Hamas and Hezbollah: hybrid actors between resistance and governance

Abstract

Abstract This analytical review essay discusses five recent books on Hamas and Hezbollah, which see the groups as peculiar yet increasingly important actors in the Middle East and in international relations more broadly. The books illustrate a growing attention to these actors, not merely as armed spoilers, but as legitimate incumbents in national elections and providers of local governance. They also highlight the challenges this approach creates for traditional International Relations (IR) frameworks, in which such actors are not easily situated. Together, the books provide a rich actor-centred perspective on these cases and display various complementary social scientific theories, methods and data with which they can be approached. This review aims to tease out the novel insights these works and cases have to offer for recent debates on norm contestation in IR. Rather than evaluating these actors' discourse and behaviour against western normative frameworks in IR and international politics, the books contribute by exposing a wealth of different norms, and different approaches to interpreting and applying norms, beyond those frameworks.