UPPSATSER: Kulturgeografiska institutionen

Hezbollah as a Reconstruction Leader Participatory Planning in the Rebuilding of Haret

Hreik, Lebanon, Post-War 2006

Yasmin Tag-Eldeen

ABSTRACT Tag-Eldeen, Y. 2020. Hezbollah as a Reconstruction Leader: Participatory Planning in the Rebuilding of Haret Hreik, Post-War 2006. Kulturgeografiska institutionen, Uppsatser, Uppsala universitet. This paper assesses the politicized nature of reconstruction efforts in the aftermath of the Israeli-Lebanese July War of 2006. It illustrates the factors driving the polarized nature of Lebanese politics, as well as the reasons for which a faith-based non-governmental organization such as Hezbollah was able to take the leading role in the reconstruction of Haret Hreik, a southern suburb of Beirut. Through a literature review, the study will demonstrate that the power struggle to lead post-war reconstruction can be seen as a reflection of Lebanon’s internal political and religious divisions, often along sectarian lines, as well as a lack of democratic accountability and the retreat of the state. Finally, in examining the implications for participatory planning when faith-based, non-state actors serve as reconstruction leaders in a politicized post-war context, the study contributes to the literature on citizen participation, power in urban planning and non-state actors within neoliberal urban governance. Keywords: participatory planning, Project Wa’d, neoliberalism, Hezbollah, post-war reconstruction Supervisor: Donald Mitchell

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 31. INTRODUCTION 4

1.1 Purpose and Research Question 51.2 Definitions 51.3 Outlining 7

2. BACKGROUND 82.1 The July War of 2006 82.2 Aftermath of the War 82.3 Lebanon’s Political Landscape 92.4 History and Ideology of Hezbollah 102.5 Reconstruction and Hezbollah as a Reconstruction Leader 122.6 Project Wa’d 13

3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 173.1 Post-War Reconstruction 173.2 Neoliberalism and Non-State Actors 183.3 A Ladder of Citizen Participation 213.4 Operationalization 24

4. METHOD 264.1 Case study design 264.2 Qualitative Literature Study 26

5. ANALYSIS 285.1 Ladder of Participation in Project Wa’d: Tokenism and Non-Participation 295.2 Hezbollah’s Reconstruction Efforts: A Neoliberal Project? 33

6. CONCLUSION 36REFERENCES 39

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to dedicate this thesis to my loving and caring mother, Zeinab Noureddine Tag-Eldeen, who passed away one month before this essay was completed. One of the many things we shared in common was our interest in politics within the Middle East region, specifically Lebanon, her homeland. Together, we discussed this essay thoroughly, where she shared her guidance and comments, since she herself was an Associate Professor at The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. The loss of my beautiful mother will forever be the toughest sorrow for me to carry. This essay is also dedicated to my loving father and the wisest, most hard working man I know, Mustafa Tag-Eldeen, who worked within Disaster Risk Management in over 50 countries, and who also passed away one year ago. They are my greatest motivation in all that I do, present and future. Thanks to my devoted parents I have experienced love, support and care beyond what this world will ever know. They have taught me generosity, commitment, ambition, thrive, hard work, warmth, gratitude, love and happiness. No words will ever be enough to explain the emptiness they have left in our hearts, nor will there be enough words to explain the love we as a family shared for each other. I would like to show my deepest gratitude and love for all those who have supported me and my sister Yara Tag-Eldeen, specifically during the loss of our lovely parents. Thank you to my closest friends; Julia Jokiaho and Mila Stieglitz-Courtney for not only giving me love, support and care, but assisting me in accomplishing this study with great interest, engagement and dedication from start, together with: Frida Nordlander and Maya Bushell; my supervisor Professor Donald Mitchell, for his patience, inspiration, and guidance; my twin sister Yara Tag-Eldeen for being my other half, supporting and holding my hand through every step; my childhood friends Sarah Gligoric, Lanna Gligoric, Ivana Gligoric and Yasmeen Ainholm for being the closest thing to family; and my loving aunties in Lebanon, Laila and Fatmeh Noureddine, who share the great loss of their sister and our mother. It would not have been possible without you.

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1. INTRODUCTION

In July 2006, the capture of two Israeli soldiers by the Lebanese Shia-Islamist

organization Hezbollah ignited an armed conflict between Israel and Lebanon that would

go on to last 34 days. The conflict, that would come to be known as the July War,

resulted in 1,200 Lebanese casualties, more than 3 billion USD in damage to civil

infrastructure, and irreparable economic damage to a country already struggling to

recover from a Civil War only fifteen years prior. By August 2006, over 2 billion USD

had flowed into the country for the purpose of helping its reconstruction efforts, coming

from a range of international and regional actors including the United Nations, Saudi

Arabia and Qatar (The Presidency of the Council of Ministers 2007).

Of the areas impacted during the July War, both in terms of civilian deaths and

damages to infrastructure, the southern region of Lebanon and southern Beirut populated

in majority by the Shia community were hardest hit, because of these areas’ ties to

Hezbollah. These spatial-political factors, which led to such disparate destructions within

the country, later marked the reconstruction efforts during the post-war period as well,

with Hezbollah leading the efforts to rebuild areas of their stronghold. The most notable

of these efforts, perhaps, was the reconstruction of Beirut's southern suburb Haret Hreik

through “Project Wa’d”, led by Hezbollah’s construction wing Jihad al-Bina’. Beginning

in 2006 directly after the war and completed by 2012, the project was remarkable in

terms of scope and speed. The nature of the reconstruction project, however, remains

contested, with specific respect to the participatory nature that the party espoused.

Despite promises from leading figures to make Haret Hreik, which had historically

hosted a number of Hezbollah’s headquarters, more beautiful than it was (Saliba 2015, p.

52), and regardless of hefty investments from the organization and its financial backers

into reconstruction, the neighborhood was rebuilt entirely as it had been previously,

despite the absence of public space and legal status of homes pre-2006. Furthermore,

while officials of the party publicly described the reconstruction as a direct response to

the community’s aspirations (Fawaz 2009), scholars have since argued that the process

responded strictly to Hezbollah’s political ambitions and their quest for territorial control.

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1.1 Purpose and Research Question

The purpose of this thesis thus seeks to study post-war planning when it occurs within a

complex power structure and highly politicized context. More specifically, an analysis

will be given of the post-war rebuilding efforts of Hezbollah within the aftermath of the

July War, with a specific focus on the reconstruction of Haret Hreik through “Project

Wa’d,” that was taken up by the faith-based organization’s construction wing Jihad al-

Bina’. As such, this paper will contribute to the literature on participatory planning by

focusing on a specific case-study wherein a non-governmental and faith-based

organization is one of the leading actors in a post-war recovery context. Drawing

primarily on Arnstein’s (1969) A Ladder of Citizen Participation, the case will, first and

foremost, be studied within the framework of participation within citizen decision-

making processes. It will focus on the literature relating to reconstruction efforts in

sectarian societies, as well as that of non-state actors within neoliberal urban regimes.

This work will set out specifically to answer the following research question:

What are the implications for participatory planning when faith-based non-governmental

organizations serve as actors in a highly politicized post-war recovery context?

1.2 Definitions

In order to study the implications of participatory planning in Hezbollah’s reconstruction

of Haret Hreik, the definitions and meanings of the relevant terminology must first be

outlined.

A non-governmental organization (NGO), as defined by Goldstein (2007), is an

organization that is responsible for the dissemination of information, advocacy or

circulation of a particular policy or group, or is involved in a nation’s national affairs

despite being unaffiliated with a specific government. This thesis will occasionally use

the term NGO and non-state actors interchangeably, typically in the context of

understanding how weak states give rise to non-governmental groups. It is, however,

worth distinguishing between Hezbollah and its construction wing Jihad al-Bina’, the

former of which is both a faith-based NGO and political party, whereas the latter is more

of a non-governmental entity.

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Neoliberalism can be defined as both an economic and political philosophy, one

which believes that markets should have a dominant and controlling role in all, or nearly

all, aspects of life, promoting privatization and economic efficiency above other values,

such as wealth redistribution, conservation, and social justice (Goldstein 2007, p. 388).

In this paper, neoliberalism helps contextualize the extent to which Hezbollah, as an

NGO, was able to supercede the state in reconstruction efforts post-2006, insofar as

neoliberal policies such as the deregulation of the market and the retreat of the state — in

the form of reduced government expenditure and redistribution and for the sake of greater

“economic efficiency” — help give rise to non-state actors seeking to fill the void left by

the state in social service provisions.

Finally, it is also necessary to outline the reasons for which this thesis views Hezbollah as

a faith-based organization (FBO), as opposed to a terrorist entity, a category designated

to the group by Israel and the United States. It will be argued that, given the context of

our study — a Shia community in southern Beirut whose neighborhood was intentionally

attacked during the 2006 war and in which Hezbollah is highly regarded — it is logical to

view the group as motivated by, or acting in conjunction with, its faith-based

underpinnings. The thesis will follow in the tradition of Lob (2018) and others, whose

research departs less from a concern with normative and semantic debates over whether

[Hezbollah] respectively constitute[s] a so-called rogue state and designated terrorist

organisation, but rather takes into account Hezbollah’s military wing, political bureau,

welfare network and media arm, among other institutions, which allow it to be

characterized as a “state-builder” (Ibid, p. 2104). A broader definition of an FBO has

proven difficult to construct among scholars, and has led to some divergence in how

these groups are understood. This thesis will draw upon Berger (2003, p. 16), who

defines religious, non-governmental organizations as:

Formal organizations whose identity and mission are self-consciously derived from the

teachings of one or more religious or spiritual traditions and which operates on a nonprofit,

independent, voluntary basis to promote and realize collectively articulated ideas about the

public good at the national or international level.

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1.3 Outlining

The thesis will proceed as follows: in Section 2, an extensive background on the July War

of 2006 will be given, as well as Lebanon’s political landscape before and after the war,

Hezbollah and its reconstruction efforts and, finally, Project Wa’d. In Section 3, a

theoretical framework will be outlined, which will later be used as a lens through which

the articles in the literature review will be studied. Section 4 describes the method used,

and Section 5 contains our analysis. Finally, Section 6 will contain our final remarks.

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2. BACKGROUND

In this section, an overview of the conflict will be given in order to contextualize the

reconstruction of Haret Hreik within its socio-political and historical backdrop. Firstly, an

overview of the causes and consequences of the war will be presented. Secondly, the

political context of Lebanon in the years preceding the war will be discussed, with a

focus on how this contributed to events in the aftermath of the conflict. Thirdly, a

detailed outline of the post war-reconstruction efforts will be given. Finally, there will be

an overview of Hezbollah and a presentation of “Project Wa’d”, the specific case-study

of interest.

2.1 The July War of 2006 On July 12th, 2006, in an operation titled “Truthful Promise”, two Israeli soldiers were

captured by Hezbollah in an effort to negotiate the exchange of Lebanese prisoners. Their

efforts failed, however, and, viewing the events as a provocation of war, Israel responded

with a full-scale armed conflict. Massive air strikes, alongside air and naval blockades,

began that same day, and on July 13th, 2006, Israel targeted Beirut-Rafic Hariri

International Airport. The war would continue for 34 days, until a cease-fire was formally

declared on September 8th, 2006, with Israel lifting its naval blockade of Lebanon (Al-

Harithy 2010). While the conflict impacted the entire country, and the Israeli government

viewed all Lebanese officials responsible for Hezbollah’s actions (Ibid), the areas of

Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Lebanon and Beirut were undoubtedly hardest hit by

air strikes, blockades and ground invasions (Al-Harithy 2010). Given the force of the

Israeli response, and the extent of the damages, many have come to understand the war as

an explicit effort to eradicate, or at least minimize, Hezbollah:

Israel transformed a relatively minor border skirmish with Hezbollah - of the kind that had been taking place intermittently since Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 - into a full scale war on Lebanon. Its objective was to neutralize Hezbollah once and for all, and to assist in the imposition of a Pax Americana in the Middle East (Makdisi 2006, p. 20).

2.2 Aftermath of the War

According to the Lebanese government, by the end of the July War, more than 1,183

civilians had been killed, 4,054 wounded and over 1.2 million temporarily or

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permanently displaced (Fattouh & Kolb 2006). Over 125,000 residential properties and

850 commercial enterprises were destroyed (Al-Harithy 2010), and, eventually, 100,000

people emigrated from the country (Ibid). According to the Council for Development and

Reconstruction (CDR), the direct damage to civilian businesses and national

infrastructure alone totalled 3.6 billion USD (Dibeh 2008), not accounting other indirect

economic losses linked to the naval and air blockade such as lost tourism income, trade

imbalances, decreased government revenue, lowered foreign direct investment (FDI) and

the cost of currency stabilization (Fattouh & Kolb 2006). In southern Lebanon,

predominantly the Shia areas, physical destruction was the most extensive, having been

hit with over a third of the 12,000 total air strikes. Similarly, the southern suburbs of

Beirut were particularly impacted, at least when compared to the northern part of the city,

which received less direct physical destruction. Overall, these attacks led to an estimated

reconstruction cost of around 2.8 billion USD (Al-Harithy, 2010).

Among the economic consequences of blockades, during which the Lebanese

government lost revenue from tariffs, customs and trade, unemployment increased by

nearly 50%, with over 120,000 people losing their jobs or being at risk of falling into

poverty (Ibid). Having already been one of the most heavily indebted countries, globally,

before the conflict erupted, the 2006 war resulted in a major economic downturn. Despite

donations from international organizations and other nations, these were unable to

address the more fundamental, long-term developmental and macroeconomic challenges

the war had caused ((Mercy Corps International, 2006).

2.3 Lebanon’s Political Landscape While a formal ceasefire was implemented, the conflict was informally only “put on

hold.” The 34-day July War can be viewed as merely one of many ongoing Arab-Israeli

conflicts in the region, and a by-product of more persistent, complex and multi-scale geo-

political phenomena. Nonetheless, the war stands out with regard to the political

landscape and context in which it took place. Notably, the conflict occurred just one year

after the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in February of 2005, an event that

led to massive protests which resulted in the withdrawal of Syrian troops shortly

thereafter. These troops had been present in Lebanon since 1976, and served as one of the

main enforcers of the Taif Agreement, a power-sharing agreement between Maronites,

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Shias and Sunnis that had ended the Lebanese Civil War in 1991. In the wake of Hariri’s

death, elections were held from May 29th to June 19th, 2005, ushering in an anti-Syrian

majority into the Lebanese parliament (Dibeh 2007). In Shia-dominated areas, however,

mainly southern Lebanon, Syrian allies such as Hezbollah and Amal won a solid victory

(Haddad 2006), signalling a large spatial and social polarization of the electorate.

The tensions within the Lebanese population in the aftermath of 2005 revealed a stark

polarization between pro-Syrian and pro-American factions, with Rafiq Hariri’s

assassination splitting the country into one group that believed Syria and Hezbollah were

behind his death (March 14 Coalition), and the other considering Israel to be responsible

(March 8 Coalition), supporting both Syria and Iran. Most importantly, though, this

politicized context made it such that Lebanon had barely any time to recover from their

15-year-long Civil War (1975-1990), as well as from other Israeli attacks and the

occupation of southern Lebanon between 1978 and 2000. As such, the economic, social

and environmental damages of the July War were particularly devastating (Al-Harithy

2010).

2.4 History and Ideology of Hezbollah

In 1948, the end of World War II marked the beginning of the Israeli occupation of

Palestine, bringing 110,000 Palestinian refugees to Lebanon. By 1970, the Palestinian

Liberation Organization (PLO) had established itself within Lebanon, as the number of

Palestinian refugees in the country reached as many as 300,000. During this time,

numerous Israeli attacks began to occur in Lebanon as well. In 1982, the PLO exited the

country (Al-Harithy 2010), and instead, Israel invaded Lebanon, attacking west Beirut

and occupying parts of southern Lebanon. The invasion resulted in the destruction of

homes and businesses, alongside mass displacements and civilian casualties. These

circumstances have been attributed to the rise, in 1985, of an Islamist group dedicated to

fighting Israeli troops, which would later become known as the faith-based resistance

movement “Hezbollah” (Naber 2006).

Hezbollah, directly translated as “The Party of God”, is a Shia-Islamist political,

social and military organization that, since taking root in Lebanon in the late twentieth

century, has gained a strong foothold in the country, in part because of its considerable

financial support from Iran. Viewed by many within the Shia Lebanese population as the

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de facto Shia welfare state, Hezbollah is the country’s leading political party and Shia

group. Beyond military and political operations, the organization is also estimated to use

half of their budget for social services such as education, health, veteran services and

reconstruction projects, being affiliated with 19 schools and two training institutes, al-

Imdad and al-Mahdi, 15 medical centers and four hospitals. Hezbollah also allocates

significant funds toward advertising and providing services from specialists free of

charge. The extension of the group’s activity into the realm of service provision has since

resulted in strong gratitude and support from the Shia community, helping the faith-based

movement gain a strong political foothold in the Lebanese government, perhaps best

demonstrated in the Lebanese election of May 2018 in which the group won more than

half of all parliamentary seats together with allies (Perry 2018). Interestingly, when

compared to the overall size of the Shia community, which comprises 40% of Lebanon’s

population or roughly 1.5 million people, the scope of Hezbollah’s social activities is, in

fact, quite small—only a small percentage of Shia Muslims directly benefit from

Hezbollah’s financial investments (Daher 2019).

Often referred to as the “Resistance Movement”, Hezbollah is in part financed

through direct donations from the country’s minority Shia community, though the group

also receives financial support from other transnational actors, such as Syria, Iran and

Qatar, of which Iran and its affiliates are by far the largest donors (Levitt 2007).

Despite their favorable position within the Shia community, both domestically

and abroad, as well as their strong presence in the Lebanese political system, Hezbollah

has been deemed a terrorist group within the international community—a threat to civil

peace argued to operate as a proxy for Iran within its conflict with Israel (Ibid). They

have been accused of staging several bombings against Israeli targets, labeled as terror

attacks by Israel, the Arab League and the Gulf countries, alongside the United States.

That the Shia community views Hezbollah as the sole guarantor of civil peace and a key

player in Lebanon’s stability (Daher 2019), however, shows these international

perceptions and designations of Hezbollah are, at times, reductive, or at the very least

divergent from those on the ground. While the group certainly has its critics among Shia

Muslims in Lebanon, Hezbollah is by and large seen as a legitimate resistance

organization that has defended its land against the Israeli occupying force, and

consistently stood up to the Israeli army (Shatz 2004, p. 207).

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In sum, the party’s support and trust relied upon their success to operate across

multiple domains, including religious education, military resistance, social welfare and

political activity (Azani 2013). It is of particular importance to understand Hezbollah not

only as a group operating as a religious militia, but also a welfare organization, given that

Shia Muslims were, for a long period of time, a marginalized and politically

underrepresented community in Lebanon (Saad-Ghorayeb 2006). The vacuum left by the

Lebanese state in the provision of social services in the Shia community in particular has

undoubtedly been filled by Hezbollah, posing a threat to the legitimacy of the state all

while increasing their credibility as strong actors taking necessary measures in turn.

Beyond the representation of Hezbollah as a violent group, the role they play as a de

facto welfare state is of importance, especially as it relates to the purpose of studying the

group as a faith-based welfare organization. 2.5 Reconstruction and Hezbollah as a Reconstruction Leader

Infrastructure and the civilian population were hardest hit during the July War, especially

in the Southern regions of the nation of Hezbollah’s stronghold, with damages to water

pumping stations, power plants and roads among those bombed. Targeting civilian

infrastructure was a strategic tactic: Israel hoped to hamper Hezbollah’s mobility and

impede arm supplies funneling in from Syria and Iran (Amnesty International 2006).

Furthermore, attacks on residential neighborhoods in the southern region was a means of

countering Hezbollah’s stronghold in that area (Al-Harithy 2010). As Deeb (2006)

articulates:

[The] attack on Lebanon [was] clearly [...] a selective civilian targeting. While Lebanon and its population as a whole suffered tremendously during this attack, and continue to bear the burdens of environmental hazards and rebuilding, the brunt of civilian deaths and infrastructural destruction took place in the south of the country, the Bekaa Valley, and the southern suburbs of Beirut. The purported reasoning behind this selective wreckage was that these regions [were] ‘Hezbollah strongholds’ (Deeb 2006, p. 115).

Among the actors involved in Lebanon’s recovery process on the international stage, the

Guidance Note on Early Recovery and agencies of the United Nations such as the

Humanitarian Coordinator were most prominent. On the national level, bodies of the

sitting government under Fouad Siniora, prime minister at the time, such as the Recovery

and Reconstruction Unit, the Ministry of Finance and the Council for Development and

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Reconstruction were the main actors involved. Operating on the local level were

Hezbollah and its construction wing, Jihad al-Bina’, as well as municipal agencies

(Fawaz 2009).

In comparison to other regions, it took longer for these government efforts to start

in Lebanon’s southern areas. While Southern Lebanon’s landscape faced the majority of

destruction—many undetected grenades had been identified—foreign aid efforts also had

difficulty reaching the areas most in need. Thus, Hezbollah, who had strong ties to the

area, established a committee that enabled machinery to be rented, rubble to be removed

and local damages to be surveyed (Fawaz 2000). Jihad al-Bina’, the non-governmental

construction wing of Hezbollah, founded in 1988 with the purpose of aiding

reconstruction of buildings post-Civil War, was also crucial in redevelopment projects in

predominantly Shia regions (Fawaz, 2009). As Meier (2018, p. 11) writes, the slow

response of the government in helping victims of Israeli attacks was starkly contrasted by

Hezbollah’s salient measures taken [...] starting the first day after the war to residents of

the bombed southern regions and suburbs, solidified by its proximity and connection

these populations, as well as its ability to address their primary needs.

2.6 Project Wa’d

Together, Hezbollah and it’s construction wing, Jihad al-Bina’, set up the reconstruction

project “Project Wa’d”, which directly translates as “promise”, for the purpose of

reconstructing Beirut’s southern suburb, Haret Hreik. Historically, this area of Lebanon

had been known for its lack of public spaces, poor quality roads and service networks,

inadequate urban regulation and high population density (Ghandour & Fawaz 2010).

Haret Hreik had served mainly as a residential center for Hezbollah, hence in part why

the reconstruction of the area ended up being led and implemented exclusively by the

party together with Jihad al-Bina’ (Saliba 2015). The main goal of Wa’d was to re-settle

the more than 20,000 displaced peoples across 230 buildings and 3,100 apartments,

spanning more than 40 hectares (Fawaz 2009). Hezbollah’s Secretary General, Hassan

Nasrallah, announced in 2006 that the neighborhood would be made more beautiful than

it was (Saliba 2015, p. 52), and Hezbollah officials promised to spend over 100 million

USD on the project so long as the Lebanese government committed a share worth 250

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million USD for compensation to residents (Presidency of the Council of Ministers

Lebanon, 2007, p. 77).

By August 2006, Jihad al-Bina’ had created a three-step plan to underline the

reconstruction efforts:

(i) Providing immediate shelter for the displaced, moving families from schools and the public

gardens that had housed them during the war, and giving them 12,000 dollars for one-year’s

rent and furniture;

(ii) Starting non-structural repairs of the partially damaged buildings; and

(iii) Looking into the issues of a rebuilding project for the southern part (Jeshi 2008, p. 49).

The project was then run on behalf of the legal owners and consisted of two components:

an administrative and technical team dealing with the technical and organizational

aspects of the reconstruction; [and a] liaison office to deal with the stakeholders (Fayyad

2006, p. 11).

In November 2006, the architect Hassan Jeshi was appointed to lead the project,

alongside eight members appointed to the Advisory Board selected by Nasrallah, chosen

under the following criteria: interest and commitment to the reconstruction project, a

mixed academic and professional background, and diversity of background so that the

project [can] embody a national dimension (Al-Harithy 2010; Interview with Jeshi 2009,

p. 53). The Advisory Board was comprised of a General Manager, the President of the

Association of Architects at the Lebanese Order of Engineers, an urban design consultant

and five academics from different Lebanese universities, tasked collectively with

authorizing all displaced people to return to their homes as quickly as possible, and

fulfilling Hezbollah’s vision of refining the area without neglecting owners’ and

stakeholders’ rights (Al-Harithy 2010).

In the months between November 2006 and March 2007, the party and their

selected architects developed a reconstruction plan behind closed doors. Eight architects

were chosen by Hezbollah based on two main criteria: their professional credibility and

their willingness to work under the party’s guidelines (Fawaz & Ghandour 2007;

Ghandour & Fawaz 2008). A Hezbollah delegate was also appointed to the National

Commission to advise the Lebanese prime minister in August of 2006, with the sole

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purpose of giving advice regarding methods and techniques to be used within rebuilding

efforts in the demolished southern suburbs of Beirut.

Hezbollah closely studied potential reconstruction options and blocked various

state efforts to partake in the rebuilding of Haret Hreik, in order to lead the efforts

themselves. Eventually, the state was limited to monetary compensation packages for

each lost residence in the neighborhood. Despite the fact that the party’s rebuilding

efforts were exercised in violation of urban and building regulations, with neither a legal

framework nor building permits, a legal proposition later passed within the parliament

that gave permission to property owners to rebuild their apartment buildings as they

existed prior to the war (Ibid). On October 14th, 2006, the Lebanese prime minister,

Fouad Siniora, appropriated one of the propositions known as the “Reparcelization” or

“Large Project Law”, which states that any land over 20,0000 square feet should be given

the ability to set up its own planning regulations, albeit submitting them to the Higher

Council of Urbanism for approval.

On November 14th, 2006, a community meeting was held by Hezbollah to discuss

the project, with around 5,000 residents in attendance. Surveys were handed out in which

residents were given the choice of either collecting compensation from the government

with the purpose of reconstructing their houses, together with the Party [making] up the

difference in cost, or delegat[ing] the responsibility to the NGO Jihad al-Bina’ and

[letting] them carry out the reconstruction on their behalf (Jeshi 2008, p. 52). In these

surveys, 70% of residents asked the NGO to take over responsibility (Ibid), though later

an even greater number of residents entrusted Jihad al-Bina’ with the process in the form

of notarized authorization, in part due to strong encouragement by Nasrallah, seen as a

charismatic figure and even a hero within the Shia community (Fawaz 2009).

International donations for reconstruction efforts coincided with the two political

and polarized camps that arose within Lebanon after 2005. On one hand, an anti-Syrian

and anti-Iranian movement had donations flowing in from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia,

while another faction that was strictly anti-American, and pro-Hezbollah, received

donations from Qatar and Iran (Al-Harithy 2010). Within the anti-Syrian and anti-Iranian

camp of Lebanon and the international sphere, arguments emerged against Project Wa’d

in particular: The U.S. Department of Treasury argued that Jihad a-Bina’ was merely

another way for Hezbollah to execute acts of terrorism. Specifically, they believed that

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the project was a way for the NGO to hide weapons in underground storage facilities,

hence the eventual designation of the construction group as a terrorist organization as

well. It is said that some of Hezbollah’s officials settled in some of these apartments

(U.S. Department of the Treasury 2009). Regardless of the contested nature of Project

Wa’d, the reconstruction effort ultimately succeeded in its goal of returning all former

residents to the neighborhood, and by 2012, Wa’d had met their goal of rebuilding 270

buildings as promised (Fawaz 2009).

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3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

In this section, a theoretical framework will be established in which the literature will

later be analyzed. This thesis seek to understand the extent to which urban planning can

be viewed as truly participatory, if and when the leading actor in reconstruction efforts is

one that was both implicated in the conflict that caused the destruction, and remains a

highly contested, politicized organization who might be positioned to gain from

rebuilding efforts. It will be argued that Hezbollah’s reconstruction efforts, though

promoted publicly by the organization as a collaborative and participatory process,

corresponds instead to a process of Tokenism and Non-Participation when viewed

through the framework of A Ladder of Citizen Participation. Furthermore, participatory

planning will be argued as a means in which an organization can reinforce its territorial

power, all while contesting the power of other actors, which is illuminated in our case by

the power struggle between the Lebanese government and Hezbollah, the latter of which

has capitalized off the vacuum left by the former.

3.1 Post-War Reconstruction As this thesis focuses on a case study of reconstruction in a post-war context, the ongoing

scholarly debates regarding top-down vs. bottom-up reconstruction efforts will be

discussed. Citizen participation has gained a lot of scholarly attention since the 1970s,

being viewed as a reaction against top-down development projects that can be used as a

tool to give marginalized people a voice in projects such as reconstruction efforts. As

historical experience has shown on numerous occasions, post-war reconstruction often

fails when led by traditional top-down perspectives that focus on technical approaches,

such as when standardized housing based on strictly professional metrics is used as the

main solution for mass displacements and large-scale destruction. In these approaches,

cultural or residential aspects tend to be excluded in the reconstruction process. As such,

top-down methods have been criticised for not taking local conditions or inhabitants’

needs into consideration (see: Kellett 1987). Thus, stemming from these critiques,

bottom-up perspectives have emerged within the practice of post-war reconstruction,

which emphasize the need for indigenous input within planning processes. As El-Masri et

al. (2001) argues, however, these participatory approaches require planners and

professionals ‘adjusting’ their professional roles of being experts into becoming

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‘facilitators’ instead, building bridges between communities and authorities, making it a

complex task.

A secondary, albeit equally important, focus of the literature within post-war

reconstruction, notably within urban geography, relates to the dynamics between actors’

ambitions following a demolition, in light of reconstruction needs. Areas in post-war

recovery are theorized as spaces in which a pre-existing status quo or novel ideals seek

implementation by different actors. Notably, reconstruction spaces might lead to the

emergence of new actors that seek to implement projects that correspond to certain

visions of society or ideological positions, generating new uneven power relations, which

may explain the contrasted evolution of these projects (Farah & Majed 2019, p.111). This

is particularly relevant when new actors arise following the withdrawal of the central

State for which the inhabitants have shown distrust (Ibid). Hence, reconstruction efforts

in a post-war context are highly political in their nature, and can be understood by both

the politics of reconstruction and cultures of urbanism in a given context: war and

destruction [create] lasting alterations of social relations through migrations,

impoverishment, and other factors, all while the urban space becomes an area wherein

political forces materialize across local, national or international scales (Verdeil 2012, p.

2). With respect to Project Wa’d, the literature on bottom-up planning will prove

relevant for studying the politics of reconstruction, and the extent to which Hezbollah

facilitated citizens’ ideas or, rather, implemented the project to serve their ideological

objectives.

3.2 Neoliberalism and Non-State Actors

The role of a non-governmental organization (NGO), or non-state actor, in the specific

reconstruction efforts in question, namely the rebuilding of Haret Hreik post-2006,

requires an understanding of approaches that examine the contexts in which non-

governmental organizations (NGOs) become more prominent actors than the state in

providing public services, especially those relating to urban planning. Accordingly, this

thesis must provide an overview of the theories on neoliberalism that argue that the rise

of non-state actors can be understood as a by-product of restructurings within the global

economic system that weaken the state. As such, this section will draw upon the seminal

neo-Marxist thinker David Harvey, before discussing state failure more broadly. It will be

argued that alongside continuous periods of political conflict and destabilization,

19

Lebanon has also witnessed more than two decades of deregulation and privatization of

social services, creating institutions [that] frequently [appear] powerless (Farah & Majed

2019, p. 110) and political voids that Hezbollah is quick to capitalize on.

In its simplest form, neoliberalism can be characterized by deregulation,

privatization and the withdrawal of the state from areas of social provision (Harvey 2005,

p. 187) alongside the rolling out of market mechanisms and competitiveness to achieve

economic growth, corresponding to an economic school of thought that rose to

prominence in the 1970s (Wright 2013, p. 2). Harvey (2005) goes further, however, and

argues that neoliberalism has not only shifted the role of government in the provision of

public goods, but has entailed a process of “creative destruction” as well, transforming

prior divisions of labor, social relations, welfare provisions [and] ways of life and

thought (Ibid, p. 3). This process fits in line with the literature that views neoliberal

economic transformations, namely “marketization”, as a precursor to important cultural

shifts in the body politic, and wherein such cultural ideals are actively pursued

maintained by economic elites who benefit from the neoliberal order:

Neoliberal [policies] unmistakably [lead] to the marketization of social identities and relations. The idea of public goods and services is all but non-existent in this [model, and] the process of [individualization wherein] each has to build his/her capacities to access the marketplace reduces the concept of public welfare to private interest. In this discourse, public welfare is reduced to an aggregate of individual gains, and the social democratic notion that public welfare is something that must prevail over and above private gain ceases to exist (Kamat 2004, p. 170).

Neoliberalism is thus not merely an ideology, but rather a dynamic process, one that

promotes the notion that economic growth comes only from individual liberties in the

form of the extension of the market, entrepreneurship and the retreat of the state. Within

this context, non-state actors have come to be viewed as the by-product of roll-backs to

fiscal spending and redistribution, as well as the state’s inability to respond to the

inequality and destitution associated with neoliberal policies. Globalization and trade

liberalization over the past four decades, for example, have been found to intensify socio-

spatial disparities and exacerbate economic hardship (Polloni 2016), two crucial drivers

of the emergence of non-state actors (or interest groups) in the provision of public goods,

as per the literature on state failure (see: Acemoglu 2017; Sung 2004). Similarly, the

accelerated rate at which global financial crises occur, which exacerbate the government's

inability to provide public goods and services, all while increasing unemployment and

20

poverty, result in an increasing role of NGOs and civil society in alleviating problems the

state was previously responsible for (see: Pectu 2017; Polloni 2016). According to Kamat

(2004), the rise in the prominence of NGOs on the global scale can also be seen as a

result of changing conceptions of the private and public sphere:

Given expanding market economies, and shrinking states, NGOs are stepping in to respond to the needs and demands of the poor and marginalized sections of society. [...] The NGO phenomena [thus] must be theorized in relation to the global economic and political process that involves an overall restructuring of public good and private interest. At stake is not the struggle between state and civil society, but a revaluation of private interest and public good. (Kamat 2004, p. 156)

These shifting power relations are also applicable in the context of urban planning, in that

neoliberalism results in a restructuring [of] relationships between the public, private and

third sectors, [in order] to rationalise and promote a growth first approach to urban

change (Wright 2013, p. 20). The urban policy settings under neoliberalism and

globalization of decentralization and marketization, wherein decision-making and the

provision of services is delegated or outsourced to the private sector or civil society, leads

to four main changes in the urban landscape: reduced social cohesion; increased social

exclusion; infrastructure and services failures and; the exclusion of the poor or other

marginalized groups to peripheral areas (Ibid).

In the urban planning paradigms of Lebanon, these trends are also of great

importance, and have undoubtedly shaped the nature of Hezbollah’s post-war

reconstruction in 2006 as discussed in Section 5.3. Namely, the rollback of the Lebanese

state as part deregulation and privatization in the aftermath of the Civil War post-1990

allowed for religious-political organizations to take over [the] space left vacant by the

government, (Akar 2015, p. 272) of which Hezbollah was undoubtedly the most

prominent group to do so, aided by heavy investments from Iran and Syria. That the post-

war period of late 1990s coincided with global economic restructurings, such as structural

adjustment programs, helps explain why the Lebanese government followed within the

global economic and political neoliberalization rationale by promoting privatization

policies, (Ibid, p. 271) seeking to attract global financial services and companies in

reconstruction efforts.

The outsourcing of the state’s responsibilities post-1990 and neoliberal logic

permeating urban planning led to new morphologies in the country’s capital, namely the

forced exclusion of the Shia community, among others, to peripheral areas of the city due

21

to a profit-oriented strategy, leant itself to the weakened legitimacy of the Lebanese

government, and hence the rise of other actors in urban development (in e.g. social

services) in its place. That the marginalization and exclusion of groups took place

primarily along religious lines was the main driver of increased power among religious

para- or non-state actors such as Hebzollah.

3.3 A Ladder of Citizen Participation Hoping to encourage a more refined dialogue concerning citizen participation and

participatory planning, Arnstein (1969) created the so-called “ladder of participation” to

identify the different steps of citizen participation and their corresponding levels of

citizen power, now an important mechanism through which to analyze participatory

planning. The ladder of citizen participation is a means of visualizing the extent of

citizens’ power when influencing the outcome of a program or plan. Per Arnstein’s

(1969) definition, citizen participation is merely a categorical term for citizen power,

serving as a redistributional tool, giving power from the “haves” to the “have-nots,” i.e.

citizens who are excluded from political and economic decision-making. Within this

process, citizens are deliberately included in the ongoing process and, in doing so, are

able to promote social reform and take part in the societal benefits by creating egalitarian

policy-making. When conducting participatory planning, however, it is important to note

the risk of participation becoming an empty ritual without an effect on the outcome, thus

redistribution of power becomes critical for successful results (Ibid).

The ladder of citizen participation juxtaposes powerless citizens with the powerful

in order to highlight the divisions between them. The ladder contains eight rungs, divided

into three main categories: (i) Nonparticipation, (ii) Degrees of tokenism and (iii)

Degrees of citizen power (see: Figure 1). In the two bottom rungs, Manipulation and

Therapy, the objective is to restrict citizens from participating in planning and enable

those already in power to “educate” participants—a substitute for genuine participation.

At this level, citizens are often placed on advisory committees for the sake of being

“educated.” A prominent example of this type includes the urban renewal programs in the

U.S. in the late 20th century, where committees functioned mainly as letterheads to

advocate for urban renewal plans at appropriate times. At such meetings, officials

educated and advised the citizens and not the other way around, serving as a

22

manipulation of participation since these groups had no legitimate function or power.

Instead, these groups were mainly used to prove that have-nots and grassroot citizens

were involved in the program, and participants would, at most, be informed of the action

that the constructor wished to implement, before being required to sign off on proposals.

The second lowest rung, Therapy, is a process where instead of including citizens in

planning, individuals are subjected to group therapy that is masked as citizen

participation. These “therapy sessions” are administered by social workers, for example,

to participants within meetings or sessions solely because of their lack of high social

standing and political power. This type of non-participation has been used to prohibit the

inhabitants discussing subjects such as arbitrary evictions.

Figure 1: A visual representation of the eight rungs on the Ladder of Citizen Participation, as defined by Arnstein (1969)

Rungs three and four, Informing and Consultation, progress to levels of tokenism.

These types of participation allow the have-not citizens to hear and to have a voice during

the planning process. Citizens, however, lack the power to ensure that their perspective

within these settings will be heeded by those in power. Therefore, there is no way of

following through and ensuring that their perspectives are fully included in the outcome

of the planning process. The fifth rung, Placation, serves as another form of tokenism,

however, on a greater level, seeing as “have-nots” can advise, but not limit, the power

holder's right to decide.

23

More specifically, the third rung of the ladder, Informing, is primarily

characterized by informing citizens of their rights and responsibilities. These actions are

crucial first steps of moving towards legitimate citizen participation. This type of

participation, though, is often focused on a one-way flow of information from power

holders to citizens — rarely the other way around — with information providing no room

for citizens to negotiate terms or give feedback to officials. To exemplify this rung,

Arnstein takes an example from Rhode Island. wherein a group of citizens were elected

to discuss the modeling of six playgrounds in an area populated by equally white and

black populations. When several of the black participants noted that four playgrounds

were proposed for the white district and only two were allocated to the black

neighborhood, city officials gave a highly technical and complex explanation about costs

that could defend the proposal that residents did not understand his explanation.

Intimidated by the officials, citizens came to accept the proposal to build a greater

number of playgrounds in the white neighborhood (Arnstein 1969).

The fourth rung of the participation ladder, Consultation, also prohibits citizens

from any reassurance that their input will be taken into account. Frequent methods used

for this type of participation include attitude surveys, neighborhood meetings and public

hearings. This illusion of legitimate citizen participation restricts citizen’s ideas, as the

participation is measured by the number of participants and the number of brochures

distributed. Through this process, power holders achieve evidence of involving citizens

and the “have-nots”, even though they merely “participated in participation” (Ibid). The

fifth rung of the participation ladder is Placation. At this stage, citizens begin to have

some degree of power, although tokenism is still present. An example of Placation given

by Arstein (1969) is when power holders select a few deserving, or “worthy,” participants

onto boards. These participants can nonetheless be replaced or outvoted by the power

holders if they hold a majority.

Further up the ladder, greater levels of citizen power can be found. These rungs

are called Partnership and refer to when citizens can negotiate with powerholders. The

final and top two rungs, Delegated Power and Citizen Control, are characterized by when

“have-nots” comprise the majority within decision-making processes, and therefore have

the highest level of power when compared to all other settings (Arnstein 1969). The sixth

rung of the ladder, Partnership, is characterized by a redistribution of power through

24

negotiation between citizens and power holders. Through these negotiations all actors

agree to share decision-making and responsibilities. Partnership works best when there is

an organized base for power, and citizen groups have the financial resources to pay its

members for their efforts and hire human resources such as technicians, layers or

community organisers (Arnstein 1969).

The seventh rung of the ladder is Delegated Power. This rung is characterized by

citizens and public officials engaging in negotiations that result in citizens having the

authority to decide on a particular program or plan. Delegated Power means that

participating citizens have the right tools to assure accountability of power holders, and

the plan or program, to them. In order to resolve differences the parties use bargaining as

a part of the planning process. The eighth and final rung of the ladder of citizen

participation is Citizen Control. This type of citizen participation is often associated with

an increase in community controlled schools and neighborhood control, for example. In

this stage, participants are able to demand the level of power required to govern a

program or institution, be partially in charge of policy making, or negotiate conditions

where citizens will be able to change them (Arnstein 1969).

As is the case in most models, the ladder of citizen participation is a rough

generalization of reality. A perspective to keep in mind when utilizing this kind of model

is that in any given real-world context, there might be hundreds of different rungs with

unique combinations of characteristics, with less obvious distinctions between one

another. The ladder also juxtaposes powerless citizens with power holders to highlight

the differences between them, evidently an abstraction or simplification of more complex

institutional and social settings. Finally, the ladder does not include examples or specific

actions to achieve successful and true citizen participation.

3.4 Operationalization

To make it possible to empirically study a set of theories, the theoretical framework must

be operationalized, meaning that the theoretical definitions must be given operational

indicators. In this study, A Ladder of Citizen Participation (1969) will be operationalized

through an “ideal type” analysis. This analysis is appropriate when a researcher is

interested in degrees of differences within the field of interest, or in this case, the degree

of participation. Furthermore, while ideal types cannot truly be found in reality, they are

useful in measuring empirical data, i.e., how democratic a process is. What is important

25

when using the “ideal types” analysis is to keep each ideal type unique so that they are

distinguishable from each other (Esaiasson et al. 2017). The ladder of citizen

participation will henceforth be viewed through three degrees of participation in which

the secondary material will later be analysed.

Table 1: Operationalization scheme of Three Categories within the “Ladder of Citizen

Participation” (Arnstein 1969).

Citizen Power Tokenism Non-participation

Citizen power is characterized by “have-not” citizens who comprise a majority within decision-making, therefore giving them the highest level of power in the ladder of citizen participation.

In tokenism, participation allows “have-not” citizens to be heard during the planning process. Citizens, however, lack the power to ensure that their perspective will be heeded by those in power. In this setting there is no way for citizens to follow through and ensure that their perspectives are included in the outcome of the planning process. In some cases, citizens are allowed to advise certain decisions, but they are still unable to limit the power holder's right to decide.

In non-participation, the objective is to restrict citizens from participating in planning, with those already in power “educating” participants instead, serving as a substitute for genuine participation. These participants will, at most, be informed of the action that rebuilding actors want to implement, and are required to sign proposals.

Operalization of Citizen Power Operalization of Tokenism Operalization of Non-Participation

Residents in Haret Hreik negotiate in trade offs with the rebuilding actor(s), and citizens are equally involved in the decision-making process. Residents have the power to hold the party accountable through bargaining processes, indicated by residents also sitting on boards alongside Hezbollah.

Residents in Haret Hreik are informed and heard within public hearings or neighborhood meetings. Citizens are asked for advice, but with no ultimate decision-making power, indicated through methods such as opinion surveys.

Residents in Haret Hreik are only symbolically involved by the party, or only included in the extent to which they are informed through manipulation without consent. Citizens have no means of being fully involved, as they are wrongly informed and unable to ask questions on subjects within their interests.

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4. METHOD

4.1 Case study design For this thesis, a case-study design will be applied, meaning that a single case will be

studied intensively and in a detailed manner (Bryman 2016). In case-study research, this

design is chosen to address the complex and particular nature of the case in question

(Ibid), which applies to the study of post-war reconstruction through the lens of power,

which is an inherently contextual phenomena. It is worth acknowledging that case studies

are widely debated within academia, as it has been argued that single cases are unable to

provide insights about the causes and effects of larger phenomena. Thus, this thesis aims

to give insights into the contextual phenomena operating within the specific case of

Project Wa’d.

4.2 Qualitative Literature Study To respond to the purpose of this thesis, a general literature study was conducted using

qualitative methods, wherein the author systematically searched for empirical material

within academic journals, reviewed and critically studied the empirical content, and

compiled current knowledge in the field of interest (Bryman 2016). This method is

relevant for the study given the context in which it was written, namely that collecting

empirical data in Lebanon was not possible. The purpose of this section is not only to

distinguish texts that concern the subject matter, but also to analyze and examine their

implications within the theoretical framework outlined in Section 3. Data collection did

not rely on any specific journals, rather specific keywords were used in search engines,

such as: Participatory Planning, Post-War Reconstruction, Project Wa’d, Hezbollah and

Non-State Actors under Neoliberalism. The greatest limitations of this method is the fact

that the case has, previously, not been written about extensively, and that the analysis

relied on secondary data.

This study is novel on various fronts, being the first to our knowledge that

examines the case of post-war reconstruction after the July War with a specific focus on

participatory planning. Previous studies have, most notably, focused on how Hezbollah as

a reconstruction leader can be viewed as an alternative to market-based Western

organizations (Ginty 2007). Thus, this thesis seeks to contribute to the literature not only

27

by synthesizing the existing research on Hezbollah as a reconstruction actor, but by

discussing Project Wa’d through the lens of Arnstein’s A Ladder of Citizen Participation

(1969). It will be argued that studying an extreme and unique case wherein a faith-based

organisation takes the leading role in rebuilding efforts can further the literature on

participatory planning and post-war reconstruction.

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5. ANALYSIS

In the aftermath of the 2006 war, Hezbollah and Jihad al-Bina’ were not only swift in

their efforts to rebuild Southern Lebanon (Haret Hreik), the area of their headquarters that

had experienced the greatest extent of damages during the conflict, but also quick to

emphasize that the reconstruction of the neighborhood was highly participatory. This was

demonstrated in numerous interviews with the organization and its leaders. This is

substantiated by the literature, wherein scholars have devoted their attention to

understanding the proceedings, motivations and outcomes of the project (see: Ghandour

& Fawaz 2008; Harb 2008; Fawaz 2009; Al-Harithy 2010, Verdeil 2011, Verdeil 2007).

Across these studies, in which interviews and documents form the basis of their analysis,

it becomes evident that Hezbollah had depicted Project Wa’d on numerous occasions as a

means for implementing dwellers’ preferences for reconstruction, made possible by the

group’s intimate knowledge and belonging to the community. In the words of Project

Wa’d representatives, Hezbollah was “part and parcel” of the Haret Hreik community

(Fawaz 2009). Press releases from Hezbollah reinforced the notion that Wa’d served as a

direct response to the neighborhood’s aspirations, namely prompt, on-site resettlement and

respect of the pre-war spatial organization, further indicating an eagerness to portray

rebuilding efforts as participatory (al-Akhbar 2007; Fawaz 2009).

Using the theoretical framework presented in Section 3 and a literature review,

this paper will critically study whether these efforts were, in fact, participatory by using

Arnstein’s (1969) conception of citizen power, or, instead, if they corresponded to

processes of Tokenism and Non-Participation. It will be argued that the project was only

symbolically participatory, and can be characterized by the ladder of Arnstein’s

conceptions of citizen power. Subsequently, an analysis of the literature on state failure,

sectarian divisions and neoliberal urban governance will be used to explain why this

failure of citizen participation might have occurred, as well as how this relates, more

broadly, to the presence of NGOs in reconstruction efforts. Centering on the reasons why

Hezbollah may have sought to centralize authority over reconstruction, giving way to the

limited participation seen in Haret Hreik, this thesis will argue that the guise of

participatory planning served to reinforce Hezbollah’s territorial control—power that

Hezbollah yielded in part because of sectarian divisions in Lebanon—the neglect of the

Shia community and the retreat of the state. Thus, this analysis will respond to the

29

overarching goal of understanding the implications for participatory planning when a

faith-based organization is the leading actor of reconstruction efforts in a highly

politicized context.

5.1 Ladder of Participation in Project Wa’d: Tokenism and Non-Participation

In order to frame the process of reconstruction deliberations within the categories of

Arnstein’s A Ladder of Citizen Participation, an overview of the central ways in which

the literature argues that Project Wa’d was not, in fact, participatory will be presented. A

survey of the main research highlights three main trends as characteristic of the project:

(i) a lack of information given to, and limited discussions with, residents of Haret Hreik;

(ii) non-elected expert committees, appointed by Hezbollah, which operated behind

closed doors and superseding residents desires when designing plans; (iii) the outcomes

of the reconstruction failing to correspond with the desires citizens vocalized, namely

greater livability and open space. Describing these factors will help give way to the

argument that citizens were only symbolically included or briefly informed, as well as

manipulated, rather than having been fully implicated in decision making in the ways

publicized by Hezbollah.

In the bottom two categories of the ladder of participation, Non-Participation and

Tokenism, the five lowest rungs include, in ascending order, Manipulation, Therapy,

Transforming, Consultation and Placation. Within Non-Participation, citizens are

restricted from participating in planning, and those already in power “educate”

participants through the means of Manipulation and Therapy. In contrast, Tokenism

allows “have-not” citizens to vocalize their opinions during the planning process, yet

nonetheless lacks the ability to ensure that their perspective will be implemented by those

in power. Furthermore, while have-nots can advise power holder’s decision-making

under Tokenism, they cannot limit their right to decide, thus there is no way to ensure

that citizens’ perspectives are fully included in the outcomes of the planning process.

In the case of Projet Wa’d, dissemination of information can be seen as the first

channel through which a lack of citizen power, in the form of non-participation, is

visible. From the onset of the project, and for its duration, information about the

proceedings of rebuilding efforts were spread throughout the neighborhood in both

30

formal and informal ways, namely community meetings, between the residents

themselves, or between members from the party. Hezbollah also organized a large

community meeting shortly after the cease-fire in 2006 to inform citizens about how the

project would proceed. Following the highly-mediatized launch of Project Wa’d,

however, information regarding the project became limited, and interviews with actors

involved in the project went exclusively through the party’s media office (Arnstein,

1969).

Through the literature, one can discern that while the party played a crucial role in

spreading important information to the public, the absence of other public information

channels made it such that information could be manipulated. This is corroborated in

interviews with dwellers, where it was said that state compensation was depicted as

insufficient to cover all reconstruction costs, and that Hezbollah’s subsidies were crucial

for the reconstruction procedures in order to cover the rest, despite developers from the

area estimating the state funds to be enough (Fawaz 2009). Similarly, apartment options

in other areas were concealed from former residents, while on-site relocations were

emphasized (Hilal 2008). According to Fawaz (2009), the most telling process of

manipulation in the participatory process of reconstruction was the party’s general

caution surrounding public debate:

Hezbollah’s political leadership has been generally very wary of public debate. Aside from the highly-mediatized launching of the Wa’d project, there has been very little information disbursement about the project and all interviews with Wa‘d actors are channeled through the company’s information officer and cleared by the political party’s media office. Wa‘d has also not shown or shared the final master plan of the neighborhood. (Fawaz 2009, p. 328)

The spread of misinformation and limitations of discussion have been argued as strategic

means for Hezbollah to ensure that reconstruction would be delegated to the group (Ibid),

relating directly to Arnstein’s conception of non-participation (1969).

Similarly, the literature seems to suggest that the high incidence of signed

delegations of authority to Hezbollah relates, in some part, to strong encouragement or

pressure on community members. Given that “Hezbollah had community structures in

place, even at the level of individual buildings”, it is argued that community opinion was

likely to have been “directed”, if not even resulting in the dissuasion of “alternative

voices and new social formations” (Ginty 2007). This fact was also stressed by other

scholars in the literature study, who argue that the survey conducted by Hezbollah was

31

questionable from a participatory planning perspective, in that there was either a choice

to comply or not to comply, and the survey was not anonymous:

There were some concerns that Hezbollah was engaged in an exercise of social control via the Waad initiative. Once 70 per cent of residents indicated their approval for the Waad scheme, the remainder may have been under significant pressure to conform. Given the semi-communal nature of apartment living, dissenting would have been a very public exercise. A final limit on participation may come in the zero sum nature of the options presented by the Hezbollah leadership. Residents had to accept one option and reject the other, a stark choice that overlooks possible gradations of opinion. (Ginty & Hamieh 2010 p. 58)

The second process through which Project Wa’d can be viewed as not truly participatory

relates to the “closed door” meetings held, wherein plans were developed by a non-

elected committee of experts, architects and engineers who deliberated amongst

themselves about the best approaches to upgrade the neighborhood’s physical

conditions, within the confines and priorities imposed by the party’s leadership (Fawaz

2009, p. 327). This behaviour fits into the category of Tokenism, and relates both to the

complexity of a project being used to “scare off” residents’ participation, or information

being strictly limited to experts to begin with. Ginty & Hamieh (2010) and Fawaz (2009)

found that the only true deliberation with residents following initial discussions in August

of 2006 was to allow residents to choose certain interior finishes, such as color schemes,

while larger questions around the re-building projects were left to committees. While

Ginty (2012) argues that this was, in part, due to necessity, as large-scale reconstruction

often requires “highly technical considerations” that can only be done using expertise

from architects, planners and engineers (irregardless of the emphasis on consultation),

research nonetheless points out a lack of deliberation in Haret Hreik regarding other non-

technical, neighborhood wide considerations:

Space left for dwellers’ opinions [was] limited to consultations once the full apartment design [was] completed, [and they were] not involved in the decision-making concerning the scale of the neighborhood rehabilitation, the potential choices of rebuilding in the original form or in new ones, or [...] in the selection of the architectural office that develops their apartment plans. (Fawaz 2009, p. 327)

Experts in the project’s Advisory Board were also carefully selected by Hezbollah based

on two specific criteria: their professional credibility and their willingness to work under

the party’s guidelines (Fawaz & Ghandour 2007; Ghandour & Fawaz 2008), allowing

one to question the extent to which Wa’d was truly focused on residents’ preferences

rather than the party’s ambitions.

32

It is worth noting that some scholars argue that given the “local way” of doing

things, i.e. the prevalence of urban planning in Lebanon relying on a delegation of

committees and “expert” boards with little means of accountability, that Hezbollah’s

planning style was not particularly different. Al-Harithy (2010) argues, for example, that,

given the lack of tradition of participatory planning in Lebanon, Hezbollah's

“centralization of [efforts] hardly broke with local planning traditions.” Nonetheless, the

lack of break in tradition from Lebanese planning does not obscure the fact that the group

might have intentionally “tokenized” residents, perhaps due to some political aim.

The third way it becomes evident that planning within Project Wa’d was not as

participatory as the party’s leaders had promoted relates to the divergence between

residents’ desires for the new settlement and how it was actually rebuilt. The literature

suggests that, with prompt resettlement being prioritized over all other interests, there

was no room for improvement in livability, making the neighborhood’s poor living

conditions— congestion; high density —marginal. Instead of addressing problems related

to the car-oriented design before the war, for example, Project Wa’d allowed for road

widenings and the opening of throughways. Analysis of the urban fabric prior to the war

also showed that barely any sunlight entered many apartments year round (Ghandour &

Fawaz 2007), yet Jihad al-Bina’ chose to oppose simple propositions and solutions, such

as relocating taller buildings to street corners where lightning often is more generous, in

order to avoid potential negotiations with the locals or public authorities regarding new

urban regulations.

Furthermore, instead of addressing the need for open and green space in the

neighborhood, the party only converted a few individual lots into open spaces, which

ended up being very scattered. These open spaces were then shaded by higher buildings,

going against the aspiration of residents for large green spaces which also corresponded

to a vision of the new settlement espoused by the party’s Secretary General, to make the

neighborhood “more beautiful than it was.” Interviews with locals substantiate that this

reproduction did not measure up to their aspirations, and highlighted a frustration

regarding high physical density of the completed project (Fawaz 2009). Hezbollah itself

even recognizes its abandonment of a more open and green physical environment. They

explain, however, the decision as having been the most effective option given the

political context in which the reconstruction took place.

33

It becomes clear that prioritizing the speed of recovery trumped citizens’ interests,

and can perhaps be seen as the main explanation of the lack of full citizen power or

participation as defined by Arnstein, as well as the lost opportunity to reorganize a very

densely populated suburb marked by a disorganized urban fabric (Verdeil et al. 2019, p.

110). As such, it is worth investigating the interests of Hezbollah that would have

motivated a fast reconstruction over other considerations. While many have written that

the the planning intervention sacrificed the needs of residents in favor of political

prerogatives, failing to provide avenues for participation to those who do not comply

with its vision (Fawaz 2009, p. 330) and relying on mechanisms of Non-Participation and

Tokenism, it must be investigated what those political prerogatives could be, and how the

context of Lebanese political divides may have fostered this.

5.2 Hezbollah’s Reconstruction Efforts: A Neoliberal Project?

A review of the literature provides universal agreement that the retreat of the state within

Lebanon following two decades of neoliberal governance was the primary reason for

which Hezbollah could operate as the de facto or para-Shia state. Some debate, however,

emerged regarding the extent to which the reconstruction of 2006 can be viewed within a

neoliberal logic. Regardless, contextually, Project Wa’d can be understood as a by-

product of neoliberalism wherein non-state actors become increasingly important in

providing services such as urban development and housing. It is unclear as to whether

Hezbollah itself also used a neo-liberal dogma of urban planning, one which prioritized

market mechanisms or individual empowerment. Before delving into these debates,

however, the literature on weak states and non-state actors will be applied to Project

Wa’d, most especially in how it relates to the concepts of social exclusion within a

sectarian society, as described in Section 5.1. It will be argued that, alongside

sectarianism, exclusionary neoliberal urban policies of the 1990s further excluded and

disenfranchised the marginalized Shia group within the city landscape by pushing the

Shia community to the periphery of the city. Simultaneously, Hezbollah increased its

political power due to the party’s legitimacy in the face of a weak state that could not

provide social services to the Shia community. Both of these factors lent themselves to a

situation in which the Shia community viewed Hezbollah as the sole legitimate actor in

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leading reconstruction efforts, regardless of whether the project was ultimately

participatory or not.

A study of the reconstruction of downtown Beirut post-1991 through the Solidere

project (see: Höckel 2007; Verdeil 2011), an undertaking of urban redevelopment using a

neoliberal corporatist logic that relied upon private companies and resulted in social

exclusion (see: Section 3.2), Höckel demonstrates the aforementioned trends:

The very concentration of post-conflict reconstruction in Beirut’s Central District [post-1991] pursuing a profit-oriented urban development strategy alongside the failure to cater to and integrate the city’s periphery and hinterland led to a loss of government legitimacy and credibility among its citizens and weakened state control in the marginalized regions. This allowed para-state actors (Hezbollah) to use reconstruction politics as a means to [...] establish powerful autonomous governance structures outside the reach of the weak state institutions. (Höckel 2007, p.1)

Furthermore, Verdeil (2007) reinforces the notion that isolation and neglect of Shia

communities by the Lebanese state burgeoned Hezbollah’s legitimacy as a reconstruction

actor, perhaps best evidenced by the fact that over 90% of residents signed over the rights

to reconstruction to the party. He argued that Hezbollah was able to garner and capitalize

on the confidence among the “fringe” Shia community in the aftermath of 2006 by

offering assistance to victims at a much more rapid pace than the slow mobilization and

response of the State (Ibid). Thus, while it becomes hard to delineate between

Hezbollah’s territorial power as a result of sectarian divides or exclusionary neoliberal

policies, the outcomes and implications for Project Wa’d nonetheless remain the same:

[Project Wa’d] has shown that the current neoliberal policy turn that delegates social services to non-state actors may witness and even strengthen the role of actors other than those expected by market proponents. In this case, the post-war reconstruction policy in Lebanon [provided] an opportunity [for Hezbollah] to strengthen its hold over its constituency and reaffirm its role as a mediator between the community it claims to represent and the state. (Fawaz 2009, p. 330)

Another means of understanding the extent to which Hezbollah was able to overpower or

challenge the legitimacy of the state can be seen in part by how they were able to bypass

legal restrictions on buildings during reconstruction. Verdeil (2011) demonstrates how

Hezbollah was able to do this without a legal or regulatory framework, such as building

permits or master plans. Verdeil (Ibid) goes further, arguing that the illegality of the new

buildings are not only a means of viewing how Hezbollah positions itself against the

state, but also how the party can further exercise power over the territory: seeing as

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rebuilt homes were on shaky legal ground, [...] residents [were kept] politically

dependent on Hezbollah (Ibid, p. 2). Ginty & Hamieh (2010) continue, writing that not

only did Hezbollah bypass the state in Wa’d, but that, despite the unplanned nature of

some of the buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs [which] meant that a number of

buildings were deemed ‘illegal’ (Ibid, p 60). Hezbollah was nonetheless able to

successfully negotiate with the Lebanese government to secure funds for the

reconstruction.

While the literature seems to be in consensus on the fact that Project Wa’d took place in a

unique context wherein the state failure of the Lebanese government allowed for little

recourse of residents to choose other options, there are some debates on the extent to

which Project Wa’d itself fits into neoliberal planning ideologies. Verdeil (2012) takes

the stance that the party’s approach to reconstruction efforts strictly refute the neoliberal

logic associated with globalized urban development:

On a larger scope, the project managers intend to preserve and rebuild the “resistance

society”. Through this act, the reconstruction takes a geopolitical sense of opposition to Israel

and, consequently, to their American allies, and an ideological sense of refusal of neoliberal

globalization- which is another way to mark the difference between Solidere and Waad, by

refusing for example a real estate company and the project funding by the real estate market.

(Verdeil 2012, p. 14)

Fawaz (2014), by contrast, argues that the reconstruction project post-2006 was not, in

fact, a departure from, or alternative to, contemporary neoliberal planning (as it was

viewed as by the party and its supporters), but rather a new configuration of it, arguing

that this is rooted in the conception of individual private property within the party’s

reconstruction effort that became more important than all other collective and social

needs. When explaining this trend, i.e. the departure from some of the tenets of the

group’s ideology and their criticism of neoliberalism, it is argued that clear definitions of

property rights were needed due to the multiplicity and complexity of property claims

present[ing] a challenge to governmentality. The party has to ‘totalize’ and

‘individualize’ [...] in order to be able to exercise its political sovereignty over the area

(Ibid, p. 8). Nonetheless, the notion that the party sought to secure and consolidate their

territorial power and spatial control once again remains present.

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6. CONCLUSION

This thesis sought to investigate the aftermath of the July War in Lebanon with regard to

its reconstruction efforts. More specifically, it wished to analyze and discuss the

implications for participatory planning in a reconstruction project when a faith-based

organization takes the lead and operates within a highly politicized post-war context.

Drawing upon A Ladder of Citizen Participation (Arnstein 1969) and Harvey’s

conceptualization of neoliberalism as a political project (2005), the conclusions of this

study were threefold: (i) the reconstruction of Haret Hreik through Project Wa’d was by

no means participatory, and Hezbollah’s project corresponded instead to categories of

Non-Participation and Tokenism when viewed through Arnstein (1969); (ii) citizen

participation when used by a non-governmental, faith-based actor in a deeply divided

society becomes problematic, relevant in Lebanon where stark sectarian divisions are

apparent; (iii) the neoliberalization of the Lebanese state, which left a vacuum that

Hezbollah was able to fill and allowed it to gain a stronger political foothold, made it

such that the organization was able to surpass the government in reconstruction efforts in

2006, further weakening the state insofar as it helped reinforce their territorial control

within Shia communities in turn.

More broadly, we argue that participatory planning was a symbolic means for

Hezbollah to pander to the Shia community, whose support for Hezbollah relied in part

on the organization’s ability to fulfill its goal of consensual democracy, but more

importantly in the group’s opposition to Israel and the Lebanese state. That Israel was

responsible for the destruction of Haret Hreik, and the government would have taken

much longer to even commence the project, Hezbollah’s swift reconstruction of the

neighborhood served as a victory against both the oppressive, “imperialist” forces in

Lebanon, and an inefficient state that had neglected Shia Muslims for more than two

decades. This paper argues that the emergence of NGOs in service provision due to

neoliberal governance, and upon sectarian grounds, might lead to a self-reinforcing cycle,

however, whereby a marginalized community that turns to a faith-based group may have

no choice but to comply with their vision (either because of the precariousness of their

legal standing, or due to social norms that would make opposition challenging). In sum,

both the organization’s reconstruction efforts and their emphasis on its “participatory”

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nature was a means of consolidating territorial power, both over Shia Muslims and

against I