Lebanon has long been considered a failed state, a perception seemingly confirmed by years of wars and crises, corruption and disasters.
Corinna Bender directs the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s Beirut Office.
Jan Altaner is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge and a doctoral fellow at the Orient Institute in Beirut.
However, glimmers of hope have recently begun to emerge in this crisis-weary society since a ceasefire agreement in late November put an end to the war with Israel and a new president and prime minister were elected after years of stalemate. Is this small, religiously diverse country on the brink of disaster or the verge of a new beginning?
From Independence to Confessional Distribution
The Lebanese state, which arose under French colonial rule, gained its independence in 1943. Influential representatives of the Christian Maronites, who had enjoyed special privileges under the French, secured political dominance for their denomination in a “national pact” with representatives from Muslim denominations. Under this arrangement, political representation and power were allocated along sectarian lines in accordance with the tendentious results of the only census ever conducted, which ensured a parliamentary majority for the Christian population. The Maronites appointed the president, the Sunnis the prime minister, and the Shiites the speaker of the parliament. This confessional distribution system still characterizes the country today.
After independence, Lebanon pursued an ultraliberal economic policy, with Beirut attracting billions of petrodollars and growing to become the region’s leading centre for banking, trade, and services. At the same time, quasi-feudal political conditions remained; a small oligarchy of closely related families dominated almost every sector of the economy. Prosperity was limited to the upper and middle classes in Beirut and the surrounding Christian-dominated mountain regions, while Shiites, who made up about a third of the population, remained mostly poor and marginalized. These inequalities, combined with conflicts over the country’s geopolitical orientation, culminated in a three-month civil war in 1958, which, following the first US military intervention in the Arab world, ended with the appointment of army general Fouad Chehab as president.
The new government must now rally as much support as possible in order to implement fundamental reforms.
Chehab initiated efforts to strengthen state institutions and implement comprehensive reforms aimed at redressing socio-economic inequality, particularly through infrastructure projects on the periphery. However, these reform efforts failed due to resistance from the established elites, who successfully defended their sinecures and the nepotistic system.
Furthermore, the Arab defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War politicized and radicalized the public — especially in Beirut, which was then the centre of political movements, dissidents, and artists in the Arab world. Progressive forces were in solidarity with the Palestinians in their fight for freedom as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were living in Lebanese refugee camps. Conservative Christian groups, however, saw the political system (which favoured them) threatened by the refugees’ presence — and by the Palestinian guerrillas, whose armed operations against Israel undermined the state’s monopoly on the use of force.
Civil War and the Post-War Order
Growing political polarization led to another civil war in 1975. During the war, both the old elite and the new warlords succeeded in turning the conflict into a sectarian one, not least by massacring civilians of different faiths. During this period, Syria and Israel began their decades-long occupation of large parts of the country.
It took the Taif Agreement, brokered by Saudi Arabia in 1990, to end the fifteen-year civil war, which left around 100,000 dead and 900,000 displaced. The agreement provided for parliamentary parity between Christian and Muslim representatives, a vague intention to gradually abolish political confessionalism, and the disarmament of all militias except for Hezbollah, which was fighting against Israel’s ongoing occupation of southern Lebanon.
But the political elite, who managed to transition into the post-war period without facing prosecution thanks to an amnesty law, never had any real intention of abolishing confessionalism. On the contrary, they used the neoliberal agenda initiated by billionaire entrepreneur and later prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri to plunder the state and consolidate the confessional and neo-feudal system.
Hezbollah’s military resistance forced Israel to end its occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, which gave the Shiite party and militia, allied with Syria and Iran, a significant boost in popularity and influence.
In 2005, the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri sparked mass protests that led to the end of Syria’s occupation of the country. However, this Cedar Revolution also divided the political class into a pro-Western and a pro-Iranian camp (the Axis of Resistance), which led to paralysis in the consensus-based political system. As a result, corrupt self-enrichment became the lowest common denominator for the elites, while the population increasingly suffered under economic misrule.
Mass Protests and the Collapse of the State
In 2019, mass protests that transcended religious divides erupted against the regime once again. But this time too, the elites managed to stall reforms and break the momentum of the protests. At the same time, their corrupt financial practices triggered a massive financial crisis, during which inflation wiped out the middle class and the bankrupt state itself was no longer able to provide basic services. Three-quarters of the population fell below the poverty line. The explosion in the port of Beirut in 2020 devastated the capital even further.
The most recent war between Hezbollah and Israel further exacerbated the situation. Shortly after the Hamas massacre on 7 October 2023, the Shiite militia opened a second front with limited shelling of northern Israel. The conflict remained largely confined to the border region until September 2024, when Israel’s “pager attacks”, subsequent air strikes, and renewed ground invasion escalated the war across the country. In the process, a large proportion of Hezbollah’s leadership, including its secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, was killed, along with hundreds of civilians. Severely weakened, the militia agreed to a ceasefire in November 2024.
Lebanon once again finds itself at a crossroads.
The agreement is based on UN Resolution 1701 and includes the establishment of a buffer zone from which the Hezbollah militia must withdraw, as well as the withdrawal of Israeli forces. The Lebanese army and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are tasked with ensuring the ceasefire while an international committee monitors its implementation. Restoring Lebanon’s monopoly on the use of force, and thus disarming Hezbollah, is tied to the international financial aid the country urgently needs.
Despite the ceasefire, Israel continues to strike targets in Lebanon every day. The Netanyahu government has also rejected a complete end to the occupation of southern Lebanon.
The Brink of Disaster or a New Beginning?
Since the ceasefire deal was signed, large parts of Lebanese society have nevertheless felt a sense of optimism. This shift in mood has been helped by the fact that, after years of political deadlock, parliamentarians agreed to elect former army chief Joseph Aoun as the new president and former president of the International Court of Justice Nawaf Salam as the new prime minister.
The new government must now rally as much support as possible in order to implement fundamental reforms. The United States and Saudi Arabia, whose pressure made the presidential election possible in the first place and on whose support Lebanon is financially dependent, are pushing — along with Israel — for Iran and Hezbollah to be marginalized. But as the largest representatives of the Shiite population, Hezbollah and its allied Amal Movement are politically too significant to be easily isolated or ignored. In the meantime, however, their role and responsibility are being discussed much more openly — including within Hezbollah itself, which must reinvent itself after its military defeat.
Meanwhile, civil society is calling for an end to the Israeli occupation, the nationwide reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure, a fairer distribution of the burdens of the financial crisis, a forensic investigation into the port explosion, and a reform of political confessionalism. The latter comprises a secular model based on equal civil and voting rights, an independent judiciary, and a crackdown on clientelism. Given the increasing global disregard for international law, cuts to development funding, and the resistance of local elites, it will not be easy for Salam’s government to fulfil these demands.
Lebanon once again finds itself at a crossroads. In the past, efforts to establish a more just social order have repeatedly failed due to four persistent structural factors: the stubborn defence of the elites’ interests, the marginalization of large parts of the population, foreign influence, and the confessional political system. How well the new government and civil society will succeed in untangling the Gordian knot of these challenges is just as unclear as the outcome of the parliamentary elections scheduled for May 2026.
However, these elections could hold the key to long-awaited change. The population is as tired of the domestic political impasses as it is of the ongoing foreign interventions. Moreover, the population is highly politicized and mobilizable — now is the time to harness this momentum for credible reforms and to dismantle the confessional system.
Two conditions must be met for these steps to be successfully implemented: first, the international community must finally put an end to external interference in Lebanese politics and credibly guarantee Lebanon’s territorial integrity. Second, the Lebanese government must develop a realistic programme of reforms that is supported by the majority of the population. Only then can a change of policy in Lebanon succeed.
This article first appeared in nd.Aktuell in collaboration with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Translated by Charlotte Bull and Joseph Keady for Gegensatz Translation Collective.