Hizballah : the survival of growth -

Abstract

This thesis examines how Hizballah has evolved from its revolutionary goal of creating an Islamic state in Lebanon to becoming a significant actor in both Lebanese politics and regional affairs. The methodology of this thesis utilizes an approach that extracts four common characteristics of revolutionary groups and applies the four common characteristics to Hizballah. From these four characteristics I derive four assertions. First, Hizballah is composed of political, economic and socially marginalized people in Lebanon. Second, Hizballah was forced to revise its ideology and change its behavior to construct more realistic goals that would allow them to remain a legitimate entity and retain power and support. Third, after Hizballah achieved its more realistic goal, it sought to remain in power by modifying its ideology, behavior and goals once more, resulting in a loss of support. Finally, Hizballah was used as a proxy force. In addition to highlighting these four phases pertaining to Hizballah, an early history of the Shia in Lebanon is provided to supply the essential foundation on which Hizballah was built upon. This study concludes that Hizballah had in fact evolved in a prototypical manner in accordance with these four assertions, with the exception of losing vast amounts of support following the Israeli withdrawal in 2000 up until 2008. Furthermore, Hizballah has become so adept in maintaining power that it has become the hegemon in Lebanon—this phenomenon closely resembles the purportedly negative features Hizballah was originally established to combat. Finally, this thesis suggests that any future evolutionary stage Hizballah undergoes will almost certainly involve the group maintaining its weapons, as Hizballah will not voluntarily relinquish them in the near future.