The Threat of (the Lack of) Social Cohesion: Preventing Violent Extremism in Lebanon

Abstract

The article explores Lebanon’s adoption of the Prevention of Violent Extremism (PVE) agenda in the second half of the 2010s and the consequences of the agenda’s focus on weak social cohesion. Employing the concepts of problematization and the assemblage perspective on intervention, the article analyzes the dominant focus and formation of the PVE agenda in Lebanon, as well as the heterogeneous group that contributed to the shaping of the agenda. It builds on a critical reading of PVE programmatic documents and interviews with actors responsible for designing the Lebanese National PVE Strategy and subsequent PVE projects. It argues that the concentration of the Lebanese PVE agenda on the country’s lack of social cohesion provided a language adoptable by both Lebanese and international actors and a tool to reach out to the ‘risky’ and ‘at risk’ communities alienated from the Lebanese state and sectarian elites in the years preceding the Lebanese uprising of 2019. In conclusion, the study points out the broader political effects of the PVE programs oriented toward strengthening social cohesion and shows how these programs lump together a wide range of social issues, while brushing away the underlying causes of popular discontent.