In Lebanon, questions are constantly asked about the reasons that allow politicians of immeasurable mediocrity and corruption to impose themselves and to remain in power in a country where the society has an extraordinary level of education, competence and dynamism.
The answers are often given in terms of the confessional issue and the divisions it implies, the clientelism that has continued to grow and to corrode all public administrations, sponsored by the leaders of war militias who have become ministers and deputies. Talks also evoked the Syrian regime’s hegemony that has "manufactured" politicians and infiltrated state institutions, assassinations, impunity, Hezbollah and its weapons that terrorize its opponents, and the electoral law and its “Gerry meandering” that favored the re-election of the same tenors and their henchmen. Finally, the repercussions of the regional crises on the Lebanese scene are regularly mentioned. They complicate the situation even more and leave the majority of the people in the frustration of impotence and the disarray of waiting for temporary solutions, often imported from the “outside”.
Nevertheless, is this enough to understand the increasingly striking gap between State and Society or between political elites and social or cultural actors in the country?
