Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 Associate Professor, Gilan University, Department of Political Science, Rasht, Iran
2 Master student of International Relations, Gilan University, Department of Political Science, Rasht, Iran
Abstract
Highlights
1- Introduction
After the conclusion of the Sykes-Picot agreement between the representatives of the British and French governments in 1916, Lebanon was one of the regions that was placed under the supervision of France. Among the consequences of the above agreement, we can mention the ethnic, cultural and religious differences in the newly established countries that were under the guardianship of two European countries. These issues created internal differences between various groups, which became a factor for the formation of civil wars in emerging countries resulting from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Despite its small area, Lebanon has a high ethnic and religious diversity to the extent that it is mentioned as one of the most chaotic and restless societies in the region and even the world. After the independence of this country, the same factor highlighted the weakness of the identity crisis and the lack of formation of the nation-state in the modern sense in Lebanon. For this reason, different groups try to gain as much power as possible in different fields and weaken the opposite spectrums to the extent that the frequent escalation of differences between different groups can be witnessed, which sometimes turned into civil war. The weakness of the government, apart from having many effects on various aspects of people's lives, provides a place for the growth of takfiri movements that use the existing conditions to achieve their goals. It also lays the foundation for the presence and role-playing of regional and international governments to accompany some domestic groups, the ultimate goal of foreign actors in the domestic arena of weak countries is to gain as much of their national interests as possible through influence and influence on the parties and groups involved in power. By mentioning the above introduction, this research tries to answer this important question that; What were the most influential factors in the formation of Lebanon's political crisis and its spread to other areas between 2005and 2019?
2- Method and Theoretical Framework
According to the nature of the subject, the research method is explanatory and the method of data collection is library. After reviewing the existing research literature, it was found that despite the abundance of previous researches that happened to be of high scientific value, most of them have only dealt with the competition and differences between two foreign actors in Lebanon, or the reasons behind the crisis in this country according to the fragmented structure, they were investigated. But the innovation of the current research is that with a new approach, it has investigated the roles of internal, regional and international factors in the process of continuation of the Lebanese crisis and has analysed their combined and interconnected role. In the conceptual framework, the concept of "level of analysis" presented by David Singer, as well as Little's security approach, based on the relationship between theoretical concepts and the text and the subject under investigation, is used. The concept of the level of analysis can be used to analyse the political developments in the crisis-stricken societies, and by taking advantage of the three levels of analysis, national, regional and international, we can deal with the political developments in the target countries. Also, in Richard Little's approach, three indicators of "unified governments", "fragmented governments" and "governments subject to disorder" are used for the variable of socio-political cohesion.
3- Discussion
In this research, it was tried to use the level of analysis approach to investigate the influential factors in the Lebanese political crisis. In this approach, three levels, domestic, regional and international, and its relationship with the prevailing conditions in Lebanon were analysed. What was obtained can be divided into three parts in the internal sector; Considering the history of the formation of Lebanon, whose demographic composition was made up of different racial and religious groups, it became an obstacle to the formation of a coherent national identity, and from the very beginning, due to the lack of definition of a single nationality and the insistence on clan and tribal rights, it caused crises which continues to plague the social and political structure in Lebanon after several decades. The above factor by itself and due to the lack of an efficient government to manage the crisis situation in this country, provided the arena for the presence and role-playing of foreign governmental and non-governmental actors and entities. At the regional and international level, larger and more influential governments emerge in countries undergoing such changes and, in order to maximize their interests, form alliances with domestic groups and bring them along with their policies.
In this level of analysis, Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran can be said to be the most important regional countries, and the United States and France are the most important international countries involved in Lebanon's affairs. From the point of view of Little's approach, the government of Lebanon has a low socio-political cohesion for the reasons discussed in the article and can be analysed in the form of governments subject to disorder. Various religious and sectarian groups in this country have extensive ties with regional and even international actors. The connection of Shiites with Iran and the closeness of the March 14 movement with Saudi Arabia and the support of America and France for Lebanese Christians can be considered in this format. In fact, regional and international actors use different internal groups in line with their regional goals, which shows a picture of the security environment of asymmetric power balance. Of course, after the formation of the rebellion and civil war in Syria, the unrest in this country also had significant security consequences on Lebanon and fuelled the conflicts between the internal actors of Lebanon. Lebanon's Hezbollah, along with its regional ally, the Islamic Republic of Iran, played a prominent role in supporting the Syrian government at least at some points in time.
4- Conclusion and Suggestion
The findings show that the internal differences between different ethnic and religious groups have caused the weakness of the government institution and provided the ground for foreign actors to play a role in the political sphere of Lebanon. In addition to the internal components, playing the interventionist role of foreign actors and their alliance with ethnic and religious groups with the aim of achieving the desired interests has caused the failure to reach a collective agreement among the political elites of this country, which itself is the source of fragmentation, instability and Lebanon's deep political, social and economic crises during the years 2005 to 2019 have doubled.
Keywords
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