Managing Public Health in a Fragile Consociation: Lebanon Between Wars, Explosions and the Covid-19 Pandemic

This chapter aims to address informality and informal exchanges in terms of morality (Pardo, 2000; Pardo & Prato, 2019) as well as legitimacy to trust or lack of trust towards the state and the religious communities. It builds on previous works in the region, where this author examined the sectarian divide in Lebanon, the international extensions of the various religious factions and the fragmented nature of the Lebanese political identity (Mollica, 2009; 2019). Its departure points are the in-built sectarian divide and the transnational dimensions of the religious factions that characterize the fragmented nature of the Lebanese political identity. A diachronic approach coupled with ethnographic evidence will help to shed light on the repeated dichotomy that emerges when the country encounters periods of crises. This is analysed via the relationship between the overarching National consociational model and local-level governance and practices by reference to the management of public health, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. On the one hand, this will be scrutinized through a historical explanation of the different phases of the Lebanese health system and its structure. This can be discerned in the way structure and treatment are recognized as legitimate when applied to treatment and in the types of health issues Lebanese political parties confront. On the other hand, the role of religiosity (sectarianism) in the management of public health will be examined, particularly framing the long-standing ethno-religious tension in the ethnographic context of the Pandemic to assess the role of religious sectarianism in the interpretation of the state’s legitimacy. Ethnographic evidence on the issue of public health as well as a synthetic historical explanation about the different phases of the Lebanese health system will construct the background framework. Nevertheless, the discussion of factions and Lebanese politics will be linked to ethnographic details about health issues mostly by reference to the Maronite community.