ABSTRACT
This first empirical chapter engages with the national dimensions of Lebanon’s response to the Syrian refugee ‘crisis’ and explores the instances of strategic ambiguity that have shaped it. Drawing on desk research and in-depth, semi-structured interviews, the chapter outlines how Lebanon’s governance of Syrian refugees’ status, shelter, and representation has developed from inaction before the issuing of the government’s Policy Paper on Syrian Displacement in October 2014 to ambiguous action after it. It is shown that the institutionalization of informality, liminality, and exceptionalism across these governance domains has resulted in imposed ‘illegality’ and has enabled the large-scale marginalization of Syrian refugees in Lebanon. By means of three vignettes that investigate practices of deliberate non-registration, vague policy formulation and arbitrary policy implementation, and the creation of nonperformative state agencies, the chapter demonstrates that the institutional ambiguity that helps to produce widespread refugee vulnerability at times constitutes a politics of uncertainty.
