In recent years, anti-corruption discourse has become prevalent in Lebanon. While several anti-corruption laws and a strategy have been passed, they are unlikely to be effectively implemented due to the systemic nature of corruption.
The incident described in this anecdote by a former member of the Lebanese parliament is not unique. For generations, countless similar stories on how corruption has festered in Lebanon have unfolded across a wide array of contexts, with corrupt acts ranging from the petty – such as bribing low-ranking public officials to speed up governmental procedures – to the grave, such as fund embezzlement by some senior government officials, often carrying out their duties under the ultimate protection of Lebanon’s sectarian warlords-turned-politicians. After the end of the civil war in the early 1990s, these former warlords came to dominate public bodies, which were often used for self-enrichment and to distribute patronage among constituents in a clientelistic manner.
This research paper raises concerns that Lebanon’s anti-corruption initiatives, culminating in the recent adoption of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy, are destined to be ineffective. The Lebanese political elite unveiled these initiatives to the international community – as well as the Lebanese electorate, following the uprising of late 2019 and early 2020 – in order to rehabilitate their tarnished image, and in some cases to acquire much-needed international funding. While the strategy and the new laws may look commendable on paper, they are likely to be poorly implemented. In relation to specific anti-corruption laws and the new National Anti-Corruption Strategy, this paper highlights the reasons for this: a lack of political will among Lebanon’s ruling elites to engage in transparency; the absence of an independent judiciary; the use of state resources to benefit the private interests of the elites; the use of bureaucracy to make laws unimplementable; and the fact that the ruling elites are the custodians of the country’s broad anti-corruption strategy. No genuine widespread political will to stamp out corruption can exist when the political class’s governance is responsible for systemic corruption. The political elites are not going to hold themselves accountable for the socio-economic and political morass Lebanon finds itself, a predicament they are largely responsible for.
