ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the reconfiguration of clientelism in Lebanon after the Taef Accords (1989) and the end of the civil war (1975–1990). Taking the example of the northern city of Tripoli, it documents and analyses the erosion of conventional patron-client relationships in Lebanon and the shift towards a more transactional system of vote buying where patrons are interchangeable. The main argument is that distance and proximity matter in patron-client relations. More so than the distribution of material resources, symbolic interaction and trust, often emanating from ordinary daily and face-to-face interactions with clients and brokers, are important in building political leadership. Although distributing far less material resources than the billionaires-turned-politicians of the present period, pre-war notables in Tripoli were much better at ensuring loyalty because they were closer to the population, in terms of space, discourse, values, and a shared symbolic universe. The neoliberal habitus and the external sources of the wealth accumulated by the post-war leaders led them to neglect regular and direct interaction with the populace. Conversely, the populist leaders who emerged in some parts of Lebanon in the first years of the Syrian war understood the importance of social embeddedness and went back to the people ‘on the streets’.
