Dumping Humpty Dumpty: Blockages and Opportunities for Lebanon’s Economy after the October 2019 Protests

Baumann, Hannes ORCID: 0000-0003-0100-1841 (2021) Dumping Humpty Dumpty: Blockages and Opportunities for Lebanon’s Economy after the October 2019 Protests. South Atlantic Quarterly, 120 (2). pp. 456-463.

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Abstract

<jats:p>Lebanon’s protests were sparked by economic misery, especially the decline of the long-standing currency peg. What is surprising about the currency collapse is not that it happened at all, but that the country’s unsustainable economic model avoided it for so long. A unique coalition had kept the system going: central bank and finance ministry created rents, banks appropriated rents, politicians were sharing rents, diaspora remittances kept rent-creation going, and foreign governments were tolerating or even underwriting the mechanism. This rentier coalition has now fallen apart. Protestors and critical economists, meanwhile, remain locked out of decision-making by an unaccountable political class. Options for the future include chaos and predation under militia rule, an International Monetary Fund agreement bringing privatisation and austerity, a growth-oriented interventionist state put together by technocrats of the left, and grassroots initiatives of mutual aid pioneered by protestors.</jats:p>

Item Type:	Article
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	09 Feb 2021 08:25
Last Modified:	18 Jan 2023 23:00
DOI:	10.1215/00382876-8916204
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3115359