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Clientalism, Lebanon: Roots and Trends

Although patronage is prevalent in developed and lesser developed countries alike, clientalism may be more entrenched in Lebanon than in most other countries. In fact, there have been a number of theoretical works and a myriad of empirical analyses of patronage and clientalism in modern societies.' These studies explicitly voiced a number of important observations. First, clientalistic arrangements are not destined to disappear or even to remain on the margins of the society with the establishment of modern regimes. Rather than dying out, the patron-client relationship has been found to crystallize in a great variety of forms. Second, patronage and clientalism assume a certain logic of social exchange; that is, clientalistic arrangements are built around asymmetric but mutually beneficial and open ended transactions.2 Third, patron-client relations either have long permeated the central core of the society or have become an 'addendum' to the central institutional modes of organization, interaction and exchange.3 In this article, I will argue that despite the establishment of modem Lebanon, clientalism has evolved and persisted along with other 'modem' forms of participation. Its various forms have had a constraining effect on the enactment ofuniversalistic policies and discouraged the development of citizen participation and support as contingent to general policy implementation. Accordingly, I first examine how clientalism is rooted in and intertwined with the Lebanese political system. I also discuss the coexistence of various forms of clientalism, by focusing on the transformation of patronclient relations from traditional forms of patronage to clientelistic brokerage typical of contemporary Lebanon. Finally, I will shed some light on the future trends of clientalism in Lebanon.