Lebanon: a model or a counter-model for the political regulation of cultural pluralism?

He will do so at the conference “Lebanon: Model or counter-model for the political regulation of cultural pluralism?”, which he is organizing Arab house that day starting at 19:00 PM at their Auditorium in Madrid.

The conference will be presented and moderated by Olivia Orozco, coordinator of Training and Economy at Casa Árabe, and will also feature presentations by Susana Cuena, researcher at the Chair of Intelligence Services and Democratic Systems of the Rey Juan Carlos University of Madrid, with which Casa Árabe co-organizes this session. 

Lebanon is an exception, an outdated model.

Lebanon is often presented as a kind of democratic exception, albeit a relative one, in an Arab Middle East where political authoritarianism remains the norm, despite the fleeting breath of freedom brought by the popular uprisings of 2011. While it exhibits certain features of a representative liberal democracy—such as multi-party politics and the holding of elections at more or less regular intervals—its political system has the peculiarity of organizing the distribution of power among the eighteen officially recognized religious communities based on their supposed, rather than actual, demographic weight. 

This unique characteristic made Lebanon, for a long time, a model of coexistence and an emblematic case of the confessional theory of power (political confessionalism). However, it must be acknowledged that the "model" as such now seems exhausted, weakened by the tensions affecting it both internally (communal polarizations, political stagnation, the possession of weapons by certain groups, such as Hezbollah, economic and financial crises) and in terms of regional geopolitics, uncertainties in Syria, etc. 

However, while immediate history cannot be ignored, only by taking into account the so-called "long historical duration" (longue durée historique) can one understand the opposing logics that operate in this "model".

 
Thus, in his speech, René Otayek will talk about the historical, political and social dynamics that have shaped Lebanese confessionalism, as well as its effects on pluralism, the functioning of the political system and the public life of the country. 

The conference has been organized in collaboration with the Master's Degree in Intelligence Analysis and the Degree in Intelligence, Security and Diplomacy, both programs of the Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC). 

Date: Wednesday December 3

Time: 19.00h

Location: Arab House