When law yields to influence

A common explanation for Lebanon’s problems is that the country suffers from weak institutions.

This is only partially true.

Lebanon does not lack institutions. It has courts, ministries, Parliament, a constitution, and one of the oldest legal traditions in the Middle East. Its legal system was heavily influenced by French jurisprudence and, for much of the twentieth century, possessed some of the most sophisticated legal institutions in the region.

What it lacks is people’s trust in them and in their ability to enforce laws justly and neutrally.

For decades, people have justified their distrust in the state by pointing to corruption and widespread patronage. These are often treated as causes of institutional weakness, whereas, in reality, they should be understood as symptoms.

The persistence of patronage tells us something important. While informal networks exist in almost every society, their outperformance of formal institutions in Lebanon suggests that most citizens continue to regard them as more reliable than the state.

Long before the emergence of the modern Lebanese state, political authority in the region was often exercised through intermediaries. Under Ottoman rule, local notables, religious authorities, and influential families frequently acted as intermediaries between citizens and distant government institutions. This was not unique to Lebanon. Across much of the Ottoman Empire, local elites often performed functions that modern citizens would associate with government. They mediated disputes, facilitated access to officials, collected taxes, and advocated on behalf of local communities. For ordinary people, interactions with authority were frequently indirect. Rights and obligations were often experienced through relationships rather than institutions.

When the French Mandate introduced modern administrative and legal institutions, it imported the architecture of a contemporary state: courts, ministries, legal codes, and bureaucratic structures designed to embody neutrality, legality, and equal citizenship.

Yet institutions cannot simply be imported. Courts, constitutions, and ministries can be established by decree. Public trust cannot.

Lebanon’s legal and political system is like a luxury European car. The design is sophisticated, and the engineering is impressive. The difficulty is in its maintenance, not the blueprint.

Institutions require more than legal architecture. They require confidence that rules will be applied consistently and fairly, or citizens will inevitably seek alternatives.

Lebanon’s independence did not eliminate patronage networks. In many respects, it incorporated them, especially throughout and after the Civil War. Lebanon’s sectarian political system was designed to preserve representation, claiming it was the only way to limit disputes and reach stability. But by making these denominations official, it reinforced the need for communal leaders whom people would turn to and trust more than the state, since this is who “represents them” and fights for their denomination.

As state authority weakened, militias, political parties, and religious organizations increasingly assumed functions normally reserved for the government. They provided security, welfare, employment, and basic social services. For many Lebanese, their survival depended on them, not on the state, and so their loyalty naturally followed.

The end of the Civil War did not fundamentally reverse this process; if anything, it merely transitioned wartime power structures into peacetime politics through the General Amnesty Law. As former militia leaders became political leaders, their patronage networks naturally survived. As the population sought resources to rebuild their lives after a 15-year war, those networks expanded further.

The Beirut Port blast investigation brought many of these tensions to light. What began as a search for accountability quickly became entangled in disputes of political influence and the legitimacy of the investigative process, as each community and leader rushed to protect their own and claim bias.

The case revealed a deeper problem: a society that lacks confidence in its institutions will eventually interpret even legal processes through a political or communal lens.

This helps explain why reform has proven so difficult.

Reform is often discussed as though it were primarily a legislative challenge. Pass better laws. Strengthen institutions. Improve governance.

But institutional reform ultimately depends on public trust.

Citizens will not abandon informal networks, which have proven to be their lifelines over decades, merely because new legislation is enacted. They will abandon them when institutions prove they can reliably replace them.

Rebuilding trust, therefore, requires more than legal reform. Citizens must repeatedly observe institutions functioning effectively in practice. Courts must resolve disputes efficiently and impartially. Public services must operate without political sponsorship. Regulators must apply rules consistently regardless of a person's sect, family name, or political affiliation.

Trust is accumulated slowly. Every fair decision strengthens institutional credibility, while every perceived act of favouritism weakens it.

This not only includes providing access to basic social services, but also fostering an environment where economic growth is possible. Businesses need confidence that contracts will be enforced, disputes resolved fairly, and property rights protected consistently. Otherwise, the status quo will continue, in which most businesses bypass basic laws under the “protection” of their patronage.

The result is a system that many people criticize, but relatively few can afford to abandon.

Lebanon is hardly unique in this regard. Informal networks and patronage systems exist throughout the Middle East, Southern Europe, Latin America, and elsewhere. The real question is not whether such networks exist, but whether they complement institutions or replace them.

In strong institutional systems, personal relationships may open doors.

In weaker systems, they often become the door itself.

Perhaps most importantly, institutional weakness gradually changes the way citizens think. Instead of operating by the law, their focus shifts to who in their patronage will be able to support them, and in what way.

But patronage is not the disease; it is the symptom of institutional weakness and the absence of confidence that rules will be applied fairly, consistently, and impartially.

Lebanon’s future will not be determined solely by constitutional reform, economic recovery, or elections. It will also depend upon whether enough citizens come to believe that institutions deserve greater loyalty than patrons, and that formal rules can be trusted more than informal connections.

Until that happens, Lebanon will continue to possess something many countries lack: sophisticated laws on paper, and too little faith in them in practice.

Tony Taouk is a Sydney lawyer and commentator who writes on law and crime.

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