Lebanese Power Geographies: How the Political Elite Reinvents Itself through Land and Property

Land has been at the center of political power in Lebanon since the country was part of the Ottoman Empire. Territorial domains – including the people who lived in them – were divided and distributed to middlemen who collected taxes and ensured agricultural productivity. While the nature of office of these middlemen changed throughout the Ottoman reforms of the 19^th century (army officers, taxfarmers, private bidders, public agents), their role as land brokers and local leaders strengthened with time. The resulting power-domains, mostly covering state lands, were gradually transformed into elite private domains, de facto or de jure. This emerging class of large landowning families persisted during the French mandate (1920-1943), but also what became the Lebanese state. They occupied the first parliaments and municipal councils.

Such land-embedded power relations are still employed by the political elite in Lebanon to assert their presence and dominance. The two main reasons for that are: 1) the lack of consequential overhaul of the property regime and land structure during the French mandate, and 2) the elite’s resilience in preempting any system change, bending it to their interest. The argument will be illustrated by two case studies, one relating to a deputy in North Lebanon, and the other to a mayor in Greater Beirut.

The first case highlights the role of property regimes’ historical transformation in allowing such elite to accumulate land not only for wealth, but also to delineate and assert their power geographies over their “constituencies”. The second case highlights the contradicting role that mayors play as descendants of large landowners in contrast to their supposed role as “public welfare” custodians.

Such cases contribute to a finer grain analysis of what otherwise would be seen as mere wealth accumulation and elite corruption if understood through macro-structuralist lenses of financialization and weak/absent state.