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Chapter 1

‘Unity in Diversity’: Social Movements in Divided Societies

In this book I examine non-sectarian social movements in divided societies. I address the

complex dynamics through which power sharing intersects with and effects non-sectarian

groups and the various practices generated by these groups to support peacebuilding. The

purpose of the chapter is to outline these key themes.

Violently Divided Societies: Disputed Lands and Ethnocracies

In December 2012, over fourteen years after the signing of a peace accord, protests involving

thousands of unionists erupted in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland. The protests mainly

focused on Belfast City Hall, the seat of the municipal government, but quickly spread across

the region and continued for over forty days. During the protests, over one hundred police

officers were injured, including one in an attempted murder, a number of politicians were

handed death threats and their homes attacked, and an office of a local political party was

razed to the ground. The immediate cause of the protests was a vote by Belfast city council’s

policy committee to restrict the flying of the union flag from City Hall from all year round to

fifteen designated days a year, like the Queen’s birthday (Nagle, 2014).

Protests by such social movements are highly evocative of places riven by severe ethnic

divisions and conflict. Social movements play a key role in advancing sectarian interests on

behalf of the ethnic group, fomenting intercommunal antagonism, and even spawning forms

of collective violence in the process. Some movements, like those above, take to the streets to

defend their ‘cultural capital’, while others emerge to petition for various group based rights,

or to call for an enlarged share of public goods to be distributed among co-ethnics. Whatever

their specific goals, it is tempting to see movements in divided societies as unitary ethnic

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actors ‘and ethnic identities as given ex ante, automatically salient, fixed … and predictive of

individual political behavior’ (Kalyvas, 2008: 1043).

What are violently divided societies? In violently divided societies, ethnicity – or

ethnonationalism1 – is the main dividing line. Conflict is not merely caused by the existence

of multiple ethnic groups; conflict is generated when these ethnic groups derive mutually

exclusive notions of political legitimacy. Within so-called ‘stable’ societies political

contestation is the very lifeblood of democracy, yet in divided societies there is an absence of

‘consensus on the framework for the making of decisions and an acceptance of the legitimacy

of the outcomes of the political processes’ (Guelke 2012: 12). Intergroup violence derives

from a struggle of national self-determination over the wider state (Horowitz 1985: 5). One or

more group desires the position of dominant ethnie in the state or demands independence,

unification with a homeland state across the border, or some subset of secession, including

territorial autonomy.

There is a debate as to whether ethnic conflicts in divided societies are particularly ferocious

forms of contestation. For Horowitz (1985: 31), when groups advance violence in divided

societies the objective is for ‘sovereign autonomy, the exclusion of parallel ethnic groups

from a share of power and often reversion – by expulsion or extermination – to an idealized,

ethnically homogenous status quo ante’. More realistically, ethnic conflict ‘remains on a

continuum with other types of conflict, rather than being qualitatively distinct from them’

(Ruane and Todd, 2004: 229). The micro-level, local dynamics of violence in ethnic conflicts

can also differ strikingly from the main conflict dimension of the on-going war (Kalyvas,

2008). At the extreme end of the scale, some divided societies experience intense bouts of

civil war replete with major atrocities, ethnic cleansing and forced movements of populations.

At the other end, some divided societies endure relatively low-scale insurgencies with limited

violence and sporadic instances of forced population movement.

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What is the cause of divided societies? It is important to note that the development of a

divided society cannot be ascribed to one single structural factor. In a useful explanation,

Lustick (1993) focuses on what he calls ‘disputed lands’ as the outcome of failed state

building projects. Lustick (1993) examines states that expand administrative and political

control over its territory and diverse populations. These states – where they are colonial –

often use settlers to try and ensure the irreversibility of expansionist policies, an act that is

met with resistance by groups experiencing the process of incorporation. In a similar analysis,

Yiftachael and Ghanem (2004: 649) frame divided societies as the consequence of

‘ethnocracies’: a ‘regime facilitating the expansion, ethnicization and control of contested

territory and state by a dominant ethnic nation’. The structure of an ethnocracy is designed to

expedite ethnic stratification and discrimination, with ethnicity rather than citizenship

featuring as the main basis for resource and power. The dominant ethnonational group

‘appropriates the state apparatus and shapes the political system, public institutions,

geography, economy and culture, so as to expand and deepen its control over state and

territory’ (Yiftachael and Ghanem, 2004: p. 650).

Both Lutstick (1993) and Yiftachael and Ghanem (2004) see divided societies as the product

of the modernizing and ultimately failed projects of nation-state building in places that are

ethnically diverse (Wimmer, 2002). State and nation building fostered an ethnic identity that

reflected the dominant group. Since legal and political inclusion within the state is dependent

on nationality, defined in exclusivist ethnic terms, ethnonational minorities become

structurally problematic and subject to either harsh assimilatory policies or denied their full

right to equality. In this environment, the ethnic group that gained mastery of the state tried to

make the nation ethnically homogeneous, especially by seeking to purify the territory from

the presence of perceived polluting and undesirable rival ethnic groups (Mann, 2005).

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Conflict in divided societies should not be seen as the result of ancient, primordial identities

and enmities; it is instead a consequence of profoundly modern state-building processes.

Wimmer et al (2009: 316) argue that ‘certain ethnopolitical configurations of power are more

likely to experience violent conflict’. The prospect of armed ethnic rebellion increases in

types of state structures that ‘excludes large sections of the population from central state

power on the basis of their ethnic background’ (Wimmer et al, 2009: 317). Cederman et al

(2013) also argue that ‘political and economic inequalities following group lines generate

grievances that in turn can motivate civil war’. When an ethnic group is marginalized from

the state’s institutions, this causes grievances that are often translated into radical rebellion.

Inequalities over access to the state, argues Tilly (2003: 10), is central to collective violence,

‘both because it makes control over governments worth fighting for or defending and because

it always includes differences in access to violent means’.

What are the main characteristics of violently divided societies? Lustick (1979: 325), in a

classic definition, claimed that these places are defined by an ‘antagonistic segmentation of

society, based on terminal identities with high political salience, sustained over a substantial

period’. In other words, ethnic identities for individuals are pretty much fixed from birth and

cannot easily be escaped. These identities are defined in opposition to rival groups and they

provide the basis for social organization and political mobilization.

To illustrate further, let me briefly introduce an example from my research in Lebanon.

Lebanon, as we shall explore in detail, is a quintessentially violently divided society. The

main line of communal division in Lebanon is ethnoreligious or ‘sects’, as the Lebanese term

it (Salamey, 2014). At various times the main groups in Lebanon entered into violent conflict

and in order to try and peacefully manage these cleavages, the group identities are recognized

and accommodated throughout Lebanon’s political and public institutions. Such is the

magnitude of this process of official categorization, ethnicity appears, in Lustick’s (1979)

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terms, highly ‘ascriptive’ and fundamentally ‘unchangeable’ for individuals. During my

research I interviewed a political representative of one of the parties representing an ethnic

group. Reflecting, somewhat sadly, on what it means to be a member of an ethnoreligious

sect in Lebanon, he stated:

Many of us are born into certain sects, we cannot choose that. We go to sect-based schools and then

sect-based universities. Then we marry someone from the sect according to the sect rituals and then

when our kids are born they are also encouraged to marry someone from the same sect. And then we

die we are buried according to sect rituals as well. It is like you are imprisoned within your sect your

whole life (interview, July 2014).

The epithet ‘imprisoned’ may seem rather exaggerated, but it must be recognized that in

divided societies the capacity of individuals to escape from ethnic identities is severely

limited. There is almost an absence of human agency regarding how ethnic affiliation is

understood and conceptualized by many inhabitants of divided societies. It is as if these

ethnic identities are predetermined even before birth and path dependent processes limit the

scope for ethnic change during the life course of individuals. I want to specify common

features of violently divided societies which will be used throughout this book.

Politics

In divided societies, there is a strong correlation between ethnicity and political preference.

The society is divided by ethnic-based political parties that mobilize to represent and advance

the interests of the ethnie. Instead of developing ‘catch-all’ policies designed to court votes

from a wide spectrum across society, the parties focus on ‘catch within’ strategies that aim to

maximize votes inside the ethnic group. Political competition, therefore, rarely occurs

between cleavages, but within ethnic blocs. This intragroup competition creates a dynamic

that rewards those parties encouraging hardline policies proclaiming to protect the group

from the rival ethnic bloc(s). Rabushka and Shepsle (1972) coined the phrase ‘ethnic

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outbidding’ to describe a situation in which parties are incentivized to demonstrate ever

increasing displays of ethnic radicalism. A vicious and reinforcing spiral is set in train as the

ethnic strongmen of the respective blocs use evidence of increasing ethnic radicalization in

the opposing bloc as justification for their own aggressive policies. Not unsurprisingly,

elections in divided societies are symbolically highly charged, dramatic events that encourage

the hardening of identities as well as the use of inter and intracommunal violence. The result

of this process is that there are very few moderate, non-sectarian parties in divided societies

and even fewer that succeed in elections. Moderates are damned by the radicals as ‘sell outs’

and ‘traitors’. Elections, consequently, resemble more closely sectarian ‘head counts’ and

ethnic censuses.

Social Life

As in politics, deep divisions structure social life in divided societies. The ethnic groups,

notes Horowitz (1985) live alongside each other in parallel sub-societies. The most visible

sign of division is residential segregation in which the groups reside in separate districts.

Separation is not merely that of groups living in rather homogenous but distinct regions in the

same state; in divided societies, the main groups live cheek by jowl, side-by-side in the same

cities and areas, but are separated by the odd street here or there. Despite such proximity,

close relationships between neighbours across the ethnic cleavage is rare and at times

impossible given that these borders between the groups are flashpoints for violent conflict.

Social differences are reinforced by a range of further mechanisms, principle among these is

marital homogamy, or to put it another way, marriage occurs within rather than across ethnic

groups. Alongside marriage, another important social institution is education. Children and

young adults in divided societies go to separate educational institutions depending on their

ethnic background.

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The net effect of social divisions is that the capacity and likelihood of mixing, intergroup

relationships and boundary crossing is the exception rather than the norm. I would go further

to say that such that physical and symbolic borders between the groups are guarded by a

panoply of devices. Individuals wishing to transgress communal boundaries can encounter

threats from within and outside of their perceived ethnic group; they may even find

themselves labelled as ‘traitors’ and ‘turncoats’ whose loyalty cannot be vouchsafed by the

rest of the group. In more extreme cases, the communal transgressors are expelled, often with

violence, from their districts and thus the group. Given the sanctions applied to the communal

transgressor, the cost of not displaying utter ethnic loyalty is prohibitively high in some

situations.

Identity Conflicts in Divided Societies

Given that the core cleavage in divided societies is mutually exclusive notions of nationalist

self-determination, conflicts in these places tend to be seen as intractable (Guelke, 2012).

Divided societies are rather resilient to peaceful transformation because such contending

notions of political legitimacy are rooted in the respective groups’ identities. When intrastate

conflict revolves around clashing forms of group identity, it is incredibly hard to resolve

since the issues appear more abstract and intangible as they are bound up with the group’s

sense of basic needs and even survival.

In relation to divided societies, Jay Rothman (1997: 12) distinguishes ‘identity-based

conflicts from interest- or resource-based conflicts, which are relatively concrete and well

defined with outcomes bounded by the resources at stake (e.g., wages, land, military power)’.

In divided societies, identity-conflicts predominate. Thus, on the one hand, there is a desire

by groups to obtain their share of economic and political representation. These interest and

resource conflicts are relatively tangible, clearly defined and the potential for negotiation and

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durable solution is strong. On the other, the desire for the recognition of group identities is

qualitatively different from the former as recognition is not a commodity that can be

consumed. In contrast, recognition is an intersubjective state; recognition involves the desire

of individuals and groups to have who they are and what they stand for acknowledged by

others. Identity-based conflicts centre on notions of group-worth invested in cultural values,

symbols, memories and history.

For recognition theorists (Taylor, 1992; Honneth, 1996), social and political conflict emerges

when a group’s identity is misrecognized, unrecognized, or palpably demeaned by dominant

groups. Accordingly, members of groups whose identities are not recognized will lack the

basic self-confidence and self-esteem required to fully develop their potential. The struggle of

groups to gain recognition, and not mere tolerance, for their differences from others, manifest

in political and social institutions, is the vital source of intergroup acrimony.

Furthermore, since recognition is a precondition for political legitimacy and authority, in

deeply divided societies the conflict involves contested senses of political sovereignty. The

politics of recognition is predicated on relative and not absolute worth, in contrast to

struggles over political and economic representation. This makes the battle for recognition

different from struggles over economic redistribution and political representation since

recognition of identity is zero-sum rather than positive sum. By zero-sum, I refer to the

perception of a ‘winner takes all’ dynamic in a divided society in which one group directly

experiences a gain for a rival group as an automatic loss. As soon as the protagonists view the

conflict as a matter of all or nothing, it is fought with particular ferocity. In short, the desire

of group (a) to have its identity recognized by group (b) becomes inherently conflictual when

group (b) refuses on the basis that group (a) has cultural identities that are antagonistic and/or

harmful to group (b). Thus, rather than a process of intersubjective reciprocation, the politics

of recognition can often lead to destructive clashes.

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Identity-conflicts are particularly prevalent and intense in divided societies since competing

expressions of national self-determination are also articulated as clashing forms of identity. In

order to legitimate claims to national sovereignty over a particular territory, ethnonational

groups valorize their own cultural and historical traditions and negatively stereotype

members of the rival group. This competitive process generates patterns of discrimination,

cycles of hostility and defensive preparation against other groups. Wimmer and Schetter

(2003), for example, note that ethnic conflicts revolve around the defense of cultural capital,

such as language, flags and rituals, which is only of value within one’s own ethnic group.

Ethnic conflicts involve a race to declare one’s own specific cultural capital the currency in

the divided society.

Power Sharing in Divided Societies

Since ethnicity is seen as central to conflict and instability in divided societies, it is not

surprising that forms of conflict management are primarily designed to ameliorate

antagonistic forms of ethnic identity (Nagle and Clancy, 2012). A major form of institutional

design in divided societies rests on the accomodationist principle. ‘Accomodationist

strategies’, notes O’Leary (2013: 19), ‘requires the political recognition of more than one

ethnic, linguistic, national, or religious community in the state and aims to secure

coexistence. Proponents of accommodation recognize that although it may be true to say that

groups construct ethnic identities, once mobilized identities become rather fixed and resilient

to short-term transformation (McGarry and O’Leary, 2009). Van Evera (2001: 2) sums up

this perspective: ‘ethnic identities, while constructed, are hard to reconstruct once they form .

. . the conditions needed for reconstruction are quite rare, especially in modern times, and

especially among ethnic groups in conflict’. The act of accommodation in divided societies is

to find appropriate institutional arrangements that ensure all of the salient ethnic groups are

recognized as constituent parts of the state’s multicultural fabric. Thus instead of seeking to

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integrate the main groups by forging a shared public identity, the accomodationist strategy

accepts that group based differences reflect reality and cannot simply be wished away.

At the formal level, the accomodationist approach creates institutions to allow the main

groups to share power in government. Power sharing is often called ‘consociationalism’

(Lijphart, 1985), which is based upon the idea that conflict resolution in divided societies is

achieved through the accommodation of the political élites representing the salient segments

of society and institutionally anchored by inclusive coalitions, some type of cultural or

territorial autonomy and proportionality in public appointments (Andeweg 2000: 512). By

including the main groups in the divided society, consociationalism aims to transform a zero-

sum game for political power into one that encourages consensus and the sharing of power.

By sharing power, the object is to equalize power relations in a context where conflict was

formerly generated by an asymmetrical balance of power. International peace negotiators,

political analysts and policy makers now commonly accept that designing political

arrangements involving the main antagonists to the conflict is the most viable approach to

resolving intercommunal division in post-conflict societies.

Political power sharing rarely operates as a one size fits all system. To date theorists

(McGarry and O’Leary 2007; McCulloch 2014) make a distinction between two types of

consociationalism – corporate and liberal – based on their perceptions of the salience of

ethnic or religious group identities – fixed versus malleable – as well as their consequent

approach to governance – constitutionally determined versus dependent on electoral

outcomes. Corporate consociations assume that ‘group identities are fixed, and that groups

are both internally homogeneous and externally bounded’ (McGarry and O’Leary, 2007:

675). This is achieved by the use of ethnic quotas and even ethnically based voting rolls.

Liberal consociationalism, however, ‘rewards whatever salient political identities emerge in

democratic elections, whether these are based on ethnic groups, or on … trans-group

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identities’ (McGarry and O’Leary, 2007: 675). In so doing, proponents argue that liberal

consociationalism ‘is more likely to transform identities in the long run’ (McGarry, 2001:

124) compared to corporate forms. Liberal consociationalism is preferred to corporate since it

‘it does not make any assumptions about the strength or weakness … of ethnic and other

divisions’ (Lijphart, 1998: 147).

In sum, corporate consociations pre-determine and guarantee the rights of the salient ethnic

groups. By preserving identities in aspic, corporate forms incentivize the maintenance of

ethnic cleavages and provide little right of exit for individuals from communal structures.

Liberal consociations, alternatively, allow for the possibility of divisions to ameliorate and

for individuals to choose their public identities. While corporate consociations reserve rights

only for the key ethnic groups, liberal forms theoretically provide opportunities for rights to

be accessed by a wider remit of groups. An outline of the main distinctions between liberal

and corporate consociationalism can be seen in Table 1.1.

<TABLE 1.1 HERE>

I have outlined the differences between liberal and corporate power sharing in a fairly

abstract way. I will detail some of the specific institutional features of these two

consociational forms later on, especially since the two different forms derive contrasting

consequences for non-sectarian groups. For the moment, it is important to note that

consociationalism entails inclusion and exclusion. Consociationalism’s inclusivity rests on its

mechanisms to include only the salient ethnic groups in the power sharing government. These

are the groups in conflict and therefore need to be accommodated. Yet consociationalism is

exclusive as it finds little or no space for groups that do not identify as ethnic. Thus, it is rare

to find strong rights and protections in consociational formats for sexual minorities, migrants,

women, socialists and individuals that simply disidentify from ethnicity.

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Research on power sharing reinforces this inclusion/exclusion binary by concentrating on its

effects on the conflictual ethnic groups (McCulloch, 2014). Research, for example, focuses

on whether power sharing further intensifies or ameliorates ethnic cleavages, including

expediting intragroup electoral outbidding (Mitchell, Evans and O’Leary, 2009); if it creates

higher levels of residential segregation and fierce intergroup distributive conflicts over public

resources (Horowitz, 2008). Such research is undeniably valuable and important, yet it does

not permit much space to allow an analysis of how power sharing derives particular

consequences for non-sectarian groups. Yet, I argue, that power sharing also expedites

serious and far-reaching outcomes for sexual minorities, women, victims groups, and others

that refuse to align themselves with the respective ethnic blocs.

Beyond exclusion, consociationalism generates effects for non-sectarian groups in two ways.

First, power sharing is predicated on top-down, elite-level governance in which ethnic leaders

engage in coalescent behaviour. Through the iterative process of trust building and

moderation among leaders, this spirit of accommodation is supposed to descend downwards

to the communities underneath (Lijphart, 1985). Power sharing, therefore, constrains the

space for alternative views of political belonging that are not predominantly ethnic. It also

places limits on civil society to contribute to political stability and peacebuilding outside of

civil society acting as auxiliaries to ethnic parties.

Secondly, by making ethnicity the constituent unit of governance, there is an immanent

hazard of institutionalizing sectarian differences. As Sartori (1997: 72) warns us: ‘if you

reward divisions … you increase and eventually heighten divisions and divisiveness’. This

dynamic can have a correlative effect on non-sectarian groups. It not only marginalizes non-

sectarian groups; the problem is that hardline visions of ethnicity and nationalism are often

extremely exclusivist and intolerant. These movements may engender sexist, homophobic

and patriarchal notions of community and nationhood. Moreover, since the system allows

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ethnic leaders to advance issues that are of interest only to their particularistic communities,

there is no incentive to develop public policies that concern all citizens regardless of

ethnicity. Non-sectarian groups that mobilize on broad-based issues – such as

environmentalists or organizations concerned with the distribution of public services – are

structurally disadvantaged.

Identity-Conflicts and Peacebuilding

How might consociational arrangements be used to deal with identity conflicts? Critics

accuse consociationalism of perpetuating identity conflicts rather than their transformation

(Dryzek and Dunleavy, 2009: 194). Mac Ginty (2009: 700) argues that Northern Ireland’s

power sharing places the emphasis on ‘mechanisms, institutions and legislation rather than

engaging with the belief systems that underpin the conflict’. This accusation stems from the

belief that power sharing is based on the politics of recognition, the idea that group identities

have to be granted parity of esteem in the polity. Rather than dealing with the roots of

antagonistic, incompatible and adversarial ethnic identities, so that they can be transformed,

recognition simply leaves these identities intact. Conflict occurs, therefore, as a result of

destructive clashes between rival groups to have their identities recognized by the other.

Thus, for example, although power sharing in Northern Ireland has dealt with many of the

interest based issues that were once seen as intractable – such as weapons’ decommissioning,

political representation, economic policy, and the reform of public institutions – identity-

based disputes have proliferated, particularly over group symbols and rituals during the peace

process.2

As such, Rothman (1997: 12) argues that ‘identity conflicts require that special efforts be

made to ensure accurate analysis, definition, and amelioration precisely because such

conflicts are not tangible’. There are a number of different mechanisms to transform identity

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conflicts. Ross (2007) and Smithey (2009) argues that efforts to resolve identity conflicts

require the main actors to reframe their identities away from antagonistic, non-compromising

forms that are arranged against out-groups so that they are more emollient and conducive to

civic and even shared values. Peacebuilding begins by ‘changing perceptions of the conflict

and softening out-group boundaries by redefining collective identities in ways that are

empowering and yet less polarizing’ (Smithey, 2009: 85).

For the peacebuilder Jean-Paul Lederach (1997) the conflicting groups’ animosity,

perception of enmity, and deep-rooted fear and hatred of the ‘other’ means that the

transformation of conflict into peace must be rooted in ‘social-psychological’ dimensions.

Reconciliation, for Lederarch (1997: 26), requires methods that address history for both

groups ‘without getting locked into a vicious cycle of mutual exclusiveness inherent in the

past’. The ‘healing’ process is achieved through acknowledging the other’s loss and the anger

that accompanies the pain and the memory of injustices experienced.

Mouffe (2000, 2002) claims that the task of peacemakers is to transform antagonism into

agonism, deadly enemies into peaceful adversaries, violence into critical engagement and

reflection. For Mouffe, conflict between groups is often unavoidable and cannot be

eliminated through the operation of abstract reason; instead, a violent clash of democratic

political positions can be channelled into progressive political institutions. Although the point

is not to achieve consensus between groups on the issues that fundamentally divide them, it is

possible to combine contestation with a space for social differences to be heard and

recognized by parties. This process encourages adversaries to possess a shared affiliation to

the liberal principles of liberty and equality.

Civil Society and Social Movements: Constructing Conflict and Peace

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These mechanisms to deal with identity-conflicts via power sharing work best when it is

supported by civil society. Research examining 22 peace negotiations over 15 years

demonstrates a positive correlation between the degree of civil society involvement in peace

negotiations and the success of power sharing (Wanis-St. John and Kew, 2008). How might

civil society contribute to sustainable peacebuilding in the context of power sharing?

Paffenholz (2009) identifies seven critical ways in which civil society support peacebuilding.

Civil society organizations, for example, advocate for and monitor human rights provisions

and foster intergroup social cohesion by bringing people together from adversarial groups.

Civil society, moreover, forces accountability and transparency from the ethnic elites sharing

power in government. As such, civil society groups ‘are often seen to carry the best hopes for

a genuine democratic counterweight to the power-brokers, economic exploiters and warlords

who tend to predominate in conflict-ridden weak or failed states, and may even capture the

electoral processes’ (Pouligny, 2005: 496). Further research by Varshney (2002)

demonstrates that Indian cities with a Hindu/Muslim cleavage were likely to remain peaceful

if they had dense and robust civil society networks that bound together the groups on a daily

basis. If such networks are missing, ghastly sectarian violence often occurred. The sphere of

civil society is also central to resolving identity-based conflicts. Civil society that crosses

communal cleavages and engages in activities that collectively debate and challenge the

meaning and content of antagonistic ethnic identities facilitates conflict transformation.

Civil society alone is no simple panacea for divided societies. As Belloni (2008: 189-191)

notes, whilst there is evidence that multiethnic civil society organizations can provide the

bridging capital that can further advance peace and democratization in post-conflict societies,

these organizations alone are not constitutive of civil society; rather they coexist with

‘uncivil’ organizations (for example, paramilitary groups), and legal organizations that reflect

the important ethnic and/or national divisions. At the very worst, civil society can provide a

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matrix for the development of groups that espouse antagonistic expressions of ethnonational

identity or are even responsible for violence. For instance, the so-called ‘antibureaucratic

revolution’ of 1988-1989 witnessed hundreds of thousands of Serbs rallying across various

parts of Yugoslavia with the intention of securing Serbian political control of strategic

provinces and republics. The movement helped reawaken Serbian nationalism and paved the

path for Miloševic’s inexorable rise to power (Sell, 2002). A multitude of voluntary

associations in Rwanda (prior to the genocide in 1994) also fueled intergroup violence.

Rwanda had the highest density of associations in sub-Saharan Africa; yet from such

associations emerged the interahamwe, originally a soccer fan club that evolved into a Hutu

militia responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis during 1994 (Edwards,

2004).

The relationship between civil society and peacebuilding is even more problematic if we

narrow the analysis to social movements. Social movements belong to the sphere of civil

society but they are distinct in that they promote conflict. Della Porta and Diani (2006) argue

that social movements can be distinguished from other types of civil society groups because

they construct conflictual relations with clearly defined opponents. Touraine (2002: 90)

defines social movement mobilization as ‘as organized conflicts or as conflicts between

organized actors over the social use of common cultural values’. The conflictual identity of

social movements is essential in driving positive political and transformation. Social

movements are well placed to create profound social ‘changes in our habits of thought, action

and interpretation’ (Crossley, 2002: 9). Social movements have been called ‘prophets’

(Melucci, 1996: 1) and even ‘canaries in the coal mine’ (Jasper, 1997: 9) because they are

key agents for recognizing and even bringing about societal transformation before anyone

else.

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The emphasis on conflict as a key element of social movement mobilization lies uneasy with

the goals of peacebuilding. Social movement conflicts are typically expressed through protest

behaviour including street politics. Conflict appears the conceptual opposite of peace. Social

movement protests, therefore, derive a particularly troublesome character in divided societies.

Protests against the government over public services or to oppose private interests

regenerating public space can quickly be seen as anti-state or possessing a sectarian veneer.

Divided societies, therefore, display ethnic seepage (Horowitz, 1985: 7-8) as practically all

political and social issues are ultimately infiltrated by sectarian conflicts. A good example of

this is the You Stink protest in Beirut outlined in the Introduction chapter. The non-sectarian

movement demonstrated against the issue of state’s inability to collect trash, a symptom of

the dysfunctional and sectarian system. In waging this campaign, You Stink was accused by

the various sectarian parties of being co-opted, bribed or infiltrated by rivals. You Stink was

forced to respond by noting: ‘No one has remained safe from these accusations which main

purpose was and is to distort and refute the idea of having an independent non-sectarian

alternative’ (You Stink, 2015).

A major purpose of this book is to reveal a less known story about non-sectarian social

movements in divided societies and their contribution to peace. While conflict management

in divided societies focuses on accommodating ethnic group identities, this book examines

the potential of movements that purposely with to supersede ethnic divisions with non-

sectarian politics. These movements embrace a cross-section of the public and they promote

political projects that are not confined to a particular ethnic group. Some non-sectarian social

movements exist for long periods of time and place a strong emphasis on articulating radical

alternatives to ethnic division and acrimony. At the same time, there are other non-sectarian

movements in divided societies that come together only for a relatively short period. The

object of these non-sectarian movements is not necessarily to create forms of resistance and

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opposition to the typical diet of ethnic politics served up in divided society; instead, the

movement momentarily crystallizes a broad spectrum of the public in pursuit of a particular

objective that affects them in the present. Thus, the movement frames issues in such a way as

to make them appear not purely as ethnic interests but as matters that can only be confronted

on a collective basis.

[Insert photograph 1.1]

FIGURE 1.1. Poster advertising ‘Bike for Peace’ event in Beirut in the spring 2015.

Broadly speaking, I note four main types of non-sectarian social movements involved in

divided societies: transformationists, pluralists, cosmopolitans and commonists. These four

categories are heuristic, and there is a strong overlap between movements and members.

Transformationists

Transformationist social movements are those that strive to completely transform identities

by undermining what they view as a sectarian form of politics that exacerbates communal

differences in divided societies. For example, the Lebanese movement Laïque Pride’s aim is

to replace the sectarian system with a secular, liberal democracy, underpinned by uniform

equal rights, formal social equality and justice. A similar transformationist perspective in

Belfast comes from Platform for Change (2011:1), a movement that describes itself as a

‘group of non-partisan thinkers’, which promotes ‘a renewal and realignment of politics in

Northern Ireland’, especially one which eradicates ‘the deep divisions, intolerance and

introversion which still bedevil this society’. Class based mobilizations provide a different

example of transformationists. They ask citizens in divided societies to see their common

interests as workers rather than as divided ethnicities. In this way, antagonistic ethnic

identities will be superseded by unified class encapsulations. One movement in Belfast,

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Northern Ireland, campaigns to ‘make the class we belong to more important than the

community we come from’ (Socialist Environmental Alliance, 2005).

Pluralists

Pluralists are typically those groups who feel that their identities have traditionally been

rendered mute or even anomalous in a divided society characterized by ethnonational conflict

and ‘either’ ‘or’ approaches to social identity. Their job is to make the wider society more

appreciative of ‘difference’, especially in regards to issues concerning gender and race and

other social identities that do not conform to the dominant ethnic groups. If divided societies

are characterized by sectarian intolerance, the purpose of pluralists is to be heterogeneous so

that society will become more open to the presence of diversity. Examples of pluralist social

movements include Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT), feminist, and anti-

racist mobilizations promoting multiculturalism.

Cosmopolitans

Cosmopolitan movements in divided societies are those which argue that global concerns,

like climate change, environmental destruction, food risks, nuclear weapons, global financial

risks, human genetics and the ‘war on terror’ are infinitely more important to the lives of

people than the parochial question of national self-determination. This fosters a

‘cosmopolitan sensibility’, which ‘comes about through the concrete realization that one’s

own survival and that of others can no longer be separated’ (Beck, 2005: 400). Moreover, as

states become increasingly enmeshed in transnational finance networks, auguring the

‘unbundling of the exclusive authority over territory and people we have long associated with

the nation-state’, some have seen ‘operational and conceptual openings’ for radical global

social movements emerge, proclaiming a planetary minded politics (Sassen, 2001). After one

protest against the presence of multinational corporations in Belfast, Northern Ireland, an

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organizer wrote: ‘The people on the streets on May Day were both Catholic and Protestant

but their priority was not justice for one cause or one community, instead it was about justice

for the whole of humankind’ (Globalise Resistance, 2002).

Commonists

While non-sectarian social movements can develop dense networks of informal exchanges

between individuals and/or organizations, they may not necessarily generate identity bonds

between the organizations involved. As Diani (2005: 51) notes, with many social movements,

in general, ‘alliances and collaborations will be mostly driven by an instrumental logic’.

Commonists are those movements in divided societies that foster momentary cross-cleavage

unity on certain political issues that are of salience to all ethnic groups. Such movements may

include housing tenants protesting over rents rises, rallies against the privatization of public

services and the war terror. These groups may form for a short period or until their aims have

realistically been met or recognized. Rarely would they mobilize for a sustained period

beyond the initial targets specified by the movement at the outset. These groups encourage

ethnopolitical parties to take a more consensual approach to politics over specific issues.

Social Movement Outcomes and Peaceful Change

As we shall explore, in divided societies all politics are practically subsumed by the wider

ethnopolitical conflict over state legitimacy, or at least reduced to sectarian interests. The

room and capacity of movements to transcend existing ethnic cleavages is extremely

restricted in a society where divisions are highly salient and regulated via not only spatial

forms of segregation, but through tacit and explicit threats and sanctions against group

members who seek to cross boundaries.

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How do non-sectarian social movements contribute to the building of peace in divided

societies? There are quite obvious ways in which some movements position themselves as

fundamental to peacebuilding. Some movements appoint themselves as promoters and

guardians of peace in the divided society. They take to the streets, for example, to call for the

militants to end violence, or hold vigils during peace negotiations, and then mobilize to

gather popular support for a peace agreement. These movements define themselves as key

agents of peace-making and activists dedicate their lives to the pursuit of reconciliation.

These are what I call traditional peacebuilding movements and NGOs. To illuminate this type

of traditional peacebuilding I refer to my research in Lebanon.

In June 2015 I spoke to Assaad Shaftari. Assaad was a former militia leader during the

Lebanese civil war. He told me:

I took an active part in the civil war. I was responsible in intelligence and security services, everything

that you can think of during a civil war I was involved in. I never thought I was doing something

wrong. I never thought I killed or harmed an innocent person, innocent to the criteria of back then. I did

my share of harming anyone who is opposite to us, who might be dangerous to us, and one of my tasks

was counterintelligence and harming and destroying the enemy.

After experiencing a number of assassination attempts, Assaad told me: ‘I thought about how

I lived my life on the personal level. I did a lot bad things. I started looking in the mirror. It

was a very disgusting sight’. From this point, Assaad secretly joined an organization

involving militia fighters from the opposing faction engaging in clandestine dialogue about

creating the context for peace and reconciliation. When the war ended, Assaad formed an

organization, ‘Fighters for Peace’, made up of former militia fighters. This organization is

involved in projects to encourage militants to abandon violence and also to educate young

people about the dangers of sectarian hatred and the destruction to lives and communities

created by war. Assaad informed me that the members of ‘Fighters of Peace’:

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who have blood on their hands or their conscience are the pioneers of the actions for peace because

they know the price they paid. Although they might be perpetrators, they are also victims, and they

know the damage they caused to humans and to the economy, real estate, to properties and whatever.

‘Fighters for Peace’ is thus a traditional peacebuilding organization with clearly defined

objectives for conflict resolution. The organization does not deploy protest tactics and street

politics. Instead, the organization focuses on individual change and personal empowerment.

‘Be the change you want to see in your world or in your country, community, family,

workplace or whatever’, Assaad informed me was the motto of Fighters for Peace.

In this book I argue that many non-sectarian movements sustain peacebuilding in extremely

complex ways that are, in themselves, not always classified as traditional forms of conflict

resolution. They engage in activities, for instance, to promote rights for sexual minorities, to

demand better terms for workers, and for better public services for the whole society. Some

movements strive to resist private interests from gentrifying urban spaces. Other movements

protest for greater choice for women over reproductive rights and for gender equality.

Non-sectarian social movements, I argue, in different ways contribute to innovative forms of

peace-making that lie outside of more official and established forms of conflict management

in divided societies. That is, social movements are not necessarily funded by recognized state

or international funders and donors. Neither are they typically granted privileged places in

peace negotiations or representative powers within power sharing structures. In contrary,

non-sectarian movements may mobilize to protest against aspects of the peace process that

they identify, for example, as concentrating too much power in the hands of small clique of

ethnic leaders. Yet, in calling for these changes, these social movements strive to challenge

and unsettle the basic grammar and structure that supports violent separation in the divided

society.

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All social movements aim in different ways to effect political and social change to their

advantage. For social movement theorists, this generates a series of questions as to how we

can isolate and measure social movement impact and recognize the main features of an

influential social movement. In evaluating social movement ‘outcomes’, theorists disagree on

whether social movements are relatively ineffectual and insignificant compared with other

political actors, institutions, and processes or if they are highly effective and account for most

important types of political change. Determining a movement’s impact on policymakers

requires demonstrating that ‘state-related collective goods would not have appeared in the

absence of the movement or specific actions taken by it’ (Amenta et al, 2010: 14.14). Given

the number of third-parties and mediators existing between the movement and the state, notes

Giugni (1998: 373), the ‘principal difficulty is how to establish a causal relationship between

a series of events that we can reasonably classify as social movement actions and an observed

change in society, be it minor or fundamental, durable or temporary’.

This issue of causality is notably challenging in in relation to movements that are involved in

some form of peacebuilding. Giugni (2007), for example, finds no influence of the antiwar

movement on military spending as they are not able to change the high-profile foreign policy

domain. In an analysis of the Israeli peace movement, Hermann (2009) identifies a number of

difficulties with developing an adequate assessment of their achievements and failures.

Notably, Israeli activists were interpreted ‘by the mainstream, politicians and ordinary

citizens alike, as a threat to the national consensus, and sometimes even to national security’

(Hermann, 2009: 39). Activists, therefore, were forced to influence policy-makers via back-

channels where solid documentation of their activities is non-existent.

The problem of determining social movement outcomes is, I argue, compounded in violently

divided societies. Research has demonstrated that the prospects for social movements to

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influence public policy are particularly bleak when it is closely tied to the national cleavage

structure and on which public opinion is very strong (Kriesi et al, 1995; Giugni, 2004). The

very intensity of ethnic and ethnonational cleavages in divided societies means that

practically all issues become points of extreme communal polarization and antagonism. Thus,

the mobilization on distributive policies, such as public goods, or over the environment,

nuclear weapons, and economic investment, tend to align on ethnic rather than

socioeconomic lines. The seepage of ethnic politics into all areas of the public sphere narrows

the ground available for non-sectarian voices to be heard by the political leadership and the

public alike. In fact, movements that position themselves as intercommunal or as

peacebuilding actors are more likely to be dismissed by elites as irrelevant, unreflective of

social and political realities, or even worse, framed as traitors.

Social movements, by their very nature, are meant to be conflictual organizations that

confront opponents and try to realign state power to their benefit. In divided societies, few

non-sectarian movements are able to advance political conflicts and identities without being

seen as aligned with a particular ethnic party. When a movement engages in conflictual

relations with the state this is a risky act that could be framed as complicit with the aims of

the insurgency. In sum, the expression of all political identities runs the hazard of being co-

opted by ethnic parties and groups or being identified as taking a de facto position on the

wider constitutional issue. Rather than carve out radical alternatives to ethnic division,

movements can very quickly be perceived as belonging to a particular ethnic party or

community. Further mitigating the effect of non-sectarian movements is the fact that the state

is often weak or highly fractured in divided societies. The ability of the movement to affect

state policy is quite limited. The social movement may even aim to effect policymakers

outside of the state, such as the international community, global human rights movements and

NGOs.

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If we were to use Gamson’s (1990) criteria of ‘acceptance’ – the capacity of the state to cede

to movement requests – then non-sectarian movements in divided societies could claim little

evidence of impact. Yet these movements, I argue, can make an important influence in the

search for peace in a number of ways, especially by trying to influence public opinion and

social relations. I outline some of these impacts below.

Molecularity over molarity

Non-sectarian movements can transform modes of everyday life, thinking and spatial

programmes that maintain and perpetuate social divisions. These groups upset what Deleuze

and Guttari (2004) describe as the ‘molarities’ of social thinking and order: the process of

segmentarity through which individuals are allocated into categories of wholeness.

Molaraties operate by reference to a specific theme, identity or program that delimits social

change. Molarities, importantly, are binary in form; coded wholes are defined in opposition to

other apparently complete segments. Importantly, the technologies of molarity work by

advancing programs of territorialization, the enclosure of social groups into specific areas and

residential districts, which ultimately reinforces separateness. In contrast to molarities, the

non-sectarian social movements in this book often display the characteristics of molecularity

(Deleuze and Guttari, 2004). Molecularity refers to contingent, liminal and assemblage-like

structures concerned with de-territorializing space, crossing thresholds and slipping between

the more rigid structures and categories of our lives, even problematizing and destabilizing

the hitherto secure and dominant identity narratives of society (see Nagle, 2009a).

In short, violently divided societies operate by placing individuals into rather monolithic

ethnic categories and groups. To achieve this state, a wide assortment of official institutional

and informal social structures combine to enclose individuals within what Brubaker (2002:

164) has called ‘sharply differentiated, internally homogeneous and externally bounded

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groups’. The sheer presence and multifarious activities of non-sectarian social movements

call into question and even contest the naturalness of ethnic separation and conflict.

Networks and intersecting circles

The theorist Mario Diani (2005) notes that where societies are fragmented along ethnic lines,

it is extremely problematic for movements to mobilize broad swathes of society in pursuit of

common interests. The issue is compounded by the presence of strong social cleavages which

act to prohibit the formation of broad-based coalitions. To illuminate the distinction between

social movements that reinforce social cleavages and those that purposely aim to transcend

them, Diani (2000) makes a useful distinction between movements based upon circles that are

‘concentric’ and ‘intersecting’. In highly segregated societies where ethnic groups have

mobilized into distinct political cleavages, social relationships can be seen in terms of

concentric circles: relationships are confined within the immediate circle of the ethnic group.

Concentric relationships shape people’s identities and interests and thus ‘support cleavages to

the extent that they reinforce actors’ world views and identities while reducing the possibility

of their accessing other social milieus with conflicting views’ (Diani, 2000: 396).

If ethnic cleavages are characterized by social movements as ‘concentric circles’, then new

forms of relationships that crosscut established cleavages and engender new types of

solidarities are the product of ‘intersecting circles’. For Diani (2000), social movements are

shaped by ‘intersecting circles’ when relationships are voluntary, multiple and overlapping,

thereby contributing to the creation of new models of communitarian and organizational

action. These ‘intersecting circles’ enable movements to ‘draw upon, or generate, new

solidarities and group memberships which cut across the boundaries of any specific

traditional political cleavage, and thus undermine current forms of encapsulation’ (Diani,

2000: 399). Diani thus points to the ‘patterns of social relations they generate through the

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overlapping memberships and personal linkages of their activists, and through the alliances

between the different groups which identify with a given cause’ (2000: 387).

Non-sectarian social movements can forge intercommunal networks that break through the

structures of segregation in the divided society. Through so doing, they facilitate the coming

together of individuals in pursuit of common objectives unfettered by sectarian objectives.

Thus, non-sectarian social movements foster a sense of shared solidarity and embed deep

relationships among individuals often separated in everyday life. At times, these networks

will last for only the duration of a short protest; at other times, they extend for long periods

and contribute to the building of quite dense and broad alliances embracing a large range of

movements. Needless to add, the more durable, robust and lasting these forms of

engagement, the stronger their support to peacebuilding will be.

Social justice

As noted in the Introduction, a substantial problem that blights violently divided societies is

resource duplication or even multiplication as the respective groups have parallel public

services. Research points to how many divided societies are burdened by chronically weak

public services and sluggish rates of economic growth (see Miguel, 2004). The strain of

overtaxing a low revenue base means that cutbacks on public services are a fact of life. In the

absence of intergroup trust, the respective ethnic groups embark in fierce distributive

conflicts where they demand their enhanced share of public goods. In this environment,

ethnic leaders strengthen their position as defenders of community interests by administering

public goods each for the good of their own people. This situation is indicative of a

breakdown of the social contract in the divided society. The respective ethnic elites rarely

formulate policies that are responsive to all of their constituents. As Earle (2011: 6) notes,

‘social movements can reinforce this breakdown by placing an emphasis on narrow, localised

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identities at the expense of a more inclusive idea of citizenship’.Given that the public sector

provides a context for conflicts in divided societies, non-sectarian social movements attempt

to force the political class to manage the distribution of public services in a collective and

cohesive fashion.

Non-sectarian social movements, as civil society actors, may also promote transparency and

accountability from governments and ethnic elites. The capacity of social movements to

construct alternative public spheres is also important. While power sharing can create a

government with power concentrated amongst ethnic leaders (see Chapter 3), civil society

can play a crucial counterweight by promoting transparency, accountability and other aspects

of ‘good governance’. Civil society, furthermore, can sustain a public sphere hospitable to

democratic civic life – curbing the power of centralizing institutions, fostering trust, tolerance

and dialogue, advancing plural interests across cleavages, and providing many public services

that are beyond the capacity of a weakened state. In this way, pluralism is advanced and

protected in the face of ethnonational homogeneity and centralizing institutions. The public

sphere further allows for conflicting ethnic and cultural claims to be deliberated by respective

groups to facilitate the peaceful resolution of differences.

Lebanon and Northern Ireland

To help narrow the focus of this book, I largely examine social movements in Lebanon and

Northern Ireland. The two societies provide scope for comparison since they are usually

categorized as prototypical examples of violently divided societies replete with many of the

features that I outlined in the previous section (Kerr, 2006; Guelke, 2012). It is worthwhile

taking a moment to describe these societies in some detail as many of the social movements

appearing in these books operate in Northern Ireland or Lebanon.

Northern Ireland

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There has long been a ‘meta-conflict’ regarding origins and character of the conflict in

Northern Ireland (McGarry and O’Leary, 1995: 1). A degree of consensus has emerged,

however, to understand Northern Ireland as ‘fundamentally rooted in ethno-national

antagonism’ (McGarry and O’Leary, 1995: 85), between British unionists who wish to

remain part of the United Kingdom versus Irish nationalists that want the reunification of

Ireland (Guelke, 2012; Hayes and McAllister, 2013).3 Northern Ireland is an ‘ethnic frontier’

inhabited by two communities belonging to nations outside the conflict zone, which means

that the conflict needs to be understood as an intersection of endogenous (internal) and

exogenous (external) factors.

Endogenously, the settlers who arrived on the island of Ireland in the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries Ireland possessed ethnic heritages that were distinct from those who

already inhabited the island. In terms of ethnicity, the bulk of the settlers were drawn from

various Protestant denominations and came from either Scotland or England; thus to a certain

degree these individuals had a shared religion, historical experience and common culture. On

the other hand, the bulk of the native population was largely Catholic and Gaelic in

orientation.

Exogenously, the dual failure of British and Irish nation- and state-building projects on the

island of Ireland meant that these separate ethnic heritages eventually become fused with

discordant national identities (Lustick, 1993). The settler population easily assimilated into

British administrative structures, thus displacing local political elites but the settlers made

little attempt to develop conciliatory measures towards the native Catholic Irish (Lustick,

1993: 5; McGarry and O’Leary, 1995: 332; Bew, 2007: 63). Thus the Catholic population’s

calls for reform eventually gave way to Irish nationalism, and its key cultural features, Gaelic

identity and Catholicism, were an anathema to most of the settler population’s ancestors, the

bulk of who were now settled in the northeast corner of the island. The concentration of

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industrial development in this area rendered Ulster – and much of what would later become

Northern Ireland – all the more dissimilar from the rest of the island (Bew and Patterson

1985: 3-4). This clash of competing claims led to the partition of Ireland in 1921, but the

resulting UK province of Northern Ireland would contain a significant minority of Irish

nationalists who were suddenly cut off from their co-ethnics in the south of Ireland. As

nationalism is a doctrine which asserts that political and national boundaries should be

coterminous (Smith, 1991) the bulk of the dispute between Irish nationalists and British

unionists would centre upon divergent interpretations of these boundaries. Despite the fact

that there has been numerous instances of interaction and cultural overlap between the two

groups (see Nic Craith 2002), the idea of two distinct national identities has persisted.

The development of Northern Ireland corresponded closely to the ‘ethnocratic’ features of a

divided society noted earlier in the chapter. The state was constructed to contain an inbuilt

unionist two-thirds majority and as the dominant group, unionists were able to maintain

control over the political and economic institutions of the region at the expense of the

minority nationalists. This process of exclusion was particularly apparent in the political

system. Between 1921 and 1969, the parliament was controlled by the unionist party, only

one motion tabled by a nationalist politician became legislation (The Wild Birds Act 1931) in

the regional government, and only one Catholic ever became a minister in the government

(Nagle 2011). Irish nationalist grievances were also articulated in relation to the allocation of

housing and jobs, which were heavily skewed towards the unionist population (Farrell, 1976;

Cochrane, 2013).

In the late 1960s, a civil rights movement took to the streets to demand equality for Irish

nationalists. Although the movement was cross-community, the unionist elites saw it as little

more than a cloak for militant Irish nationalists mobilizing to overthrow the state itself

(Purdie, 1990). The civil rights movement quickly generated a severe response by the

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security forces to ban the protestors. By 1969, this was followed by violent intercommunal

rioting in Belfast and Derry, the two main cities. From this emerged a renewed Irish

Republican Army (IRA), a paramilitary organization, which took to the streets proclaiming to

be defenders of the Irish nationalist population. The scene was set for a more protracted

conflict. The IRA went onto the offensive in the early 1970s to achieve a united Ireland, a

mobilization resisted by the British state, unionist elites and illegal unionist paramilitary

organizations. This conflict for self-determination, rather euphemistically entitled ‘the

Troubles’, resulted in 3,700 deaths and over 40,000 serious injuries (Hayes and McAllister,

2013).

A peace process took root in the early 1990s and eventually led to the signing of the Belfast

Agreement in 1998.4 The Agreement provided a framework for recognizing the validity of

both group’s aspirations for national self-determination. The Agreement also encouraged the

premise of ‘parity of esteem’: the political and cultural identities of the respective groups

should be accommodated in the mechanisms of consociational power sharing (Northern

Ireland Office, 1998). The process of establishing power sharing has undoubtedly been

difficult, given that the institutions have periodically collapsed or been at the verge of folding

due to a lack of intercommunal agreement (Hayes and McAllister, 2013).5 For many critics,

the fragility of the peace process is fundamentally caused by power sharing, which is accused

of institutionalizing and even exacerbating antagonistic ethnic divisions (Taylor, 2006).

Indicative of this putative strengthening of communal cleavages is the claim that more ‘peace

walls’– barriers designed to separate nationalist and unionist neighbourhoods – have been

constructed in Belfast since 1998. Consistent with the ‘ethnic outbidding’ thesis, it has been

argued that the Agreement has empowered ethnic elites to press ever radical claims (Wilford

and Wilson 2006: 5). As proof of this dynamic critics have pointed to how the Agreement has

expedited ‘a coalition of the extremes’ (Collier 2010: 57) of nationalism and unionism and

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the electoral evisceration of their respective moderate representatives (Wilford and Wilson

2006: 8). Critical voices have also argued that a correlative centrifugal character of the

Agreement is evident in how it has supposedly encouraged a ‘repetitive pattern of ethnically-

divided competition over resources’ (Shirlow and Murtagh 2006), especially fierce

communal-based conflicts over distributive issues, like where a hospital and schools should

be sited (Horowitz 2008: 1221). Yet, while power sharing is accused of deepening sectarian

divisions, it is interesting to note that there is a substantial section of the population who do

not see themselves as either ‘nationalist’ or ‘unionist’.

<TABLE 1.2 HERE>

Lebanon

Comparable to Northern Ireland, there is a debate about how to explain the nature of

Lebanon’s conflict and cleavages. I follow the convention of describing the main cleavages in

Lebanon as ‘ethnic’, while recognizing that alternative descriptors have been applied to

Lebanon’s divisions, like ‘sects’, ‘denominations’, and ‘spiritual families’. Nevertheless, a

degree of consensus is apparent in using ethnicity to outline Lebanon’s sectarian divisions.

For Hanf (2015: 40), ‘Lebanon is a multi-communal state comprising many ethnic and

religious communities’, while Khalaf (2012: 66) notes that the politicization of communal

identities has led to the groups attaining ‘ethnic attributes’.

The emergence of Lebanon’s ethnic divisions initially occurred within the context of

Ottoman rule in the region when the two powerful religious groups −the Muslim Druze and

the Christian Maronites − came into violent conflict in the 1850s (Salibi, 1988; Picard, 2002;

Harris, 2012). As part of efforts to end the civil war, the Ottoman administration, backed by a

consortium of European powers, inaugurated power sharing in 1861 aimed at compelling

collaboration to operate a structure in which sects had defined shares (Zahar, 2005). The

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collapse of the Ottoman Empire led to France assuming administrative control of Mount

Lebanon under the French Mandate, a license given to France by the League of Nations to

oversee Lebanon’s transition to national self-determination (Harris, 2012).

Instead of encouraging Lebanon’s journey to independent nationhood, the French created an

enlarged new state, Greater Lebanon, which established the territorial bounds of the state as it

exists today (Picard, 2002). Greater Lebanon was constructed to host an inbuilt majority of

the Christian population over the various Muslim sects. French rule over Greater Lebanon

exhibited many of the features identified by Lustick (1993) as symptomatic of failed state-

building projects in disputed lands. In particular, by incorporating new territories within the

state, the French absorbed a large Sunni Arab population, which in contrary to professing

loyalty to this state they now found themselves in, wished instead for either outright

independence or for unification with co-ethnics in neighbouring Syria (Traboulsi, 2007). The

situation was doubly traumatic for Sunnis: they were not only cut-off from their ethnic kin;

they also lost the privileged position enjoyed under the Ottomans (Hanf, 2015: 65). Although

Sunni objections to Lebanon were not expressed via violence, they nevertheless articulated

opposition by boycotting public institutions, including the 1922 and 1925 elections and the

national census (Traboulsi, 2007; Kassir, 2011: 335; Salloukh et al, 2015: 15-16).

The French Mandate also shared similarities with the ethnocratic regimes elaborated by

Yichatael. France created Lebanon with the objective of providing a safe haven for

Christians, thus gaining loyal allies for France in the process (Traboulsi, 2007; Hanf, 2015:

70). Although Christians represented a small majority in the state, political and economic

resources were directed in their favour, a factor that further aggrieved the already disgruntled

Sunni population, which was mostly concentrated in the rural and economically undeveloped

areas (Picard, 2002). To try and minimize political instability arising from this policy, in the

1926 constitution the French ‘enshrined confessional politics throughout all levels of

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governance’ (Zahar, 2005: 226). Yet, this political sectarianism provided a vehicle for

political elites ‘to exact privileges for themselves, their relatives and their clients than to

protect the interests of the communities to which they belonged’ (Zemir, 2000: 31).

The French Mandate ended in the early 1940s during World War Two. In 1943 the respective

Christian and Muslim communal elites forged the so-called ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’, an

informal pact to share power in a newly independent state. Known as the National Pact (al-

Mithaq al-Watani), the Agreement created a framework to revise power sharing to reflect the

contemporary balance of power (Traboulsi, 2007: 109-111). Both Christians and Muslims

agreed to commit to an independent foreign policy for Lebanon. Muslims – especially Sunnis

– promised not to pursue independence with their kin state, Syria, and Christians – especially

Maronites – reciprocated by agreeing not to align Lebanon with the West. Based on data from

the last national census performed in 1932, a ratio for determining representation in political

and public life was created, which favoured Christian sects over Muslims via a 6:5 formula

(Picard, 2002: 69-72).

The 6:5 formula stoked grievances among Muslim groups as it gradually became clear that

the size of the Muslim population was equal to if not larger than the Christians. Although

Lebanon was supposed to be a parliamentary democracy, the Christian elites increasingly

concentrated more executive powers in the Presidency (Picard, 2002). Furthermore, although

the constitution called for measures to end political sectarianism, the capture of state

institutions by communal elites represented the seepage of the sectarian system into all

aspects of Lebanese politics and society, thus perpetuating clientelism and corruption

(Traboulsi, 2007). While such a system promised to regulate horizontal ethnic interests, it

widened vertical class cleavages (Picard, 2002). Exacerbating this dynamic, post-war

Lebanon experienced a period of sustained economic growth and industrial development,

which deepened the rift ‘between the center (Beirut) and the periphery, the elites and the

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masses, and created a never-before experienced socio-economic gap that closely mapped onto

religious affiliation’ (Zahar, 2005: 229). Tellingly, research in the early 1970s, just prior to

the war, revealed that 4 per cent of the population held almost all of the nation’s wealth

(Kassir, 2011: 359).

The precariousness of power sharing was ill suited to accommodate shifting regional and

international dynamics. Rather than adhere to independency vis-à-vis foreign policy, the two

main cleavages aligned with competing regional, Cold War blocs. The Christian leadership

steered Lebanon’s foreign policy towards alliance with the US and its strategic interests in the

Middle East; the Sunni Arab population, alternatively, sought unity with pan-Arab

nationalism, which was aligned with the Soviet Union (Zahar, 2005). While the elites

managed to stave off sustained conflict, new crises emerged to bring the state to the point of

intercommunal violence. The formation of Israel led to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians

seeking sanctuary in Lebanon where they settled in a number of refugee camps. The

Palestinian Liberation Army (PLO), established in 1964, used their camps on Lebanese soil

as a base to launch attacks on Israel (Picard, 2002: 79-83; Harris, 2012). The Christian

leadership framed Palestinians as a plot by radical Arab nationalists in Lebanon to try and

destabilize the state. Certainly, the Palestinian cause found support from many of Lebanon’s

leftist parties and the Muslim masses that saw in the Palestinian struggle for statehood an

analogy for their own desire to reform the Lebanese state (Traboulsi, 2007).

The civil war, which began in 1975 and ended in 1990, led to more than 144,000 deaths

(circa 2 per cent of the population), 800,000 people leaving the country and 500,000

internally displaced within the country (Harris, 2012: 235). The war had a natural hardening

effect on ethnic group identities, a process that was exacerbated by ‘mass displacement,

wide-scale killing, rape, torture, arbitrary detention, and enforced disappearances’

(International Centre for Transitional Justice, 2014: 1). The violence acted to vanish ‘all

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memories of coexistence and common interests between the Lebanese’ (Traboulsi, 2007: 38)

as ‘strategies of accommodation and avoidance were replaced by strategies of confrontation

and radicalization’ (Picard, 2002: 153). A consequence of the war was the creation of more

ethnically homogeneous, self-contained and exclusive spaces, which have the effect of

maintaining communal solidarity and consolidating the exercise of local power by former

militia warlords now reinvented as political leaders (Khalaf, 2012).6 Post-war Lebanon has

undergone a process of remilitarization as the various ‘sectarian militias reorganized and

rearmed themselves, and urban space was physically and symbolically divided into exclusive

sectarian ghettos’ (Salloukh et al, 2015: 29).

Key to ending the war was the Taef Agreement (1989),7 which restored power sharing to

Lebanon. Like Northern Ireland, a number of anxious commentators argue that post-war

Lebanese society has experienced the ‘impoverishment of public life and erosion of civility’

(Khalaf, 2012: 4). For the eminent sociologist Samir Khalaf (2012: 81), ‘the modicum of

pluralism the country once enjoyed is now generating large residues of paranoia, hostility and

differential bonding’. Central to this story, for many commentators, is Lebanon’s power

sharing structure, which ‘has failed in its task of providing stable and properly functioning

public institutions’ (Haddad, 2009: 414). For Salloukh et al (2015: 2), Lebanese power

sharing ‘is deployed instrumentally by a sectarian/political elite bent on reproducing sectarian

identities and obviating the emergence of alternative, trans-sectarian or non-sectarian, modes

of political mobilization’. Yet, like Northern Ireland, the process of sectarian communalism is

far from complete. The so-called ‘hidden third’ (Farha, 2009: 92) of Lebanon – those

individuals that disidentify from ethnic categories and cultivate a national belonging – is not

insignificant. Survey evidence demonstrates that ethnoreligious affiliation comes second to a

shared Lebanese national identity for members across all sectors of society.

<TABLE 1.3 HERE>

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As divided societies, Northern Ireland and Lebanon share some similarities. The use of power

sharing after violent conflict allows for comparison and to examine its effects on a range of

groups that do not belong to the main ethnic cleavages of the divided society. At the same

time, it is important to stress that these societies are significantly different and these

variations generate critical opportunities and problems for non-sectarian movements.

As we shall explore in the book, Lebanon’s power sharing structure is defined as ‘corporate’,

which means that the main ethnic groups are reserved forms of representation in all areas of

public life. Peace in Lebanon is conceptualized on theoretically maintaining the balance of

power between the contending groups. This system provides no space for non-sectarian

identities, which are even framed as a danger to national stability. The political system

provides little or no access to the claims of non-sectarian movements. In Lebanon, rather than

limit their demands to the political system, non-sectarian movements often advance a radical

politics of resistance and challenge to power sharing.

Northern Ireland, alternatively, is defined as ‘liberal’, which means that none of the main

ethnic groups are assured positions in political and social arrangements. Voters in Northern

Ireland can select any candidates they deem fit from a common roll; there are no seats or

political positions reserved for specific ethnonational groups; executive places are distributed

among parties based on their performances in free and democratic elections (McGarry and

O’Leary, 2009). In practical terms, this means that ethnonational blocs could disappear if

voters decided to put their support behind parties who advanced non-ethnic issues that

crosscut cleavages. Rather than freeze the equilibrium between groups, Northern Ireland’s

power sharing rests on a minority rights regime. While minority rights are conceived as

fundamentally designed to protect the salient ethnic groups, it is broad enough to encourage

other minority groups to demand inclusion. Thus, Northern Ireland’s liberal power sharing,

based on ‘parity of esteem’ for group identities, allows some scope for non-sectarian

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movements access to group rights. Yet, since group rights are the basis for nationalist and

unionist contestation in post-Agreement Northern Ireland, the mobilization of non-sectarian

groups for rights becomes conflated with the wider ethnonational struggle. Non-sectarian

movements, within the context of liberal power sharing, are thus the subject of co-option by

the main ethnonational groups.8

A major part of this book, therefore, is to consider the various ways that these contrasting

power sharing forms impact on non-sectarian groups and to consider how such movements

mobilize within the violently divided society.

Methodological Approach

This book is largely based on ethnographic research in Northern Ireland and Lebanon. While

fieldwork in Northern Ireland is continuing since 2006 (see, Nagle, 2008a; 2008b; 2009a;

2009b; 2009c; 2013), research was conducted during three fieldwork phases for Lebanon

during September 2012, July 2014 and June 2015 (see Nagle, 2015). The methodological

approach for this research is diverse. A constructivist epistemology was utilized for

interviewing political elites and social movement activists and an interpretative framework

for analysing them. In the constructivist epistemology, the object of qualitative research is to

understand that knowledge is gained, or at least filtered, through the social constructions of

the individuals we research. The interpretative framework does not outline testable

hypotheses, but instead focuses on understanding the social context in which humans make

sense of their subjective reality and to attach meaning to it as the situation develops. Thus, the

point is, as Grillo (2007: 981) notes, is to deal with the:

subjective dimension, the ideas, models, projects, definitions, discourses etc that actors bring to bear

on a situation, sometimes very hesitantly, often seeking to work with (or clarify) concepts that are

difficult, opaque, elusive, and with multiple contested meanings.

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What ethnographic and anthropological research provides is the capacity to explore the

‘everyday’ ‘fuzzy’, ‘ambiguous’ and the almost always complex ways that subjects

understand, engage with, and actively use the ideas and resources which emerge from social

movement activity in divided societies. Alongside this, archival research and attitudinal

survey evidence is utilized.

Conducting research in violently divided societies presents particular problems for the

researcher. First, the researcher often engages with organizations that may be criminalized,

demeaned, and can be quite vulnerable. The researcher is required to be sensitive to the

ethical issues of representing such individuals and groups. Thus, in some parts of this book,

some individuals are kept anonymous.

Second, since all politics are practically incorporated within the logic of ethnicity in divided

societies, it is unrealistic for ethnographers to expect that their research will somehow remain

independent from the predominant cleavage. Academic research – despite the wish of the

ethnographer to be seen as neutral and biased – can easily be seen as favouring one of the

major ethnic groups. In the spirit of research reflexivity, ethnographers often reflect on their

own positionality – about how they conducted the research, on whom it was conducted, the

conditions it was conducted and the impact on those it was conducted. As part of this,

reflexivity entails ‘turning back on oneself, a process of self-reference’ (Davies, 1999: 4).

On the question of reflexivity, I will add just a few lines. My background means that I have a

closer affinity to Northern Ireland than Lebanon. Part of my family hails from nationalist

Belfast. Although I am not from Belfast, I did study at university there and subsequently

worked as a researcher across Northern Ireland. However, as someone not from Northern

Ireland I admit that I do have some degree of ‘outsiderness’ from the main ethnonational

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communities. As someone that does not belong to the ethnic groups, I have a strong

sympathy with those individuals and groups that are non-sectarian. Yet, I do understand that

my non-sectarian identity is not shared by a substantial section of the population. It is

important that my research does not provide pejorative characterizations of ethnicity and

nationalism. Through my research on Northern Ireland as an archetypical divided society led

me to explore other societies similarly defined as divided, which has brought me to Lebanon.

Thus, I did not have a connection to the region prior to research.

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1 Ethnonationalism is meant to refer to the conjoining of ethnicity with nationalism in self-determination movements. 2 A key exemplar of which remains the on-going dispute between the Orange Order and the Parades Commission as well as the continuing controversy over the decision by Belfast council in December 2012 to 2 A key exemplar of which remains the on-going dispute between the Orange Order and the Parades Commission as well as the continuing controversy over the decision by Belfast council in December 2012 to limit the amount of days that the Union flag will fly over Belfast City Hall. 3 For the sake of consistency, I use the term ‘Irish nationalist’ in relation to individuals and groups that desire the unification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland, their kin state. I recognize. However, that this elides the distinction between ‘Irish nationalists’ and ‘Irish republicans’. Thus, while ‘Irish nationalist’ is typically used to describe more moderate followers of Irish self-determination, ‘Irish republican’ is deployed to describe more hardline parties, some of which have utilized violent means to pursue Irish unity. Similarly, I use the term ‘unionists’ to describe individuals and groups that wish to maintain Northern Ireland’s position as part of the UK. I also recognize that this ignores the common distinction between ‘Ulster unionists’ and ‘loyalists’. While ‘unionist’ typically refers to moderates, ‘loyalist’ is commonly used in relation to groups willing to use violence to secure the union. 4 For the sake of consistency I call the 1998 peace accord the ‘Belfast Agreement’. I recognize, however, that alternative descriptors are used, such as the ‘Good Friday Agreement’ and the ‘Northern Ireland Agreement’. 5 At the time of writing (September 2015), the power sharing government has just been suspended.6 For example, during the civil war the Muslim population of East Beirut declined from 40 per cent to 5 per cent (see Khalaf, 2012: 83). 7 I recognize that there are different ways to spell ‘Taef’, including ‘Ta’if’ and ‘Taif’. 8 Northern Ireland’s status as a purely liberal form of consociationalism is somewhat contradicted as the system of group designation and mutual group veto can be interpreted as a proxy for corporate guarantees (McCulloch, 2014).