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Speaker: External powers needed to create balance in pluralistic states

By Michelle Martínez, Gavel Media Senior Staff, on April 9, 2010 11:20 PM

By Michelle Martinez, News Editor -

In an event sponsored by Boston College’s Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Student Association, Michael Kerr, director for the Center of the Study of Divided Societies and professor from King’s College in London, addressed the power-sharing arrangements devised in Lebanon and Northern Ireland in the 20th century.

Though one wouldn’t be quick to compare Lebanon and Northern Ireland as sharing several similarities, Kerr pointed out that both these states share similar histories of sectarian violence, of power-sharing structures that initially failed, and of imposed power-sharing arrangements on behalf of external actors.

“In divided societies like Northern Ireland and Lebanon, that are divided by socio-ethnic, linguistic cleavages, outside states have been critical and central to implementation and negotiation of power-sharing accords,” Kerr said. “External forces have been the deciding element in the power-sharing accords in the 20th century, and this remains the case today.”

Kerr emphasized how when he began his research on the subject of power-sharing agreements, he wondered how and why elites in conflict for contested spaces would ever agree to share ownership of those lands that were ideologically god-given in their national narratives. At the beginning of this research endeavor, reformulated power agreements were in place in both of the states he studied: the 1998 Belfast Agreement in Northern Ireland, and the Taef Agreements that ended the Lebanese Civil War.

Both of these power-sharing agreements were in some way condoned or pursued mostly by external powers, especially those who had some sort of interest and possible gain from this return to power-sharing.

“Power-sharing is the most realistic means to regulate violence in societies and avoid civil war. In Northern Ireland’s case, British and Irish governments began to work with a unity of purpose to promote that idea. In Lebanon, stability is fluctuated depending on the input from the United States, the Soviet Union at the time, among others,” Kerr said.

Not just the establishment, but also the longevity of these agreements greatly depend on the external powers’ long-standing interest in bringing that into being. In the example of Northern Ireland, for interest, positive external values in ensuring the strength and endurance of the agreement include President Bill Clinton’s influence and support, as well as the British government’s vast interest in regulating Irish violence.

With the conclusion of the Lebanese Civil War with the Taef Agreements in 1976, the United States set out to accept a ‘Syrian Solution.’ “The United States accepted a Syrian regulation of Lebanon’s political violence, accept a special relationship between the two, and thus bring Syria into the US’ sphere of influence,” Kerr said. Because of these, the post-war reality of Lebanese politics is now determined by its relationship with Syria, and is now a government subservient to that of an external power.

“The Lebanese didn’t protest too much, having experienced a civil war. An imposed undemocratic government was grudgingly accepted,” Kerr said.

Kerr noted how these fragmented societies and the conflicts that arise out of them is currently exemplified by the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq, which President Barack Obama is thus far succeeding in containing. “External variables still remain essential to political processes in Lebanon and Northern Ireland, as well as in the future in societies that are similar,” Kerr said.

“In an ideal world, external actors would have a stake in ensuring these things are accomplished, such as a power-sharing agreement in Afghanistan. This, however, is not as easy as regulating political violence in Northern Ireland and Lebanon,” Kerr said.