REINVENTING THE RESISTANCE

Applying EOM to Militant Organizations in Lebanon

Sarah Elizabeth ParkinsonAssistant Professor of Global Policy and Political ScienceHumphrey School of Public Affairs, University of MinnesotaJune 1, 2014

Puzzle

• Beirut v. South Lebanon

• Same orgs in 1982

• Why divergent emergence?

Puzzle

Party Structure or Behavior

‘Ayn al-Hilwa(Saida)

Burj al-Barajna(Beirut)

Outward militarization

High Low

Territorial claim making

Yes No

Control of social services

High Low

Inter-party clashes

Frequent (>1x month)

Rare (≤1x year)

BEIRUT Burj al-BarajnaSAIDA‘Ayn al-Hilwa

LEBANON

ISRAEL SYRIA

EOM and militant organizations• Autocatalysis/self-reproduction

• Production and reproduction of economic, social, political, and military actors

• Pre-1982: (Re)production of military actors called “guerrilla factions”

• Evolution• Multiple interpenetrating networks • Cross-domain shifts in relational protocols in response to wartime

conditions 1982-1989• Emergent forms of military (and social) organization

• Relational ontology• As seen and articulated by actors themselves• Methodological implications

Studying these processes in the field• Examine the content of

relational ties over time within and between domains

• Analyze constitutive ties through biographies over time• Focus on egocentric

networks• Key actors

Perturbation(Regionalized wartime violence)

Emergence of novel organizational forms (collective fronts v. personalized militias)

Transposition of relational ties across multiple network domains

Argument

Socially Embedded Militant Organization

Kinship

Political Organization #1

Organization #2

Individual Families

Diagram adapted from Padgett and McLean (2006)

A

B

C

Organization #1

Perturbation

Kinship

Political

Organization #2

Individual Families A

B

C

Transposition/RepurposingInvention

Kinship

Political Organization #1

Organization #2

Individual Families

Broker between two families

A

B

C

Research Design

• Pre-war control• Shared shock

• PLO withdrawal• Temporal and spatial variation in violence• 1982-1985: Israeli

occupation v. Lebanese government control

• 1985-1988 (War of the Camps): Siege v. guerrilla war

Pre-1982

June 19821982-19851985-1988

BEIRUT

SAIDA

SOUR

Beirut: Indiscriminate Targeting

Violence Organizational Outcome

1982-1984: Sabra-Shatila massacre , arrests, arson

Immobile underground cells

1984: West Beirut revolt, reinfiltration

Coordinated underground front

1985-1988: Siege and blockade of refugee camps, shelling

Coordinated defensive front (shared command)

Militiamen and an emergency response team evacuate a wounded fighter from a refugee camp’s inter-organizational defensive front. PLO (mid-1980s).

Saida: Incarceration & Guerrilla Warfare

Violence Organizational Outcome

1982-1985: Mass arrests, denunciation

Mobile guerrilla cells (based on pre-1982 affiliations)

1985-1988: Re-infiltration,guerrilla war with Amal

Factionalized guerrilla organizations (fragmented command)

Map drawn by Abu Riyad, a former inmate of mu‘askar 8 (Camp 8) in Ansar I prison. The three dark circles at the top illustrate the locations of IDF guard towers. Each rectangle is a 25-man tent. Sour, Summer 2012.

Networks and Organizations

Phase 1Clandestine

Cell Systems

Phase 3Military Fronts

Phase 2City-Wide Networks

Postwar Militant Organization

Local Structure

BEIRUT

SAIDA

Pre-1982Militant

OrganizationLocal Structure Mobile

guerrilla cells

Immobile political

cells

Coordinated underground

front

Factionalizedguerrilla

organizations

Coordinated defensive

front

Factionalizedguerrilla

organizationsCentralized

personalmilitias

Decentralizedunderground

clusters

Men’s Military and Quotidian Networks

Initial observations/possible trajectories• Importance of both “positive” v. “negative” network content

for emergence (or lack thereof)

• Actors/entrepreneurs/amphibians don’t have to be “great men”

• Re-evaluation of “gender roles”

• Language: Boundary creation, maintenance, violation

Research Agendas• Opposition and rebel organizations

• Modeling mobilization (Facebook is but ONE network…)• Conflict dynamics: Multiple-network embeddedness shapes

adaptive trajectories • Relationship between structural vulnerability, adaptive potential, and

sustained resistance

• Regime building• Configuration of ties within regimes (e.g. the president’s brother-in-

law is also the chief of military intelligence and primary shareholder in a tech company)

• Rules of the game (protocols)• Resilience: Which regime configurations are particularly resilient

(e.g. Egyptian military and business)