CLS - New publications announcements

Conference Reports: “Breaking the Cycle – Civil Wars in Lebanon”. Available from www.stacey-international.co.uk ( here, Summer 2007)

Papers: “After the War – Prospects for Lebanon”. Available from Summer 2007.

Booklist: “Distant Relations – Iran and Lebanon in the last 500 years”. Edited by H.E. Chehabi. Published 2006.

Breaking the Cycle – Civil Wars in Lebanon - (October 2007) with foreword by George Asseily. Introduction: Youssef M. Choueiri.
Sandwiched between Syria and Israel, Lebanon is perhaps fated to be engulfed in the frequent bouts of violence that plague the wider Middle East region. In summer 2006, Beirut found itself once more under siege as Israeli missiles rained upon the capital. More often than not, however, the fighting has been internal – Lebanon has suffered frequent civil wars throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
PART I The Historical Context: Movements of the Past and Deadlocks of the Present, by Ahmad Beydoun l Explaining Civil Wars in Lebanon by Youssef M. Choueiri l Is Lebanese Confessionalism to Blame? by Mohammad F. Mattar;
PART II Memories of War and Forgiveness l Breaking the Vicious Circle! Contributions of the 25-35 Lebanese Age Group, by Pamela Chrabieh l Breaking the Cycle of Violence in Lebanon, by Alexandra Asseily l Memory as Representation and Memory as Idiom, by Sune Haugbolle
PART III The Politics of Reform l An Agenda for the Future l Managing Political Change in Lebanon: Challenges and Prospects, by Michael Johnson l Education - A Means for the Cohesion of the Lebanese - Confessional Society, by Maha Shuayb l From Beirut Spring to Regional Winter? by Mark Farha l The Philosophy of Lebanese Power-Sharing by Michael Kerr l Intifada 2005: A look Backwards and A Look Forward by Halim Shebaya l Democratic System Reform in Lebanon: An Electoral Approach by Rudy Jaafar l Ta’if’s Dysfunctions and the Need for Constitutional Reform by Nawaf Salam.
paperback 330 pages, Landscape 152x228mm, Available from www.stacey-international.co.uk here
ISBN-10: 1905299532
ISBN-13: 9781905299539

Options for Lebanon - (October 2004) - edited by Nawaf Salam
Options for Lebanon aims at an in-depth examination of the policy options available to help overcome the multi-faced political, economic and social crisis that continues to engulf Lebanon nearly fifteen years after the conclusion of the Taif agreement in 1989. Though remarkable in ending the cycles of violence that had ravaged this country since 1975, Taif dramatically failed to put Lebanon on the track of state-building. Politics in Lebanon being still dominated by parochial concerns and sectarian interests, neither the successive governments nor most of the opposition groups have been seriously engaged in formulating national policies capable of confronting the new, and often structural, problems of post-war Lebanon. Therefore, this book purports to show that credible policy options to deal with these problems do exist and that change is possible provided that the political will to do so exists as well.
It is in Hardback with 276 pages, costs £39.50 and published by Centre for Lebanese Studies and IB Tauris (October 2004).

Iraq: The Regional Fallout : (Feb 2003). The Chatham House Briefing Paper which included the Centre for Lebanese Studies' then director, Nadim Shehadi, as one of the contributors.
The war on Iraq, as perceived in early 2003, could easily create more problems than it would solve and not just for Iraq. All the neighbours have a stake in its future polity and economy, and neither a social collapse nor a forceful US occupation will make for regional stability. Experts from the RIIA Middle East Programme examined the potential regional fallout.
The briefing paper examined three scenarios and their possible impact on neighbouring countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan and Syria.