For decades, Lebanon has been described as a failed State. The two years old major financial crisis crumpling the country, one year old vacancy of presidency, the more recent vacancy of the country central bank governor and the army challenged by a local militia: these facts only could support the analysis. And there is more. After the settlement of more than 800000 Syrian refugees added to the presence of 210000 Palestinian refugees, the organizational structure of parts of the country relies massively on NGO’s, confirming the idea that the State is in no capacity d to provide minimal support to the population living in the country. Lebanon is an interesting, albeit tragic, case study to question “Everyday State” as a concept: What does it stand for when people have been robbed by the State? Is the State an “it” or is it a “they” and what does it mean for people to question the difference? How much is it left from the State as a dream, if not a goal to be attained / achieved and sometimes granted?
I propose to investigate these questions out of a 20-years long political anthropology of a local communal leadership and the everyday and intimate manifestation of the patron client relationship between Junblatt’s lords (Kamal, Walid, Taymur) and the people of the Shûf (mostly Druze).
