Bringing the State and Political Economy Back in: Consociationalism and Crisis in Lebanon

Abstract

Beirut’s 2015 garbage crisis provoked protests against unaccountable elites. Consociationalists consider such crises an external “load” on the system. I argue that consociation can actually cause crises by enabling elite rent-seeking. Drawing on Jessop and Poulantzas, I show that the consociational elite cartel “condenses” class interests into the Lebanese state. Concord among elites and inclusion of Gulf capital enabled rent creation through privatized garbage collection in the 1990s. This concord among rent-seeking elites made the state “agile.” In 2015, a return to consociational “immobilism” prevented effective waste-management. State and political economy must therefore be part of any assessment of consociationalism.