ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the way that civil war has transformed consociationalism in Lebanon, the only country to adopt consociationalism twice: before and after its civil war. It advances the knowledge of consociationalism following civil war by examining one particular case, Lebanon, the only country to adopt consociationalism twice: in 1943 and in 1989. Post-civil war Lebanon was not a sovereign state and qualifies at best as a democracy with reserved domains, one of the four types in Wolfgang Merkel's typology of "defective democracies". Arend Lijphart lists four favourable factors for consociational democracy in Lebanon: the absence of a majority segment, its small population size, a tradition of accommodation and segments of equal size. Brenda Seaver, stressing the contribution of international factors in the failure of consociationalism in Lebanon, even claims that it is more important for Lebanon's future to find a solution to the Palestinian problem than to get the institutions right.
