Statecraft · Series
Two states, one country
Lebanon is told its administration cannot be fixed, that clientelism is in the country’s nature and a competent state was never on offer. The historical record says otherwise. Lebanon built a meritocratic, planning state once, deliberately, in less than a decade. It was then dismantled, just as deliberately, by those whose power it threatened. The lesson is not that reform is impossible. It is that reform is a contest over power, and the country has already shown which side can win when it chooses to.
