The Lebanese Constitution in the Force Field Between War and Peace. From a Competitive to a Consociational Democratic Constitution

Lebanon, once the role model and beacon of hope for conflict resolution in so-called heterogeneous societies, continues to be rattled by recurring violence despite power sharing among its religious confessions. According to the theory of “consociational democracy”, the division of power between societal segments is supposed to further peace and stability in states characterized by heterogeneous societies. But do the confessions actually comprise the correct elements of Lebanon’s consociational democracy?

This completed dissertation project investigated how the confessional power division continued to be incorporated into the political system, and came to form the structure of the Lebanese constitution after 1990. Moreover, it examined the relationship between the constitutional charter and the civil war of 1975-1990 along with the possibly for the peaceful management of the conflict through changes to the constitution in 1990.

The results of this study were published in 2009 by the Nomos-Verlag under the title “Verfassung im Kraftfeld von Krieg und Frieden” in the PRIF Study-Series. The study was also published as a legal dissertation at the University of Gießen. Cordelia Koch composed this research project during her time as a scholarship holder from PRIF (2001-2004) and from the Orient-Institut of the Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (2004-2005). She lived and carried out her research in Beirut from March 2003 to June 2005.