The following chapter traces the history of Lebanese politics, reflecting on the structural factors that facilitate the involvement of external powers. It suggests that the structural organization of the state allows for external patronage in support of communal interests and, amid times of crisis, this patronage is seen to be a necessity. Moreover, the geopolitical significance of Lebanon means that external actors also seek local allies as a means of countering rivals who already possess influence across the state while local actors also seek to position themselves within broader regional currents. To understand the competition over Lebanon, we must trace the historical development of the Lebanese state which allows for identification of the structural factors conditioning – or limiting – the deployment of capital and foreign policy activities.

Tripoli, October 2019: Young people from various religious backgrounds and all walks of life sang and danced together in the city’s central al-Nour Square, shattering the myth of Tripoli as a ‘cradle of terrorism’ or ‘citadel of Muslims’. The Islamists who had often dominated Tripoli’s urban space retreated, and youths, families, and members of the educated middle class filled al-Nour Square during Lebanon’s revolutionary moment.

Why and how did Tripoli become the country’s prime centre of contentious politics in otherwise-peripheral Lebanon?

The introduction presents the main argument of the book, introducing the concepts of the dethronement of secondary cities, politics of autochthony, and erosion of city corporatism in Tripoli. It then discusses the broader lessons of the Tripoli case, which speak to three strands of literature: studies of Lebanon and the Levant; discussions on sectarianization in the Middle East; and debates on the ‘Sunni Crisis’ in the Middle East. Lastly, the research methods used for data collection are presented.

The Arab-Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan) has long been at the center of cultural, social, and geopolitical changes in the region, which have been central in shaping the development of psychological practice and science in the region. The region has been at the cross section of multiple foreign influences (French, British, US, Arab), all of whom have impacted academia. This resulted not only in multiple ideologies and schools of psychological thought that remain until today, but also in a trilingual academic system that further deepens the disconnect among psychologists and test-takers in the region. Additionally, the Levant’s experience of occupation, trauma, diaspora, and political instability has led to an increased need and interest in mental health services and displaced populations, and hence the measurement of related constructs. More recently, with increased funding for research on such populations, non-Arab researchers have gained a renewed interest in the region, which has led the way to increased collaborative efforts in the development of psychometric tools. This chapter discusses how these contemporary historical developments have impacted testing-related practices academia, research, and practice in clinical, educational, and industrial/organizational practice.

Following the Torch operations, de Gaulle faced an escalating imperial crisis in the Levant. Indigenous nationalist groups demanded that de Gaulle follow through on his independence promises. These demands placed the British-Gaullist relationship under increasing pressure. This chapter explores the first of two major crises that erupted in the Levant between 1943 and 1945. Following nationalist victories in the November 1943 elections, French colonial official Jean Helleu arrested the newly elected Lebanese leadership in a bid to preserve French influence.

The arrests were criticised in the local, regional and global press. In the Arab world, the Egyptian press brandished the Atlantic Charter’s promises of the right of self-determination, much as anti-imperial nationalists had drawn on American President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points in 1919. In Britain, the press called on its own officials to back independence demands to uphold British honour, which had been compromised thanks to French intransigence.

This episode also highlighted the contradictions between maintaining British regional prestige and preserving the public face of the British-Gaullist relationship. British Foreign Office officials argued that intervening on the side of the Levantine nationalists would jeopardise British influence in Egypt, Palestine and Iraq. Publicly backing the French position, however, would destroy British regional influence.

One of the most significant sources of Anglo-Gaullist tension throughout this period was the future independence of the French mandated Levant territories (Syria and Lebanon). Operation Exporter (June-July 1941) was the first protracted battle fought by Anglo-Free French forces to secure French territory loyal to Vichy. It also marked a resurgence of imperial rivalry that escalated over the next four years.

This chapter introduces another complicating factor into the Anglo-Free French relationship: anti-imperial nationalist movements and their demands for independence. It explores Britain’s policy of pressuring de Gaulle to endorse full independence for both states. British policy-makers attempted to manage the rhetoric of Arab nationalism in order to preserve Britain’s regional influence. They removed references to an inherent Franco-Levantine bond from official Free French statements. They also directed the British press to avoid any mention of the Anglo-Egyptian treaty due to its broad unpopularity. The Free French, reliant upon British monetary and military support, had to acquiesce to British demands to preserve their outward legitimacy.

This chapter has two objectives: (1) to compare and contrast Tunisia’s successful pathway to constitution-making and democratization to the failed pathways in other Arab nations, and (2) to discuss the lessons learned from the failure of the Arab Spring to democratize the region. The chapter contends that despite being a failed democratization project, the Arab Spring created a new repertoire for change in an exceptionally authoritarian region. The mistakes and the bad choices and decisions made then will continue to live as lessons learned by people who for the first time were empowered to bring about democratic change from below.

This chapter explores why, in the wake of similar exposure to drought in the mid-2000s, Syria experienced a civil war but Lebanon did not.

The 1960s and 1970s are often remembered as the age of the Third World guerrilla. But by the mid-1970s, the seemingly unstoppable force of secular Third World liberation, embodied by the Tricontinental Conference, had lost momentum. A new generation of liberation fighters mobilizing sectarian and ethnic identities in local struggles gradually overtook secular left-wing revolutionaries.

Nowhere were these changes more pronounced than the Middle East. During the heyday of the Third World guerrilla, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) captured attention by casting itself as an Arab Viet Cong. Despite spectacular operations against Israel and its Western supporters, the PLO could not achieve lasting gains. By the mid-1970s, Palestinian fighters were pulled into the bloody Lebanese Civil War, which devolved into a conflict between rival sectarian groups. Soon after, the 1979 Revolution in Iran demonstrated that theocratic radicalism had become a significant player on the world stage. By the late 1980s, secular liberation fighters such as the PLO were replaced by the likes of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Mujahideen as the vanguard of revolutionary forces in the Middle East.

In the Second Lebanon War the effectiveness of Israeli air operations at the operational level was minimal, with success limited to a subset of targets for which there was good intelligence and proved to be easy to find from the air, such as Hezbollah’s medium-range rocket launchers. However, Hezbollah’s rocket campaign against Israel, the IAF’s partial response to this challenge, and Israel’s unwillingness to end this military struggle without defeating Hezbollah developed into an attrition air campaign. In the short term it appears both Israel and Hezbollah achieved some of their political goals in the war – a mixed outcome in a war of limited political aims. Yet the cumulative damage to Hezbollah from Israeli air strikes ultimately generated significant, long-lasting effects. Although in this asymmetric conflict air power proved ineffective in stopping the war, it was effective in the long run by imposing costs that deterred further conflict.