The Lebanese civil war: 20 years later

There is a temptation to emphasise the constants of instability when analysing Lebanese politics: divisive sectarianism, spill-over of regional conflicts, and clientelism. The political crisis of 2005 to 2008 with its outbursts of violence seemed to confirm the impression that nothing much has changed since the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990. Yet the focus on seemingly static features of Lebanese politics does not explain the timing of crises and obscures the significant social and economic changes of the last twenty years.