Militancy and Political Violence in Shiism Edition 1 by Assaf Moghadam

Author:Assaf Moghadam [Moghadam, Assaf]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Middle East, General, Political Science, Political Freedom, Terrorism
ISBN: 9780415721592
Google: ZPMrnQEACAAJ
Amazon: B006G7H856
Barnesnoble: B006G7H856
Goodreads: 19766340
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-06-30T11:13:45+00:00

Trends in Hizballah’s militancy and political role

Aside from the development of an effective religious and political ideology, an additional element contributing to Hizballah’s power and status both within Lebanon and in the Middle East is the group’s ability to transform and adapt to the shifting security and political circumstances. To date, this translates into three broad trends that define Hizballah’s militancy: the transformation from a marginal political group into a key Lebanese political party; from a traditional guerrilla organization to a hybrid quasi army;57 and from a sectarian and domestic player into an increasingly more involved regional actor.

Since first joining the Lebanese political system in the aftermath of the civil war, Hizballah has become an integrated political party, consistently competing in Lebanese parliamentary (1996, 2000, 2005, and 2009) as well as municipal (1998, 2004, and 2010) elections.58 In doing so, the group has relied on the political support among its key Shii constituency, while pragmatically developing ad hoc cross-sectarian electoral alliances to maximize its power.59 An important example of this trend is the creation and maintenance since 2005 of the “March 8” political alliance with traditional political ally Amal and the Christian Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) of Michel Aoun.60

Until 2005, Hizballah’s role in the Lebanese political arena was that of an opposition party that refused to take part in the executive government. This posture changed as a result of the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon in April 2005, which forced the group to shift gears and join the Executive Cabinet for the first time by holding two posts in the March 14–led government.61 Without the Syrian “tutelage” guaranteeing that Hizballah’s strategic interests would not be questioned within the government—specifically its right to bear arms and to implement its “resistance” agenda—the group felt the need to step up its political activism and become more directly involved in the executive government. Since then, Hizballah’s objective has been to maintain, along with its electoral allies, the veto power within the Executive Cabinet, allowing it to increase its domestic influence and to ensure that no decision against the group’s military apparatus would be implemented.62 Following the June 2009 legislative elections and the electoral victory of the March 14 coalition,63 Hizballah has not modified its political strategy, and it has used its political power and popular legitimacy to obtain a favorable distribution of seats in the new Executive Cabinet. The elections resulted in the formation of a “unity cabinet” composed of 15 members of the March 14 coalition, ten members of the opposition, and five “independents” chosen by President Michel Suleyman and largely viewed to be non-threatening to Hizballah’s strategic interests. In other words, the party has become substantially more entrenched in the Lebanese political arena, and it is interested in maintaining, and possibly increasing, its current political power. This can be seen from the November 2009 Manifesto’s calls to preserve a system based on “consensual democracy” and to work towards abolishing the sectarian political system (a proportional, non-confessional based system would in fact highly enhance the power of the Shii community, currently underrepresented in the parliament, and of Hizballah).

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