ABSTRACT
The stresses and strains of the years following 1975 forced most of the political parties to drop what remained of their 'ideological' masks, revealing the solidly sectarian structures remaining underneath. There were political killings aplenty, and the national army disintegrated completely twice during that period. The pressures of urbanization nurtured new kinds of political forces within the Maronite community. The new internal rivalries at the political level seemed, even in the mid 1980s, to have had little detrimental effect on two of the community's most enduring traditional institutions. The church hierarchies have continued to exert a strong influence on political developments inside the community. As in the case of the Maronites, the rapid urbanization of many Shi-ites brought new politicial forces into play. The Druze has retained a vivid sense of the importance of family, and of the intricacies of their socio-political traditions.
