Making sense of Lebanon’s approach to the (non-)securitisation of Syrian refugees: a political economic perspective

Lebanon hosts an extraordinarily high number of refugees, and according to a widespread conviction nourished by Lebanon’s political class, they constitute a burden to the country. Thus, an explanation is needed for the fact that – contrary to many European political economies – on the domestic level, neither the central government nor organised social actors have made major attempts to securitise the refugees. Securitisation, ie the presentation of an issue as an existential threat through speech acts in order to legitimise the application of extraordinary measures, did take place, but the primary target audience was international actors. Lebanese authorities took extraordinary measures against Syrian refugees, and societal discrimination against them does exist, but both phenomena are not primarily the outcome of securitising speech acts. This paper proposes an explanation for Lebanon’s particular response to the immigration of Syrian refugees, thereby questioning that this constitutes a burden to Lebanon while highlighting that, by dramatising the ‘refugee crisis’, the Lebanese government aimed at receiving political rents. The main reason why no major political party or social movement put Syrian immigration high on the agenda is that, apart from the political class, assertive social segments of Lebanon’s society also gained from the presence of refugees.