use language that is difficult to argue against: change is necessary to enhance fairness, efficiency, and participation. Although more velvet glove than iron fist, governance interventions can be truly transformative. They can recalibrate a series of relationships that make up society: between citizens, between citizens and the state, between citizens and the market, and between the state and the market.

And at a certain moment a Druze on the battlefield laid hold of one of the Christians and they clinched and threw each other and got up again and did not cease their mutual assaults, keeping close together until they reached the seashore where they tumbled into the water and yet they continued their fight. And while this was going on, a huge wave came and carried them out of their depth and drowned them both.

I. Abkāriūs, on sectarian strife in 1860 (1920: 71–2)