Lebanon's Year of Crisis (2019 2020): Unity in Adversity

Isaac E. Andakian explores how shared experiences of four great shocks—the 2019 financial crisis, the October 2019 uprising, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Beirut Port Explosion of August 4, 2020— shape respondents' sectarian, political, and demographic identities. Rising sectarian tensions, deepening poverty, and growing unemployment have been intertwined and compounded with the COVID-19 pandemic and corruption, to create a conducive environment for instability in Lebanon. Drawing on a survey-based research design, Isaac E. Andakian tests hopes and fears, social dominance orientation, and levels of social cohesion among various sectarian groups to gauge their responses to crises. Lebanon's Year of Crisis (2019-2020): Unity in Adversity explores how shared experiences of four great shocks—the 2019 financial crisis, the October 2019 uprising, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Beirut Port Explosion of August 4, 2020— shape respondents' sectarian, political, and demographic identities. Andakian looks to the future to assess whether conflict, or even the resumption of civil war, stemming from Hezbollah's constant threats to use its military capabilities domestically, can be anticipated.