Reinoud Leenders

‘Regional conflict formations’: Is the Middle East next?

Abstract As Iraq is plunging into civil war, politics and violence in the Middle East are increasingly perceived to be highly interconnected and entwined. This article offers an attempt to understand the nature and scope of this regional interconnectedness involving three of the regions states—Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Its approach takes advantage of the work by scholars of other regions than the Middle East, more precisely those analysing the ‘new wars’ and ‘Regional Conflict Formations (rcfs) of primarily Central and West Africa and the Balkans. The article suggests that, provided some methodological problems are addressed or at least acknowledged, the rcf model offers a useful approach to studying and addressing this regions multiple conflicts. Its assessment of the rcf models utility in reference to the Middle Eas—broken down along the suggested levels of military networks, political networks, economic/financial networks and social networks—suggests that its emphasis on material – physical linkages neglects important symbolic – political resources that easily cross borders and are equally determining in fuelling and framing conflicts. This lacuna is echoed in US policy making toward the Middle East. The article concludes that, in order to avoid myopia in both analysis and policy making, such more discursive processes ought to be integrated into and made complementary with the rcf conceptualisation of conflict-related cross-border traffic. This will also allow for better analysis of the complexity of identity politics and it underscores the fallacy of assumed Western exogeneity to this regions conflicts.

Nobody Having too Much to Answer for: Laissez-Faire, Networks, and Postwar Reconstruction in Lebanon

Lebanon has long been considered a rare exception to the state dirigisme and plan economies prevailing in its neighboring countries and, indeed, the developing world at large. While other countries resorted to inefficient state enterprise, fixed multiple exchange rates, marketing boards, and consumer subsidy schemes, Lebanon appeared to enjoy the fruits of an open and liberal economy characterized by consistent surpluses on its balance of payments, no public debt to speak of, and steady economic growth. Indeed, between 1950 and 1974 national income against constant prices is estimated to have risen by 617 percent, or an average of more than 8 percent per year—unusually high for a Middle Eastern country lacking oil resources.1 Especially between 1970 and 1974 growth of GDP skyrocketed. With an average growth rate of 16 percent per year in this period, Lebanon seemed to have consolidated its role as financial entrepot for the region, absorbing large inflows of foreign currencies from the Gulf countries. In the process, relatively high living standards were achieved, as illustrated by high literacy rates, high life expectancy, and high levels of consumption and education.2 Even during the Lebanese wars (1975–1990), the country’s economy continued to outperform most of its non—oil producing Arab neighbors, leaving one Lebanese economist to describe the country’s “credo of laissez-faire” as so deeply engrained that no warlord—no matter how “socialist” in outlook—would think of touching it.3

Strong states in a troubled region: anatomies of a Middle Eastern regional conflict formation

This article calls for closer attention to the Middle East in the wider debate on the purported rise of new modes of armed conflict following the end of the Cold War, particularly in relation to the notion of ‘regional conflict formations’ (RCFs). In so doing, it presents and analyses three main paradoxes. First, though the contemporary Middle East had its own share of intrastate conflicts that generally grew into regional constellations, a look at the regions post-colonial history suggests that such trends are not as novel as has often been claimed. Second, the striking longevity of regionally entwined conflict in the Middle East calls into question the common and generalizing argument that it was the end of the Cold War, together with the alleged disengagement of the superpowers, that constituted the radical shifts – including the rise of RCFs – that signalled the demise of old forms of politics and conflict involving weak states. Third, Middle Eastern states, mostly authoritarian in outlook, have over recent decades become stronger despite prevailing conditions of regionalized conflict; indeed, as tentatively suggested in this article, to some extent because of those factors.

Outsourcing state violence: The National Defence Force, ‘stateness’ and regime resilience in the Syrian war

Abstract This article engages with and contributes to a nascent debate on state-sponsored militias by way of an analysis of the formation and deployment of the Syrian regime’s National Defence Force (NDF). This militia emerged from the regime’s rich repertoire in outsourcing violence and allowing ‘heterarchical orders’ to serve regime maintenance purposes at home and abroad. During the Syrian war (2011–…), the key rationale for using such militias is primarily to address manpower shortages. For an important but limited period, the NDF served this goal well as it contributed to the regime’s military advances. The regime’s devolution of its violence to militias including the NDF brought about a sharp contraction of its ‘stateness’ but this did not constitute ‘state failure’ or its collapse. In this context, the regime’s elaborate measures to manage or counter the risks and downsides of deploying non-state militias such as the NDF underscore its general adaptability in its authoritarian governance.

The First Time as Tragedy, the Second as Farce? Lebanon’s Nascent Petroleum Sector and the Risks of Corruption

Abstract This article analyses the risks of corruption in Lebanon’s nascent governance structures established in preparation for a thriving petroleum sector. Engaging with comparative theory on the ‘oil curse’, the article assesses the risks of corruption in the institutional and regulatory measures and policy tools that have thus far been developed down the sector’s value chain and including revenue management and expenditure. Lebanon’s political settlement, or the ways in which its political decision-making process evolved since the Ta’if Accord, consistently caused disappointing outcomes when it comes to sound institution-building and countering corruption; despite signs of awareness of the large stakes involved, this tendency is once again discernible in the country’s preparations for petroleum sector governance.

Political Corruption in Eastern Europe: Politics after Communism. By Tatiana Kostadinova. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2012. 303p.

More than 20 years ago, when Eastern European countries embarked on their corruption-prone transitions from communism, Robert Klitgaard ( Adjusting to Reality: Beyond “State versus Market” in Economic Development, 1991), once designated the “worlds leading expert on corruption” (in The Christian Science Monitor, March 2, 1994), proposed the abandonment of the search for the “many, many causes and conditions” of corruption. In despair at what he saw as academic hair splitting in the burgeoning study of corruption, he claimed to be more “pragmatic” by focusing instead on ways by which policy and management could reduce corruption. In hindsight, Klitgaards intellectual impatience appears ironic as the debate on the causes of corruption was only about to commence, resulting in an expanding list of suggested causes—often derived from Eastern European experiences.

62.50.

law, but the concrete ‘geometrization’ of the empty (first European, then colonial) space, which is ‘cut’ and defined by boundaries and frontiers. Modern European nation states first clearly demarcated their own borders, and then turned to conquer colonial spaces, thus organizing the world legally and politically. 300 Book reviews