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Community football as a mechanism of building
inclusive networks of social capital in post-
settlement contexts
~ Case Study from Lebanon
Photo: A Community Club event at Wavel Palestinian refugee camp, Bekaa Valley
Source: the author
John Skelton
MA Post-war Recovery Studies
University of York
Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit (PRDU)
Department of Politics
September 2012
Word Count: 18,386
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Abstract
In recent years there has been an upsurge of interest among INGOS, UN agencies and
other agents of liberal peacebuilding in the role of sport in peacebuilding processes.
However, the wide-ranging rhetorical claims with regards to sport’s social functions as
articulated by proponents of the self-pronounced ‘sport for development and peace
sector’ have largely occurred in the absence of rigorous empirical research.
Based on a case study of a football-based community peacebuilding intervention in
Lebanon, this dissertation critically examines the utility of, and challenges facing,
sports-based initiatives as mechanisms for developing inclusive forms of social relations
and civil society in post-settlement contexts. This analysis is underpinned by social
capital and civil society peacebuilding theory.
The study found that the intervention effectively generated intergroup contact and
thereby bridging social capital between divided communities. Recreational sport’s
social position as a popular and apolitical activity in Lebanese societies made it a
particularly suitable vehicle for civil society mobilisation. Importantly however, these
characteristics of sport did not in themselves promote interethnic bridging; rather the
latter was the result of intervention into the organisation of community sport in such
ways that effectively engineered intergroup cooperation among multiple stakeholders.
Further, the case study highlighted two major interlinked challenges concerning external
efforts to develop sports-based bridging civil society. First, ensuring that such
interventions are tailored to local rather than external interests and second, ensuring that
they are sustainable. The case study suggested that these challenges can be mitigated by
bottom-up locally-led strategies. Ultimately however it is not clear whether they can be
fully resolved, thus leaving unanswered the question of how successfully sports-based
interventions can create long-term bridging social capital.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Author’s Declaration
Abbreviations
Map of Lebanon
Chapter 1 - Introduction
Research question, theoretical framework and overview of
finding
Limitations of scope
Structure
Methodology
Data collection methods
Limitations
Chapter 2 - Social capital theory and sports-based community
peacebuilding in the literature
Interpreting social capital
Social capital and peacebuilding: bridging and bonding
Sport, social capital and peacebuilding
Sport as a source of social capital
Sport and intergroup bridging
Engineering bridging social capital through sport interventions
Effectiveness of sports-based peacebuilding
Conclusion
Chapter 3 - The Lebanese Context: Protracted conflict, social
capital and the organisation of sport
Historical background and Civil War (1975-1990)
Post-2005: Continuation of identity-based protracted social
conflict
Communal identity and grievances: the elevation of the Sunni-
Shi’a divide
International linkages: the primacy of Syrian influence
Social capital and civil society in Lebanese society
Trust in society
Membership of civil society organisations
Sport as an activity of civil society: vehicle of social cohesion of
fragmentation?
Conclusion
Chapter 4 - The utility of sports-based community peacebuilding:
case study of CCPA’s Community Club intervention
Background to CCPA’s Community Club programme
The Community Club programme and the creation of bridging
social capital
Support of authorities, law or custom
Common goals
Intergroup cooperation
Equal status
Conclusion
Chapter 5 - Challenges of sports-based community peacebuilding:
case study of CCPA’s Community Club intervention
Challenge of ensuring intervention’s relevance to local context
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Promotion of intergroup bridging
Challenge of achieving local sustainability
Restricted external input
Maximum local participation and responsibility
Securing sustainability through connecting to the national
sports sector
Conclusion
Chapter 6 - Conclusion: Towards a conceptually and practically
coherent approach to sports-based community peacebuilding
Peacebuilding Utility
Peacebuilding Challenges
Policy Recommendations
Appendix 1: List of Interviews
Appendix 2: Interview Template
Appendix 3: Map of Community Clubs
Bibliography
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Acknowledgements
I am indebted to staff at Cross Cultures Project Association for assisting me to carry out
fieldwork in Lebanon and for ensuring that my time spent in Beirut was such a positive
experience. In particular, I am most grateful to Anders Ronild for facilitating the
opportunity and to Rabab Ramadan for ensuring I had everything I could possibly
require and answering many questions.
I also owe gratitude to my supervisor Dr Luisa Gandolfo for providing advice and
encouragement, as well as to the other PRDU staff, especially Dr David Connolly, Dr
Claire Smith, and Ms Sally Carter.
I am extremely grateful to Cassie for providing constant support throughout the process.
Finally I am indebted to my parents for generously assisting with the (financial rather
than social, so to speak) capital which enabled me to undertake this level of study.
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Author’s Declaration
This work is being submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of MA in Post-war Recovery Studies at the University of York.
It is my own unaided work, except where otherwise stated, and has not previously been
submitted for any degree or examination.
Signed ...................................................................... (Candidate)
Name: John Skelton
University of York, Heslington
Date: 6/09/12
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Abbreviations
CCPA Cross Cultures Project Association
CBO Community-based organisation
CSO Civil Society Organisation
INGO International non-governmental organisation
MENA Middle East and North Africa
MOE Ministry of Education
MOYS Ministry of Youth and Sports
NGO Non-governmental organisation
NOC National Olympic Committee
PLO Palestinian Liberation Organisation
PSC Protracted Social Conflict
SDPIWG Sport for Development and Peace International Working Group
UN United Nations
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNOSDP United Nations Office on Sport and Development and Peace
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Map of Lebanon
(Source: CCPAa)
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Chapter One ~
Introduction
“We have to distrust each other. It's our only defence against betrayal.”
Tennessee Williams, Camino Real, 19531
This dissertation is interested in how the social fabric of post-settlement societies can be
transformed from a state characterised by prejudice and security dilemmas to one of
reconciliation and cohesion. Within this, the dissertation interrogates the role of
community sports initiatives in generating inclusive bridging forms of social capital, the
latter understood as a collective term for social relations and the norms of trust,
cooperation and reciprocity that are derived from them (Putnam 2000:19).
This analysis is organised around a case study of a community football intervention in
Lebanon, namely the ‘Community Club programme’2, implemented by the Danish
NGO Cross Cultures Project Association (CCPA). The programme aims to promote
positive interaction between Lebanon’s divided communities through the medium of
children’s grassroots football (generally for children between the ages of seven and
fourteen). Despite having officially experienced ‘peace’ since 1989, internal and
external dynamics have been such that inter-communal relations remain in a state of
what Azar (1990) terms protracted social conflict (PSC).
In recent years, the potential of sport in peacebuilding contexts as perceived by leading
agents of the liberal peacebuilding industry has led to something of a rhetorical and
1 Knowles, E., (eds.), The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001): 820
2 Officially the programme was called the ‘Popular Club’ programme. In Lebanese law, ‘Popular Club’
refers to a specific form of grassroots recreational sport organisation. However, the programme was also
referred to by CCPA as the Community Club programme and the latter term is used in this study.
10
policy explosion.3 Sports-based peace-support initiatives have been implemented by
leading humanitarian INGOs such as Mercy Corps and World Vision, and by specialist
sport development such as Right To Play, while sport initiatives are becoming
increasingly integrated into bilateral international assistance (Kidd 2011). In 2001 the
UN established an Office on Sport for Development and Peace (UNOSDP) and an Inter-
Agency Task on Sport for Development and Peace in 2002. The UN General Assembly
declared 2005 to be the “international year of sport and physical education”, while then-
UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan asserted that sport was “a universal language that can
bring people together, no matter what their origin, background, religious beliefs or
economic status” (UN 2005)4. This collection of intergovernmental and non-
governmental actors has been perceived as an emerging ‘sector’ (Kidd 2011) which is
unified by the assertion that sport constitutes a legitimate and effective form of
humanitarian intervention in post-settlement and development contexts.
Critics however suggest that the enthusiasm with which sport-based peacebuilding has
been promoted has not been accompanied by either sound theoretical grounding or
empirical evidence. Specifically, Coalter (2010a, 2010b) has criticised the “evangelical
policy rhetoric” and the tendency to reify sport’s social properties and to romanticise its
social utility, which characterises the so-called ‘sport for development and peace’
discourse.
Research question, theoretical framework and overview of findings
3 Liberal peacebuilding is understood here as the form of peace-promotion undertaken by leading
international states, intergovernmental organisations, international financial institutions, and non-
governmental organisations (Mac Ginty, 2006: 33).
4 United Nations, “International Year of Sport and Physical Education”, 2005,
http://www.un.org/sport2005/, viewed 12th July 2012
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This dissertation modestly aims to address these research needs through responding to
the following research question: What insights does the CCPA Community Club case
study provide regarding the utility of, and challenges facing, community football
programmes as vehicles for strengthening peace through the building of inclusive social
capital in deeply divided societies? The dissertation proposes social capital theory as a
lens through which to investigate these issues. While the linkage between sport and
social capital is implicit in much of the sports-based peacebuilding literature, the
dissertation seeks to explicitly interrogate the nature of the relationship. This is pursued
from two angles.
Firstly, the dissertation seeks to assess the utility of sports-based peacebuilding in terms
of social capital creation. The study found that through the establishment of a national
network of ‘Community Clubs’, the intervention effectively generated intergroup
contact and thereby created bridging social capital between divided communities. It
was found that recreational sport’s social position as a popular and apolitical activity in
Lebanese society made it a particularly suitable vehicle for civil society mobilisation.
Importantly however, these characteristics of sport did not in themselves promote
interethnic bridging; rather the latter was the result of intervention into the organisation
of community sport in such ways that effectively engineered intergroup cooperation
among multiple stakeholders.
Secondly, based on the case study the dissertation examines the challenges of sports-
based peacebuilding. The study found that the two most significant challenges faced by
the Community Club programme related to what is presented in the literature (Belloni
2008) as the ‘systemic dilemma’ of civil society development. The first related to
ensuring that the intervention was tailored to local rather than external interests. The
second concerned ensuring that it was sustainable. The case study suggested that these
12
challenges can be mitigated by bottom-up locally-led strategies. Ultimately however it
is not clear whether they can be fully resolved, thus leaving unanswered the question of
how successfully sports-based interventions can create long-term bridging social
capital.
Limitations of scope
It is important to note certain limits of the dissertation’s scope. Firstly, it is focused on
the post-settlement phase of peacebuilding. The term ‘post-settlement’ is preferred over
‘post-conflict’ in recognition of the fact that conflict frequently remains in the period
following war in the forms of inter-group attitudes and structural inequalities. Second,
it is interested in recreational rather than elite-level sport5 and particularly its impact at
the community level. Third, the focus is on participatory, rather than spectator or
symbolic aspects of sport6. Fourth, as noted above, scholarly interest in the role of
sport in peacebuilding and development processes has included research into sport’s
functionality in a wide range of social contexts, including: as a mechanism of women’s
empowerment, as an instrument of character-building and civic education, as a means of
addressing psycho-social and trauma-related needs, as an antidote to crime and
antisocial behaviour, as a tool for the reintegration of former combatants and displaced
people, and as a vehicle for civil resistance (see Rigby (2008) and Coalter (2007) for
critical analyses of these claims). However, this dissertation’s focus is restricted to the
application of sport as an agent of coexistence and reconciliation between deeply
divided groups. Finally, although the dissertation applies the term ‘sport’ as the unit of
analysis, by virtue of the nature of the case study the majority of the dissertation is
specifically focused on football.
5 See Ramsbotham et al (2011) for discussion of the peacebuilding potential of elite-level sport.
6 See Hoglund and Sundberg (2008) for discussion of symbolic aspects of sport.
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Structure
Chapter Two reviews the literature relating to social capital theory in the context of
peacebuilding and social cohesion. The chapter also analyses the literature concerned
with the application of sport as a mechanism of generating bridging social capital in
post-settlement peacebuilding contexts.
An analysis of the contemporary Lebanese context is provided in Chapter Three,
drawing on Azar’s (1990) theory of protracted social conflict (PSC). The chapter
focuses on the nature of social capital in Lebanon, arguing that despite the existence of a
developed civil society, social capital is predominantly of a bonding variety, while
bridging and linking social capital is lacking. The chapter then examines the role that
the sport sector plays as a source of social capital in Lebanese society. It argues that at
the elite level, the politicised nature of the sport sector serves to perpetuate sectarian
divisions, while the sector’s lack of development at the recreational level restricts its
utility as a mechanism of generating inter-ethnic interaction.
Chapters Four and Five addresses the research question as detailed above through
analysis of the Community Club case study, focusing respectively on the issues of the
utility and challenges of sports-based community peacebuilding. Chapter Six
summarises the study’s conclusions and provides policy recommendations.
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Methodology
Field research was carried out in Lebanon between 18 March and 18 May 2012. During
this period, the author simultaneously undertook a work-placement with the NGO Cross
Cultures Project Association (CCPA) (whose intervention provided the basis for
research, as noted above). Although a broad research topic had been identified prior to
the placement, the precise research theme was formulated once the researcher had
gained familiarity with the nature of CCPA’s programme and was designed to ensure
that relevant research could be undertaken in the context of his commitments to CCPA.
Through the placement, he was involved on a daily basis with the case study under
analysis, namely the Community Club programme. Data was collected throughout the
geographical regions of Lebanon, in both urban and rural locations, but was focused
specifically on locations in which the Community Club programme operated.
Additional primary research was undertaken following the author’s return from the field
in the form of Skype interviews.
Data collection methods
The dissertation followed a qualitative data collection methodology. On this issue it
was judged that the research’s focus on affective issues such as trust was more
conducive to qualitative rather than statistical analysis. Following the literature, a
composite approach was adopted given its perceived superiority over simple techniques
in conflict zones through triangulating multiple data sources (Barakat et al 2002). The
data collection techniques used were interviews (individual and group), participant and
direct observation, and documentation provided by CCPA. With regards to the latter it
is worth noting the caution recommended by Barakat et al (ibid:997) in terms of the bias
that NGOs’ progress reports can exhibit regarding their own programmes. Yet the
subjective interpretations of reality that such sources can contain may also be useful
15
particularly when comparing external actors’ and ‘beneficiaries’’ interpretation of a
given issue. In the case of the present research, CCPA documentation provided useful
insights with regards to the organisations’ interpretation of various aspects of the
Community Club programme, which were then checked against local stakeholders’
interpretations.
Interviews generally followed semi-structure formats; this design was chosen because
much of the research was exploratory in nature. Semi-structured interviews provided
the researcher with a general framework (concerning the social benefits of a particular
Community Club, for example), which could be developed in specific directions
depending upon the insights provided by the respondent (Food and Agriculture
Organisation)7. Additionally, several unstructured interviews were undertaken with
members of the CCPA staff. This data was not collected in a formal manner but was
rather gathered ‘spontaneously’ during the two months spent by the author embedded
within the organisation.
Data provided from interviews was complemented by information gathered through
human-based direct observation. The latter was deemed valuable since it entailed “the
assessment of the actual phenomenon rather than a reconstruction or contrived rendition
of it” (Grove and Fisk 1992). Simple observation of various aspects of the Community
Club programme (e.g. training workshops, stakeholder meetings, football festivals)
allowed the researcher to gain direct data untainted by bias (the researcher was able to
verify gender participation ratios for example). More prolonged participant observation
(Barakat et al 2002:998) was undertaken with regards to the functioning of CCPA as an
7Food and Agriculture Organisation, “Tool 9: Semi-structured interviews”,
http://www.fao.org/docrep/x5307e/x5307e08.htm, viewed 18th
August 2012
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organisation and was made possible through the author’s role as a de facto staff member
for two months.
With regards to sampling methods, the research followed a targeted methodology
whereby stakeholders of the Community Club case study were identified and selected as
participants. These were programme volunteers, parents of children involved in the
programme, municipality representatives, CCPA staff and members of the Lebanese
Football Association. These participants were targeted due to their shared experience of
and relevance to the case study, but additionally in order to provide a wide range of
perspectives. In addition, interviews were conducted with non-stakeholders, including
NGOs engaged in the field of development through sport in Lebanon and the wider
Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This research provided information
beyond the case study and thus added depth to the study’s research into sports-based
peacebuilding. All informants were interviewed under the condition of anonymity and
were not recorded; this was designed to allay respondents’ fears of identification and to
facilitate a more unguarded style of information transfer between interviewer and
interviewee.
Limitations
The research faced certain limitations noted in the literature as common to research
undertaken in war-affected zones. A notable limitation was a lack of contact
information (e.g. knowledge of who to interview) with regards to both stakeholders and
non-stakeholders of the intervention (Cohen and Arieli 2011). A second limitation
concerned technical constraints (e.g. lack of mobility and access to informants) due to
the researchers’ lack of transport and Arabic language skills (ibid).
However, the most significant limitations were particular to the researcher’s situation as
simultaneously a staff member within CCPA and a researcher of that organisation’s
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intervention. As a consequence, time constraints were exacerbated by the researcher’s
prearranged professional (office) commitments to CCPA. A second issue was that the
researcher undertook the majority of research in the capacity of being a member of the
CCPA staff, with the inevitable consequence that he was considered by respondents to
be an affiliate of CCPA, thus compromising his impartiality. The problem of bias was
accentuated by the fact that translation work was undertaken either by staff or
volunteers involved in the intervention under analysis. Thus research was effectively
undertaken under the auspices of CCPA with the result that informants may have been
less inclined to speak freely or critically with regards to the Community Club
programme. Finally, regulations stipulated by the researcher’s institution prohibited the
inclusion of children in the research, thus limiting analysis to the adult perspective.
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Chapter 2 ~
Social capital theory and sports-based community peacebuilding in the literature
“Members of Florentine choral societies participate because they like to sing, not because their
participation strengthens the Tuscan social fabric. But it does.”
Robert D. Putnam, The Prosperous Community: Social Capital and Public Life, 1993
This chapter reviews the literature relating to social capital theory and its relationship to
peacebuilding and community sport. The first section discusses definitions of social
capital; the second part reviews the literature concerned with social capital’s
relationship to social cohesion and peacebuilding; the final section analyses social
capital in the context of peacebuilding through community sport initiatives.
Interpreting social capital
The concept of social capital has attracted enormous attention in recent years by both
development economists (notably at the World Bank) and democratisation and
peacebuilding theorists. For the former, the relevance of social capital lies in its ability
to develop other forms of capital and thereby promote economic efficiency (Collier
2002). For the latter it is essential for social cohesion, civil society and democracy
(Paffenholz 2009; Paffenholz and Spurk 2006; Colletta and Cullen 2000; Putnam 2000,
1993).
As discussed below, the meaning of social capital has been interpreted from various,
sometimes contradictory, perspectives. However, there is broad agreement that the
concept is concerned with features of social organisation that enable collective action.
Such features are commonly held to be social networks, relationships, norms, trust and
reciprocity (Woolcock and Narayan 2000:226; Putnam 2000, 1993). Networks have
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been described as “social structures that connect people” (Nan 2009). Reciprocity is
interpreted by Putnam (2000:20) as: “I’ll do this for you now, in the expectation that
you (or perhaps someone else) will return the favour”. The element of trust is central to
Fukuyama’s (2001) understanding of social capital, who states that it is central to the
ability of individuals to act collectively. Social capital is considered capital because, like
human and economic capital, it is productive. Yet according to Putnam (1993:4), in
contrast to other capital, it increases in quantity the more it is used. Thus the underlying
principle is that “social networks have value” (Putnam 2000:18-19). Societies with
abundant social capital are perceived to be more successful than those without because
it enables cooperation and the development of other forms of capital such as human and
economic capital (Putnam1993: 2).
However, theorists adopt contrasting interpretations regarding the nature of social
capital’s value. Putnam’s interest in social capital lies in its ability to generate positive
collective outcomes, regarding it as a public rather than private good. Thus
communities or societies rather than individuals possess social capital (Coalter
2010b:378; Colletta and Cullen 2000:2). In contrast, other theorists such as Coleman
(1988) adopt a more individualistic interpretation (Coalter 2010b:1377). Similarly, Lin
(1999: 30), views social capital in rational self-interested terms, describing it as
“investment in social relations with expected returns.”
A second area of debate concerns the type of social organisation to which social capital
refers. Whereas Putnam (2000) considers the term to relate to horizontal forms of social
organisation, a broader interpretation is offered by Szreter and Woolcock (2004) and
Woolcock (2001), whose definition includes relations existing across vertical
continuums. The authors term this as ‘linking’ social capital and define it as “norms of
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respect and networks of trusting relationships between people who are interacting across
explicit, formal or institutionalized power or authority gradients in society.” Social
capital in its linking form has been considered important in regards to social relations
between state institutions (as well as private sources of authority) on one hand, and
individuals and communities on the other (Colletta and Cullen 2000:2).
Social capital and peacebuilding: bridging and bonding
The literature suggests that the relationship between social capital and peacebuilding is
dependent upon what notion of the latter is adopted, in particular whether it is theorised
as a ‘top-down’ or as a ‘bottom-up’ process. Conflict settlement and management
paradigms have been considered representative of the former (Mac Ginty and Williams
(2009:99-108). These approaches operate principally through ‘track one’ (elite level)
diplomacy and seek to contain conflict. Noting that power rather than relations inform
top-down approaches, Paffenholz (2009) suggests that social capital, and the trust it
entails, does not play a prominent role in such strategies.
Conversely, conflict resolution and transformation strategies are relationship-based
approaches which are considered bottom-up in that they seek solutions to conflict at
midlevel and grassroots societal levels (ibid). This approach is advocated by Lederach
(1997:85-85), who defines peacebuilding as “…a comprehensive concept that
encompasses, generates and sustains the full array of processes, approaches and stages
needed to transform conflict toward more sustainable, peaceful relationships.” Social
capital is deemed to be an important aspect of bottom-up peacebuilding approaches
Paffenholz (2009). This has been most commonly considered in terms of the
association of the former with social cohesion (Paffenholz ibid; Korac 2009; Saner
2009). Although no universally-agreed definition of social cohesion exists, it has been
21
assumed to be a basic prerequisite for any successfully functioning society (King et al
2010; Woolcock and Narayan 2000). Berkman and Kawatchi (2000:175) perceive
social capital as a subset of social cohesion:
Social cohesion refers to two broader intertwined features of society: (1) the
absence of latent conflict whether in the form of income/wealth inequality;
racial/ethnic tensions; disparities in political participation; or other forms of
polarization; and (2) the presence of strong social bonds-measured by levels
of trust and norms of reciprocity; the abundance of associations that bridge
social divisions (civic society) and the presence of institutions of conflict
management, e.g., responsive democracy, an independent judiciary, and an
independent media.
In this theorising, as the above excerpt makes clear, social capital is a core element of
the second criterion of social cohesion. Moreover, as also indicated by the above
statement, an important source of social capital, particularly in Putnam’s communitarian
interpretation, is deemed to be civil society and voluntary associations therein. It should
be noted that civil society is a contested concept, being viewed variously as a sector
distinct from the other main societal spheres of the state, family and market, and,
alternatively, as an intermediary space between those sectors. It has also been defined
from an actor perspective and, contrastingly, from a functional perspective (Paffenholz
and Spurk 2006:3-10). For social capital theorists such as Putnam (2000), the relevance
of civil society lies in the closely related concept of civic engagement, which “refers
mainly to the participation of individuals in civil life and groupings” (Paffenholz and
Spurk 2006).
Putnam (2000) considers both formal civil society organisations and informal social
connections (such as meeting with friends) as proxies of civic engagement and thereby
of social capital. However, there is debate in the literature as to the causal relationship
between civil society and social capital. While Putnam assumes civil society to generate
social capital (Baum and Ziersch 2003:320), Fukuyama (2001) and Moore (2009:135)
22
suggest that the existence of voluntary associations is a manifestation, rather than a
source, of social capital. Nevertheless, there appears to be substantial support for the
notion that the relationship between civil society and civic participation is mutually
reinforcing.
While civil society and the social capital with which it is associated have been
positively linked to social cohesion, the literature emphasises that both civil society and
social capital can also have negative social impacts. Here, Putnam’s (2000: 22)
distinction between ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ social capital is crucial. The former
(corresponding to Granovetter’s (1973) ‘strong’ ties) refers to cohesion and trust within
socially homogenous groups. The latter, (equivalent to Granovetter’s ‘weak’ ties) refers
to cohesion and trust between different identity groups (Putnam 2000:22). Putnam
(ibid) emphasises that bonding social capital is a vital element of social cohesion and
delivers a range of benefits to both individuals and societies as a whole: “bonding social
capital is good for undergirding specific reciprocity and mobilising solidarity” and
constitutes “sociological superglue”. However, certain forms of bonding social capital
can be built on exclusionary norms which - what Putnam (ibid:350-363) refers to as the
“dark side of social capital” - may be detrimental to the cohesion of a society (Nan
2009; O’Reilly 1998:27). Organisations such as the Ku Klux Klan are examples of
extremely exclusionary forms of social capital; while such organisations reflect and
produce strong intragroup social cohesion, they simultaneously while exclude outsiders
and therefore contribute to social fragmentation rather than cohesion (Fukuyama
2001:8).
This points to the fact that civil society per se does not lead to social cohesion, and may
in fact have a detrimental impact if built on exclusionary norms. As Mac Ginty and
Williams (2009:88) note, civil society “can be exclusive rather than inclusive and
23
decidedly uncivil”. This is particularly true of post-settlement societies, which are often
characterised by an abundance of bonding social capital, while bridging social capital is
frequently a casualty of violent conflict (ibid:88; Belloni 2009; Paffenholz 2009:194).
Thus, while bonding social capital is not automatically detrimental to social cohesion, in
the context of deeply divided societies it can also reinforce intergroup intolerance, fear
and social fragmentation (Mac Ginty and Williams 2009; Morrow 2006). This is
particularly the case if it promotes civil society based on extremely exclusionary forms
of bonding social capital, such as the Mafia and paramilitary groups ( Belloni 2008).
While such forms of social capital are assumed to have a clear negative effect on social
cohesion, a more ambiguous relationship is that between social cohesion and civil
society groups which are legal but which reflect and promote exclusionary social capital
in that their membership and/or services they provide are restricted to a single religious
or ethnic group. While such organisations can perform useful bonding functions, they
may also be detrimental to the cohesion of society as a whole, especially in the context
of polarised communities, since they are organised around ethnic, religious and national
norms rather than inclusive criteria (Mac Ginty and Williams 2009; Belloni 2008:190;
Morrow 2006).
In view of the detrimental (or at best uncertain) impact of the two manifestations of civil
society discussed above, a key element of bottom-up peacebuilding has been considered
to involve the promotion of a third variety of civil society, based on bridging (and
therefore inclusive) social capital. Such organisations have a positive effect on social
cohesion through seeking to promote inter-group dialogue and “strive for inclusion,
participation and equal access” (Belloni 2008). Thus, as a consequence of the
frequently negative impact of bonding social capital in post-settlement contexts,
peacebuilding has been considered less about creating social capital or civil society per
24
se than transforming social capital from its bonding to its bridging variety by promoting
civil society organisations based on inclusive networks (Mac Ginty and Williams 2009).
This approach is underpinned by the assumption that “if cross-ethnic bonds of trust,
cooperation and solidarity are formed, they will counterbalance the divisive force of
“bonding” social capital, or the social networks, values, norms and connections that
keep homogenous groups cohesive” (CDA-Collaborative Learning Projects 2006). As
Varshney (2001:363) states, bridging social capital peacebuilding theory maintains that:
“Because they build bridges and manage tensions, inter-ethnic networks are
agents of peace, but if communities are organised only along intra-ethnic lines
and the interconnections with other communities are very weak or even non-
existent, then ethnic violence is quite likely.”
An underlying assumption of such approaches is that intergroup segregation creates
ripe conditions for spirals of fear and mistrust to develop: thus intergroup contact is a
prerequisite for the breaking of such cycles.
Thus, while civil society is promoted by agents of liberal peacebuilding in post-
settlement contexts for a range of reasons - not least its perceived function in western
democratic thought as a safeguard against authoritarian state tendencies (Mac Ginty and
Williams 2009:80) – an important rationale is its role as a mobiliser of inclusive forms
of social capital. In this vein, Paffenholz and Spurk (2006) have focused on how
inclusive cross-cutting social networks can be developed through ‘bridge building’
activities in civil society. According to Paffenholz and Spurk, bridge-building, or joint
activities, are underpinned by the assumption that intergroup relations can be
transformed through joint participation in activities which are seen as mutually
beneficial and in which the “overall objectives that are not directly linked to peace or
reconciliation” (present author’s italics). They thus operate through what Maoz (2011)
has termed a “common superordinate goal.”
25
A distinction has been made between such approaches on the one hand, and efforts to
promote intergroup trust through promoting a ‘culture of peace’ on the other
(Paffenholz 2009). The former seeks to promote intergroup reconciliation through
‘teaching’ pro-peace values through strategies such as peace education (e.g. through
books, media or school curriculum), exchange programmes, dialogue and peace camps,
and conflict resolution training (Paffenholz and Spurk 2006: 29-30). Such approaches
typically directly address the conflict in question and aim to promote attitude change
(Paffenholz 2009:194). The bridge-building approach has been viewed as a
comparatively indirect method of promoting social cohesion: rather than directly
seeking to change attitudes through over ‘peace programmes’, the bridge-building
approach is designed to work through the identification of common needs or interests
between divided groups. Mac Ginty and Williams (2009:89) make the case for indirect
bridge-building approaches over direct peace education strategies thus:
Rather than peace programmes that consciously attempt to ‘correct’ a
dysfunctional society or ‘teach’ its members to alter their behaviour, the
most meaningful changes in attitudes and behaviour often occur as a by-
product of other activities. Thus, for example, if citizens from different
traditions can mix in the pursuit if a common goal…then barriers can break
down.
The following section examines the literature relating to community sport initiatives as a
particular activity through which inclusive and bridging social capital and civil society
can be generated in post-settlement contexts.
Sport, social capital and peacebuilding
Review of the literature suggests that the rationale behind the notion that sport can
contribute to peacebuilding is twofold. First is simply the widespread popularity of
sport in many societies (Dorokhina et al 2011; Gasser and Levinsen 2004). Second, and
26
more importantly, is the perceived linkage between sport and social capital, especially
with regards to team sports (Council of Europe 2011: 13; Putnam (2000:109-114).
More specifically, sport is viewed as a mobiliser of bridging social capital. For
instance, according to the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on Sport for Development and
Peace (2003)8:
Sport is also a key component of social life, directly engaging
communities. It brings people together in a fun and participatory way. It
helps create social relationships, build connections and improve
communication between individuals and groups.
Similar enthusiasm for the utility of sport as peace agent has been articulated from other
areas of the ‘sports for development and peace’ sector. According to the President of
the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, “Sport fosters understanding
between individuals, facilitates dialogue between divergent communities and breeds
tolerance between nations” (Kidd and MacDonnell 2007:164). However, despite this
policy rhetoric, the literature reveals a series of debates and controversies regarding the
relationship of sport to peacebuilding.
Sport as a source of social capital
The first concerns the linkage between sport and social capital. Critical scholars suggest
that the assumed connection between sport and social capital is less apparent than
assumed in mainstream discourse (Coalter 2007: 66). In a study of Norwegian sports
associations, Seippel (2006:178) finds that while membership of sports organisation has
a positive effect on social trust and capital, this is less than for membership of
organisations in general: “Sport organizations contain a certain amount of social capital,
8 United Nations, “Sport for Development and Peace - Towards Achieving the Millennium Development
Goals, Report from the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Sport for Development and Peace”,
http://www.un.org/wcm/webdav/site/sport/shared/sport/pdfs/Reports/2003_interagency_report_ENGLIS
H.pdf, 2003, viewed 18th
August 2012
27
but less than other voluntary organizations.” This suggests that while sport may be an
important source of social capital in western societies this may simply be due to the
large space which the voluntary sports sector place in civil society. For instance sport
constitutes the largest single sector within civil society in Norway (ibid) while in the
United Kingdom in 2003 an estimated 12.5%-14% of the population were members of
voluntary sports clubs (Nichols 2003). This suggests that while in such societies sport
may be a highly relevant source of social capital and cohesion this is not a reflection of
sport per se but rather of the fact that it is an activity in which a large proportion of
society are engaged.
Sport and intergroup bridging
A second issue of debate concerns whether or not sport is more prone to generate
bonding or bridging social capital. Coalter (2007:61) and Elling (2002 in Dorokhina et
al 2011) suggest that sport organisations are more inclined to support in-group bonding
by strengthening networks between those already connected. Similarly, in the context
of a socially divided society, a study of recreational sports interaction between ethnic
minorities and autochthonous groups found that intergroup tensions were accentuated
rather than bridged as a consequence of sport-based intergroup contact (Krouwel et al,
2006).
Engineering bridging social capital through sport interventions
This gives rise to a third issue, namely related to how, if it does not automatically
generate inter-group cohesion, sport can be intervened-in to do so. The literature in this
area is particularly vague, partly in consequence of a lack of in-depth case studies.
However, there is widespread support for certain rather obvious ideas such as that
interventions should be sensitive to the local context and that they should seek to
develop networks and relations with the communities in which they are embedded
28
(Dorokhina et al 2011:16; Schulenkorf and Sugden 2011; Schulenkorf 2010; Sugden
2010; Sugden 2006. In their case study from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Gasser and
Levinsen (2004) argue the importance of including multiple stakeholders: children,
trainers, clubs and municipalities, parents and the public, the national football
establishment, and donors. The literature also reveals support for the notion that micro
initiatives should seek to connect with national organisations in order to access
knowledge and resources (Dorokhina et al 2011; Gasser and Levinsen 2004) and for the
idea that sport should be cooperative rather than competitive (Schulenkorf and Sugden
2011: 251; Gasser and Levinsen 2004).
However, while community engagement and empowerment constitutes a common goal
in the literature, there is significant divergence with regards to programme design and
methodology, especially in terms of the relationship between local and external actors.
For instance, at the more ‘interventionist’ end of the spectrum Schulenkorf and Sugden
(2011) and Schulenkorf (2010) advocate a model whereby external actors should have
exclusive initial ‘control’ of a given project which is overtime transferred to
communities. In such an approach, community engagement and participation involves a
process whereby local actors (such as sports coaches) are trained to participate in and
gradually obtain control over initiatives which are ultimately external creations and
initially implemented by external actors (such as international sports coaches)
(Schulenkorf and Sugden (2011).
Gasser and Levinsen (2004) advocate a contrasting approach, based on an intervention
in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In contrast to the idea of transferring programme
ownership from international to local actors, they argue that from the outset local
control is crucial and external input should be minimised:
29
A heavier dependence on international resources or expertise would weaken
local leverage and thus dilute motivation. It would also compromise the very
popularity of the programme that provides the source of international leverage.
A heavy international hand in shaping the programme would smother the
popularity that powers the programme’s success (ibid:467).
Gasser and Levinsen (ibid) do acknowledge that external involvement is crucial in the
early stage for funding reasons and to ensure that the programme contains a ‘peace’
agenda as well as a ‘football’ agenda. However, in contrast to (Schulenkorf and Sugden
2011) they advocate a model whereby all activities are organised and implemented by
local actors such as football clubs and whereby external input should be withdrawn as
soon as the initiative achieves local sustainability (Gasser and Levinsen (2004).
Ultimately the primary difference between the two approaches discussed seems whether
local actors are considered as change agents or as passive recipients. As will become
apparent in later chapters, the relationship between external and local actors is a core
theme of this dissertation.
Effectiveness of sports-based peacebuilding
A final issue concerning the relationship of sports initiatives to peacebuilding concerns
effectiveness. Surprisingly given the substantial rhetoric regarding sport’s capacity to
promote peace as noted at the beginning of this section, empirical evidence regarding
such claims is scarce. For instance, despite acknowledging that the majority of sports-
based peacebuilding takes place during post-conflict periods, the 2008
‘Recommendations to Governments’ document published by the Sport for Development
and Peace International Working Group (SDPIWG) devotes just seven out of 246 pages
to post-conflict peacebuilding (2008:224). Moreover, although it claims that sport can
“build confidence and trust between opposing parties and advancing the healing
process” it fails to substantiate this with evidence of effective interventions (ibid).
30
Indeed there is something of a discrepancy between such far-reaching claims as issued
by policy advisors on one hand, and the conclusions of practitioners on the other. For
instance, in his evaluation of a sport-based peacebuilding programme in the Middle East
region, Sugden (2006) arrives at the rather underwhelming conclusion that to do
something is better than to do nothing. With regards to long-term impact in the context
of the Open Fun Football Schools (OFFS) project, Gasser and Levinsen (2004:469) are
similarly cautious:
The idea that it can have a lasting effect on interactions that are not sport
related is based on several assumptions that are articles of faith for many
of those designing or funding sport programmes with social
goals…Testing those assumptions with regard to OFFS, though, is difficult
when the desired outcomes depend so much on factors beyond the
programme’s control.
Thus, relative to policy pronouncements as articulated by sports-based policy advisors
noted above, studies based on field experience appear to adopt more modest conclusions
with regards to the social impact of sports-based peacebuilding interventions.
Conclusion
This chapter has reviewed the literature concerned with social capital theory and
analysed its perceived linkage to peacebuilding. It has observed that the social capital is
primarily of relevance of bottom-up peacebuilding strategies and that this relevance
centres on social capital’s potential to promote social cohesion, particularly through its
relationship with civil society. It has also been noted that civil society can be based on
exclusive (bonding) social capital which promotes social fragmentation rather than
cohesion, and that the latter, particularly in the context of deeply divided societies,
primarily requires bridging forms of social capital and civil society. The chapter has
additionally examined the literature surrounding community sport as a vehicle for the
promotion of inclusive social capital and civil society and outlined principle theories
31
and debates. In particular it has noted that notions regarding sport’s peacebuilding
utility are based on the perceived linkage between sport and bridging social capital, but
that such views are not uncontested. Moreover it has been noted that efforts to
intervene in sport in order to promote intergroup bridging in peacebuilding contexts
have been conceptualised contrastingly as externally-led and as locally-led initiatives,
and that the effectiveness of such approaches largely lacks empirical validation despite
rhetorical claims.
32
Chapter Three ~
The Lebanese Context: Protracted conflict, social capital and the organisation of
sport
“The adjective ‘Lebanese’, not only when we speak of a fractured society and an intricate
communal system of power-sharing, but also when we speak of an individual, stands for
the proverbial divisive and communal.”
Hanna Ziadeh, Sectarianism and Intercommunal Nation-Building in Lebanon, 2006, p.7
The aim of this chapter is to provide a contextual background for the forthcoming case
study. The first section presents an historical overview of conflict in Lebanon. The
second part draws on Azar’s (1990) theory of protracted social conflict to present a
more in-depth analysis of conflict dynamics at elite levels as they have existed since
2005. The rationale for focusing on this period is twofold. First, the Syrian military
withdrawal in 2005 ushered in a new political phase in Lebanon which remains in place
today. Second, the same period is that during which the Community Club programme
has been operational. The following section examines the nature and levels of social
capital and civil society in Lebanese society. The final part examines the Lebanese
sports sector as a source of social capital and civil society.
Historical background and Civil War (1975-1990)
Lebanon is the most demographically and religiously diverse society relative to
geographical and population size of any state (Rubin 2009:1). In an area smaller than
Kosovo, the four million-strong Lebanese population is divided into seventeen official
recognised religious communities. The area which currently constitutes the Lebanese
state historically existed as provinces of the Ottoman Empire (Malik 2002:14). In the
aftermath of the First World War, in 1920 the League of Nations granted France the
33
mandate for Lebanon and Syria. France established the State of Greater Lebanon
composed of four provinces: north Lebanon, south Lebanon, Mount Lebanon and the
Bekaa.
Independence was declared in 1941, following ‘liberation’ from Vichy France by Free
French and British forces, and recognised in 1943. The constitutional basis of the new
state was established by the 1943 National Pact (ibid) which was brokered between two
elites, the Maronite Christian leader Bisharah al-Khouri and the Sunni leader Riyad al-
Sulh. The Pact established the distribution of power between the major Christian and
Muslim communities, based on the 1932 census, and also the regional and international
role that the Lebanese state would assume (Chamie 1976-77:173). As such, the
National Pact provided a key foundation for cohabitation between Lebanon’s Muslims
and Christians (Malik 2002:14). In this regard, the President was to be a Maronite
Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, the Speaker of parliament a Shiite
Muslim, the Deputy Speaker a Greek Orthodox Christian and the Army Chief-of-Staff a
Druze. Further, the Pact stipulated that the composition of the parliament, cabinet and
bureaucracy were to be based on a Christian-Muslim ratio of six-five (Azar and Haddad
1986). The National Pact thus institutionalised the sectarian power-sharing model on
which the Lebanese state has since been based (Haddad 2002b: 291).
This power-sharing equation was accepted by the state’s various communal groups for
three decades (with the exception of civil unrest in 1958) (Chamie 1976-77:173). In
1975 however, the National Pact ceased to be able to contain communal fears and
ambitions as a violent period of “disintegration, renegotiation and compromise” took
hold (Malik 2002:14). A key factor underpinning this period was the desire of Muslim
communities to revise the 1943 National Pact which institutionalised the political
dominance of the Christian Maronites (Chamie 1976-77:178). In turn this was
34
reinforced by two factors. First was a widening socioeconomic disparity along
communal lines with the Maronite Christians as the best off and the Shia the most
disadvantaged (ibid). Second, the Muslim communities were bolstered numerically by
support from the Palestinian community residing in Lebanon, especially the Palestinian
Liberation Organisation (PLO), as well as ideologically by the power of Arab
nationalism (Malik 2002:14-15). The civil war can thus be explained, to some extent,
as a clash between (mainly) Muslim and Palestinian desires to revise the existing
political arrangements to reflect modern demographic realities, and the wishes of
Christian conservatives to maintain the status quo (Chamie 1976-77:177).
However, analysis of the civil war would be incomplete without considering external
dynamics, especially the Arab-Israeli conflict. Communal cleavages were exacerbated
by Israel’s backing of Lebanese Christian parties as proxies for its conflict with the
PLO. Moreover, in the context of the latter, Israel launched invasions of Lebanon in
1978 and 1982 (Malik 2002:15; Spyer 2009:199). In turn, Syria’s military intervention
in Lebanon between 1976 and 2005 can also only be understood in the context of
Damascus’s regional hegemonic interests (Rubin 2009:2).
The Syrian-sponsored 1989 Ta’if Peace Accord achieved the end of violent conflict.
The agreement adjusted but did not fundamentally depart from the power-sharing logic
of the 1943 National Pact (Karam 2012:36), with the main change being the Christian-
Muslim parliamentary representation ratio becoming equal, replacing the former six-
five arrangement, in addition to reduced powers of the presidency (Haddad 2002a:293,
2002b:204). Crucially therefore, the Ta’if Accord served to entrench communal
identities and did not promote the emergence of a unifying national identity (Hudson
1999 in Haddad 2002a:294). Moreover, reconciliation in the post-Ta’if period has been
impeded by ‘collective amnesia’ stemming from the 1991 general amnesty law, which
35
has since been promoted by political leaders who have had an interest in avoiding a
return to the past due to the possibility of their incrimination (Haugbølle 2012:15).
While Lebanon experienced relative stability during the 1990s, this was abruptly ended
in 2005 by the assassination of former prime minister Rafic Hariri9, a figure acutely
associated with the Ta’if Accord and Lebanon’s post-war reconstruction (Ziadeh
2006:1). This event instigated the Cedar Revolution, the military withdrawal of Syria as
stipulated by UN Security Council Resolution 1559, and a new phase of politics in
Lebanon (Rubin 2009:4-5).
Post-2005: Continuation of identity-based protracted social conflict
This section analyses conflict dynamics since 2005, drawing broadly on Azar’s (1990)
theory of ‘protracted social conflict’ (PSC).10
It is argued that the key drivers of
contemporary conflict, as during previous periods of conflict, are 1) the primacy of
group identity over national identity, coupled with 2) communal groups’ grievances,
real or perceived, relating to the deprivation of basic needs, and 3) the exacerbation or
manipulation of these fears by external, primarily Syrian, influences.
Communal identity and grievances: the elevation of the Sunni-Shi’a divide
In explaining conflict in multi-communal societies, Azar (1990) focuses on communal
group identity as the core level of analysis: identity becomes a core need of individuals.
The prominence of communalism exists in Lebanon to the extent that communal
identity is prioritised by individuals over national identity. Thus the “the communal
trumps the national” and the state operates only as a result of a political system based on
9Hariri served as Prime Minister between 1992 and 1998 and again between 2000 and 2004
10Azar (1990) identified four sources of internal conflict: ‘communal content’ which created conflicting
identity needs between groups and between groups and the state; the ‘deprivation of basic needs’;
‘governance and the state’s role’; and ‘international linkages’.
36
communal power-sharing (Harris 2009:9). The development of national societal
cohesion is further inhibited by a system whereby each religion has jurisdiction over
personal status issues (UNDP 2009:70).
However, Azar (1990) argues that the primacy of communal identities in itself does not
cause conflict. A necessary second condition is the presence of communally-expressed
grievances relating to the deprivation of basic needs (such as security, development and
political access) (Ramsbotham 2005:114-115). Thus, according to PSC theory, conflict
occurs as a consequence of communal groups seeking to redress basic identity needs
and fears (Azar and Haddad 1986:1340).
As mentioned above, the Ta’if Accord repackaged the National Pact in such a way that
was accepted by all communal elites. However it failed to address the underlying
causes of conflict: the political and security needs of the societies’ multiple
communities (Krayem (undated)). Similar to the 1975-90 conflict which was
characterised by communal divisions relating to dominance of the political system,
current conflict in Lebanon is largely driven by conflict between Shi’a (led by
Hizbollah) demands for political representation and non-Shi’a (especially Sunni) fear
and opposition to this prospect (Nir 2009:178). According to Nir (ibid) the core
problem is that the Ta’if political system does not represent demographic realities:
despite being the largest political communal group, the current political formula
provides the Shi’a with 27 of 128 seats in parliament, compared with Maronites’ 34 and
the Sunnis 27 (ibid). According to demographic realities the Shi’a community should
be allocated around 40 seats11
(Harris 2009:17).
The traditional political underrepresentation of the Shi’a lies in contrast to their military
and organisational strength. Hizbollah was the only militia not demobilised following
11
All demographic calculations are estimates due to no census having been undertaken since 1932
37
the end of the civil war and its military ability was highlighted in 2008 during which,
alongside Amal, its members took-over Sunni-controlled West Beirut (Nir 2009:178).
Moreover, Hizbollah’s influence was sufficiently powerful to collapse the Sunni
dominated government of Saad Hariri in 2011, and to prevent political progress until the
formation of a government in which it dominated (holding sixteen out of thirty seats).
According to Nir (ibid) this confirms that political dominance constitutes the primary
cause of conflict between Lebanon’s major sectarian groups (particularly between Shi’a
and non-Shi’a). The fears of non-Shi’a are accentuated by the weakness of the
Lebanese state, especially its lack of monopoly of the legitimate use of force at the
expense of Hizbollah which controls much of the south and the Bekaa Valley
(ibid:180).
International linkages: the primacy of Syrian influence
As during the civil war, contemporary conflict in Lebanon is intimately connected to
external influences, notably that of Syria. While the 2005 Cedar Revolution entailed the
termination of Syria’s fifteen year political and military hegemony in Lebanon,
Damascus has remained an influential actor. To a substantial extent, political conflict
post-2005 has been caused by Syrian efforts and those of its Lebanese allies (especially
Hizbollah) to regain political dominance (Harris 2009:17).
The extent to which Syria continues to dominate Lebanese politics and divide its society
is such that since 2005 the Lebanese political landscape has been divided into two
political blocs, separated primarily by their position towards the Assad regime. The
‘March 14th’
alliance is dominated by the Sunni Future Movement and opposes Syria’s
interference in Lebanon and is pro-Western. The ‘March 8th’
bloc is pro-Syrian and pro-
Iranian and is led by the Shi’a parties Hizbollah and Amal (Brahimi 2012) .
38
Recent political instability has been driven by the efforts of each bloc to attain political
dominance. The political deadlock of 2007-2008 (the resolution of which required
international mediation in the form of the Qatar-sponsored Doha Agreement) was
characterised by incompatible positions between the March 8th
and March 14th
blocs
with regards to a successor to President Lahoud (Salem 2007:1). The March 14th
bloc
demanded a president who would proceed with the UN’s Special Tribunal for Lebanon
(STL)12
, and would enforce the UN’s Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1701
which call for the strengthening of the Lebanese state’s internal authority. Conversely,
the March 8th
bloc demanded a president who would be sympathetic towards Hizbollah
and Syria and, crucially, block the UN tribunal (Salem 2007). The latter objective was
also central to the resignation of pro-Syrian Lebanese government ministers in January
2011, precipitating the collapse of the ‘national unity’ government led by Saad Hariri,
and leading to the formation of a Hizbollah-dominated government in June 2011 (BBC
2011)13
. On this evidence, Srirum (2012 Accord:49) concludes that the STL continues
to be the primary issue which generates conflict between Hizbollah- and Syria-
dominated March 8th
bloc on one hand, and March 14th
parties on the other.
Since 2011, the most recent phase of Syrian-Lebanese relations, has seen the outbreak
of civil conflict in Syria threaten to exacerbate differences between the March 8th
and
March 14th
blocs and societal cleavages more generally (Brahimi 2012; BBC 2012a)14
.
Moreover, the increasingly sectarian (Sunni versus Shi’a) nature of both the Syrian civil
12
The purpose of the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon is to try those accused of being responsible for the
assassination of Rafic Hariri in 2005.
13 BBC, “Hezbollah and allies topple Lebanese unity government”, 12
th January 2011,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12170608, viewed 4 August 2012
14 BBC, “Sunni cleric killed in north Lebanon clashes”, 24
th August 2012,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19366256, viewed 3rd
September 2012
39
war and of the regional ‘cold war’ between Iran and Syria on the one hand and the
Western-allied Gulf states (primarily Saudi Arabia) on the other serves to reinforce
conflict divides in Lebanon along a Sunni-Shi’a axis (Picard and Ramsbotham 2012:7).
At formal political levels this primarily plays out through Tehran’s sponsoring of
Hizbollah and Riyadh’s funding of the Sunni Future Movement (ibid:12). At lower
levels of society, the Sunni-Shi’a divide has most visibly been indicated by violent
clashes in the northern city of Tripoli between majority Sunni and minority Alawite
communities (Chulov 2012). Thus ‘international linkages’ serve to reinforce needs-
based grievances articulated communally.
Social capital and civil society in Lebanese society
Having analysed protracted social conflict primarily at the elite level, this section
examines the nature of social capital at lower levels of society in the context of
protracted social conflict. Acknowledging doubts that it is possible to directly
‘measure’ social capital (Fukuyama 2001:12), this analysis is undertaken through
identification of two commonly used proxy indicators of social capital: trust as an
element of ‘cognitive’ social capital (Glaeser et al 2000) and membership of civil
society associations as representative of ‘structural’ social capital (Lochner et al 2003).
Trust in society
Based on quantitative survey data from 2009, the Legatum Institute (2011) found that
just 7% of Lebanese surveyed believed their fellow citizens to be trustworthy (compared
with 31% in Sudan and 74% in Norway), placing Lebanon in 102nd
place of 110
societies surveyed.15
Founded on qualitative evidence, a 2010 report by the
15
This is calculated based on a range of variables (trust, volunteering, helping strangers, donating to
charity, perceptions of social support, church attendance, and marriage). Of the eight sub-indexes of
40
organisation Bertelsmann Stiftung (2009:12), states that “very little trust exists within
the population.” These findings are supported by quantitative findings by Haddad
(2002a), whose analysis has the added utility of distinguishing between intra- and inter-
communal trust. Haddad found high levels of mistrust between communal identity
groups. The survey found that typically less than half of the respondents felt
comfortable interacting with members from another religious community, and for some
communities (especially Druze) the proportion of positive respondents was as low as
33%. Overall, Haddad (ibid:304) concluded that “the findings suggest that high levels
of distrust, misperception, suspicion and fear characterise relations among the various
Lebanese groups.” Thus, the study’s findings clearly indicate a lack of bridging social
capital.
It is less clear however, that the above research indicates a lack of social capital per se.
Although the study found a lack of trust between communal groups, it also found high
levels of communal identity consciousness and communal pride. While perceptions
depended between groups, between 90% (Maronite) and 99% (Druze) of respondents
believed that their sect was the best to lead the country (ibid). The study thus suggested
high levels of intra-group trust, a key indicator of bonding social capital.
With regards to vertical trust, surveys report that citizens’ perceptions of government
actors are characterised by mistrust (Legatum Institute 2011). Haddad (2002b)
suggests that public trust in the government and politicians is extremely low and that
both the political system and politicians are widely perceived as corrupt and as pursuing
their own interests rather than acting as servants of the public good. This suggests a
lack of positive linking social capital in the political sphere.
prosperity measured, Lebanon fared worst of all countries surveyed, contrasting sharply with its rankings
in the Education (48th) and Economy (58th) sub-indexes
41
Membership of civil society organisations
With regards to the second indicator of social capital considered here, voluntary
engagement, Lebanon possesses a highly developed and dynamic civil society based on
a strong culture of volunteering, particularly in comparison to other Middle East
societies (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2009; Mac Ginty and Williams 2009). Civil society
organisations (CSOs) are concerned with a wide range of activities, including a large
number devoted to service-provision associations which substitute for the state in many
areas such as relief and welfare (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2009). In total there are over
1,300 NGOs registered in the country, the origin of many of which dates from the civil
war and the collapse of government services. In addition to registered organisations
there are estimated to be a significant number of informal associations in existence
(Bertelsmann Stiftung 2009).
Using organisational membership as an indicator of social capital, the available
evidence demonstrates high levels of social capital in Lebanese society. However, as
discussed in Chapter Two, what is of key relevance to social cohesion is the type of
social capital which dominates. In this regard the evidence suggests that civil society
organisations serve to promote intra-communal bonding rather than inter-communal
bridging. As Mac Ginty and Williams (2009:88) observe, the primacy of communal
identities “mean that many social and civil organisations are located in and operate for
one community. Thus different groups have their own media outlets, charitable
organisations and social spaces”. While civil society organizations thus play a crucial
role in civil society, it is less effective (or counterproductive) in promoting intergroup
bridging social capital. According to a UNDP survey, roughly one-quarter of NGOs
have a sectarian affiliation, many of which are also directly linked to political parties
(UNDP 2009:83) A prime example is Jihad Al Bina (the reconstruction wing of
42
Hizbollah), which was one of the most effective relief agencies following the 2006
conflict with Israel (Mac Ginty 2007).
It is important not to caricature Lebanon’s civil society. Many organisations do possess
a multi-communal membership and leadership. Yet, the ability of such organisations to
act as inter-communal ‘connectors’ is limited by the fact that many feel compelled to
accommodate their cross-factional membership through adopting governance structures
based on sectarian power-sharing, thus mirroring the national political system
(Bertelsmann Stiftung 2009). Consequently, a report by Bertelsmann Stiftung (ibid)
concludes that,
There is little evidence to support the idea that associational life may build
trust or “bridging social capital” which would make individuals and groups
resistant to ethnic and sectarian sentiment. Rather, in a situation of conflict,
the majority of the members will revert to their primary identity as part of a
sectarian community, and only a small minority who has severed their ties
with its community – and is, consequently, marginalized – remains
committed to cross-communal, secular positions.
The above analysis suggests that, using civil society membership as an indicator of
social capital, civil society primarily promotes bonding rather than bridging civil
society. While many such civil society organisations perform valuable services to the
communities in which they operate (e.g. bonding is not necessarily ‘bad’ social capital),
in general they do not promote inter-communal trust and may foster distrust (Mac Ginty
and Williams 2009: 88).
The following section analyses sport as a specific civil society activity and analyses its
impact on social capital.
Sport as an activity of civil society: vehicle of social cohesion of fragmentation?
As was noted in Chapter Two, sport has been viewed as an important source of civic
participation and social capital. In European contexts the significance of sport as source
43
of social capital has been viewed in the context of the large numbers of individuals
involved in sports volunteering capacities. In Finland for instance it has been estimated
that there are sixty sports volunteers per one thousand people (Le Roux et al 2000 in
Coalter 2007).
Conversely, in the context of Lebanon, the potential for sport to contribute to social
capital is limited by a lack of a national structure for recreational sports (Nassif
2009:86). Part of the issue in this respect is the lack of government funding to which
the sports sector is entitled. Nassif (2009:166) claims that 0.4% of the government’s
budget is allocated to the Ministry of Youth and Sports (MOYS). Consequently, the
national governing bodies of each sport receive modest or no public funding
(Nassif:9:94-105).
In addition to a lack of funding, the role of sports organisations in civil society is limited
by a second issue, namely an elitist sports national culture in which the governing sports
bodies prioritise high-level over participatory sport. Consequently, the limited sports
funding is skewed away from grassroots development in favour of talent development
(CCPA 2012). Indeed, the marginalisation of grassroots sport has been to the extent
that it, until 2008, the organisation of non-elite sports in Lebanon was subject to
stringent legal conditions which, in effect, denied ordinary citizens the right to form
grassroots sports associations.16
These restrictions were only removed as a consequence
of the intervention of Cross Cultures Project Association (whose programme is
discussed in forthcoming chapters) which resulted in the MOYS activating a ‘dormant’
decree (213) which stipulated conditions under which ordinary Lebanese could organise
local clubs (CCPA 2012).
16
Among the requirements for the formation of a sports association, was the condition that members were
professionals and that the association had ownership of sports infrastructure (e.g. land or buildings in
which to organise sports) (CCPA 2012).
44
At the elite level, the sports sector is more advanced and consists of high level sports
leagues, particularly regarding football and basketball. However, research suggests that
professional sports clubs are generally affiliated with political movements and thus
reflect and reinforce sectarian identity groups and in the process promote exclusive
bonding forms of social capital in contrast to bridging (Reiche 2011; CCPA 2010).
According to Reiche (2011) virtually all of Lebanon’s men’s elite football and
basketball clubs (the most popular sports) are affiliated with religious communities as
well as with the ‘March 8th
’ and ‘March 14th
‘political movements. Reiche maintains
that, as a consequence of a lack of revenues from ticket sales and broadcasting, sports
clubs have become dependent upon private sponsors and in this way have been co-opted
into patron-client structures by political elites who consider sports clubs to be powerful
opportunities to obtain support (ibid:201117
).
In this way, each of the most populous sectarian communities control elite football and
basketball clubs (ibid:264): thus Al-Ansar is Sunni (Hariri family/March 14th
, Al-Ahed
is Shia (Hizbollah/March 8th
; Hikmeh is Maronite (Lebanese Forces/March 14th
); Sada
Sporting Club is Druze (Progressive Socialist Party/March 8th
) etc. While women’s
elite clubs are typically devoid of political affiliations, they generally have religious
affiliations (ibid). Based on these findings, Reiche (ibid) concludes that this
politicisation results in sports clubs being part of ‘confessional sub-systems’ (along with
the media and other institutions), which obstruct the formation of national identity and
cohesion, or bridging social capital.
17
Tickets revenue has decreased to almost negligible levels because of the ban enforced by the
government between 2006 and 2010 on supporters attending matches. The lack of spectators has
correspondingly reduced the interest from television broadcasters (Reiche 2011).
45
Conclusion
This chapter has argued that Lebanon is not a post-conflict society but rather continues
to experience protracted social conflict. While conflict is predominantly latent, the
Ta’if Accord failed to significantly alter the structure of the state, such that societal
dynamics continue to be characterised by communally-expressed needs-based fears and
grievances, primarily along the Sunni-Shi’a divide, and which are manipulated and
reinforced by Syrian and regional influence. In this context, civil society generally
reflects communal divisions and thus fails to act as an effective vehicle for bridging
social capital and attendant inter-communal trust and cohesion. Similarly, the sports
sector is not an effective site of social cohesion due to the lack of a developed popular
grassroots sports sector on the one hand and, on the other, high levels of politicisation
leading to bonding along sectarian lines at the elite level.
46
Chapter Four ~
The utility of sports-based community peacebuilding: case study of CCPA’s
Community Club intervention
“Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, 1947
This chapter uses the CCPA Community Club case study in order to empirically
examine the relationship between a community sports-based peacebuilding initiative
and bridging social capital. The main question it seeks to answer is: through which
mechanisms and processes was bridging social capital created? This enquiry is
organised through the lens of intergroup contact theory. Before investigating these
issues, the following section provides a background to the Community Club
programme.
Background to CCPA’s Community Club programme
CCPA first intervened in Lebanon in 2005 as part of a wider Middle East regional
programme also involving Syria and Jordan. As in all of the organisation’s
interventions in other post-settlement societies18
, a objective of CCPA in Lebanon has
been to promote positive relations and trust between communities divided by conflict
through the mechanism of children’s grassroots football (CCPA Lebanon)19
.
CCPA established the Community Club programme in 2008 as part of its ongoing
engagement in Lebanon which began in 2005 (CPPA 2012:8). The Community Club
18
CCPA’s first intervention was in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1998. Since then the organisation has
intervened in the wider Balkan region, the Trans Caucasus region, and the Middle East.
19 Cross Cultures Project Association Lebanon, “About Us”,
http://www.ccpalebanon.com/AboutUs.aspx, viewed 16th
July 2012
47
programme was effectively an evolution of CCPA’s prior ‘Street Sport’ programme.
The latter involved the training of local volunteer coaches (‘StreetMasters’) who then
provided football activities to children and teenagers as a mean of fostering dialogue
and confidence (ibid). The Street Sport programme enjoyed significant success,
involving 7,000-9,000 children on a monthly basis, and 288 volunteer coaches in 162
cities, towns, villages and Palestinian refugee camps throughout Lebanon (ibid).
Despite the successes of the project however, the micro-scale nature of the activities
meant that the project lacked sustainability (mainly due to volunteers’ fatigue) (ibid: 9).
In order to increase the sustainability of its activities, from 2008 CCPA focused its
attention creating a more robust platform on which to run activities, via the creation of
grassroots football clubs: this heralded the beginning of the Community Club
programme (ibid:9).
As noted in Chapter Three, the creation of local grassroots sports organisations required
an adaptation of the law regarding rights of association, a process in which CCPA’s
lobbying of the Ministry of Youth and Sport was central (ibid:10). Having achieved the
change in law, CCPA embarked on forming Community Clubs. This involved
identifying potential stakeholders (volunteer coaches, parents, and municipalities), in
addition to an educational and training programme delivered by CCPA which was
designed to provide the club volunteers with necessary knowledge and expertise to run
the clubs autonomously (ibid).
By 2012, 107 Community Clubs had been establishes throughout the country, involving
3,083 children, local volunteer coaches, coordinators, parents, and municipalities
(ibid:11). The clubs organised regular grassroots football activities for children (mainly
between seven and fourteen years of age) at least twice per week, in addition to inter-
club activities (as discussed below, the latter was crucial with regards to the promotion
48
of intergroup cohesion). The programme involved children and volunteers from all of
Lebanon’s regions and its major communities: Sunnite, Shiite, Alawite, Christian,
Druze, and Palestinian (ibid).20
In May 2012 the funding agreement between CCPA and its donor partner reached its
conclusion and at the time of writing CCPA had not been successful in securing
replacement funding. As a consequence, the programme was suspended pending funding.
At the same time however, to the best of the author’s knowledge the majority of the
20
While this dissertation is primarily interested in the peacebuilding aspects of the project (e.g. the
promotion of peaceful relations and thereby bridging social capital between individuals across communal
divides), it is relevant to note that the intervention was additionally designed to promote social change on
other levels.
One such objective was to use the Community Clubs as a means of developing civil society, the latter
which was considered by CCPA as an important positive end in itself, in order to ‘socialise’ Lebanese
citizens into democratic habits and values (CCPA 2012). This strategy was underpinned by a
Tocquevillian view of associations as ‘schools of democracy’ (Paffenholz and Spurk (2006: 4).
In this conceptualisation, the creation of the Community Clubs were designed to instil liberal democratic
values in relation to issues such as the rights of the individual, means of social organisation through
democratic elections, and gender (discussed in Chapter Five). Thus, in addition to creating bridging, the
intervention was intended to generate bonding forms of social organisation based on democratic forms of
civil society (CCPA 2012).
A second objective was to generate vertical social trust (linking social capital) between public officials
and individuals/communities. This objective was particularly relevant given the prevalence of Lebanese
citizens’ public mistrust in their political representatives and high perceptions of corruption as noted in
Chapter Three. Vertical trust was fostered through the involvement of municipality representatives in the
activities of the Community Clubs in addition to collaboration between the clubs and schools via ‘school
tournaments’ (ibid:34-35). With respect to football-based activities, festivals and tournaments were
commonly attended by municipality officials. With regards to off-the-field activities, municipalities were
encouraged to play an active role in the clubs through attending workshops and seminars concerned with
the establishment and running of the clubs (ibid:27). In this way, in addition to creating horizontal
intergroup cohesion, the programme aimed to generate vertical cohesion.
Finally, the development of grassroots football was intended to deliver psycho-social benefits to
communities, especially in the context of trauma and displacement following the 2006 war with Israel
(ibid:9).
49
Community Clubs were continuing to function, operating as autonomous organisations.
However, the extent to which they would remain active in the long-run without the in-put of
CCPA was unclear (funding-related and other sustainability issues are discussed in Chapter
Five).
The Community Club programme and the creation of bridging social capital
Intergroup contact theory provides a useful conceptual framework for analysing the
mechanisms through which the Community Club programme was designed to generate
bridging social capital. This is the body of research organised around Allport’s (1954)
hypothesis that under certain conditions (discussed below) contact between groups
reduces intergroup prejudice (Pettigrew 1998). This has been considered as “one of
psychology’s most effective strategies for improving intergroup relations” (Dovidio
2003: 5). While it has been noted that strategies to use sport to build inter-group
cohesion are largely based on the hypothesis (Rigby 2008), little evidence-based
research has been undertaken.
The Community Club programme promoted intergroup contact through both activities
directly football-linked and activities indirectly related to football. With regards to the
former, the classic properties of grassroots sport, (e.g. a competitive leisure activity
played between largely between socially homogenous groups) were adapted in order to
make it a platform for social inclusion and bridging. This was achieved through
promoting interaction between clubs though a range of football-related activities such as
festivals, fun tournaments and multi-day events (CCPA 2012: 15-17). Through such
interaction, the programme was designed to, “develop narratives, based on the future,
which counter and supersede the conflict narratives of the past” (CCPA 2012:17).
In addition to such football-related events, the programme involved various other
activities, each of which had a dual purpose: a football-related and a peacebuilding
50
objective. For instance, the programme involved training seminars for the volunteer
coaches. While the immediate purpose was to provide the coaches with the necessary
practical and organisational skills to run the Community Clubs, the deeper function of
the training was meant as a tool to promote bridging between people from diverse
religious and political backgrounds. One coach explained how he had developed
sustained personal relationships with other participants having attended a seminar:
Every two weeks, we are a group of CCPA volunteers who meet up and
have fun together. We are some from Tripoli, some from the Bekaa, one
from Beirut and one from the South. We are Christians, Sunnites and Shiites,
girls and boys, so we must be the perfect example of what CCPA is all
about. Now we have to show the children how to meet new friends from
other areas on the football pitch. (Quoted in CCPA 2012:25).
A second site of adult bridging was workshops for parents which consisted of between
fifteen and twenty participants, where a range of issues were discussed relating to
children’s football and Community Clubs (ibid:26). It has been observed that a key
challenge of dialogue programmes, especially those involving children and youth,
concerns the issue of sustaining behaviour and attitude change beyond the period of
contact. In particular it has been noted that the reintegration of participants’ back into
their own communities which may be resistant to change carries the danger of nullifying
any impact the contact may have had in terms of breaking down prejudice (Rigby
2008:7). In this respect, it can be hypothesised that the involvement of multiple
community members in the Community Club programme, including parents, played an
important role in ensuring that change was sustained beyond the moment of contact.
Participants positively affirmed that the various football and non-football activities
created trust and confidence between divided groups. A prominent example concerns
protracted conflict in the northern city of Tripoli between the Sunnite anti-Damascus
Bab al-Tibbaneh neighbourhood and the adjacent Alawite Jabal Mohsen community
which supports the al-Assad regime. Relations between the two communities have been
51
characterised by periodic violence for several decades and since 2011 tensions have
been escalated by the intensifying civil war in Syria (Hodeib2012).
The Community Club programme involved clubs from the respective communities
participating in sports activities with each other. As a consequence of the highly
segregated arrangement in which the two communities uneasily coexist, for many, both
children and adult volunteers, this was the first contact they had had with children of the
other community.21
One young man from Bab al-Tibbaneh explained that prior to
joining the Community Club programme as a coach he had been involved in armed
violence against groups from Jabal Mohsen. Through involvement in the programme he
had reconciled with his former adversaries and established positive relations (including
with other coaches) in the community against which he had formerly fought.22
The
cross-community trust-building utility of the programme was also emphasised by
participants in other contexts. For example a Palestinian coach in the Wavel refugee
camp suggested that the programme had established contact and empathy between the
Palestinian camp inhabitants and the neighbouring Shiite community where previously
there had been little contact.23
However, intergroup contact theory maintains that contact per se does not foster
positive intergroup relations but that certain conditions must be present for it to do so
(Pettigrew 1998; Allport 1954). According to intergroup contact theory therefore,
interventions which seek to use sport to foster intergroup trust and social capital must
ensure that such conditions are satisfied. The following sections examine the intergroup
21
Interview with Community Club coach, 29.04.12, (9)
22 ibid
23 Interview with Community Club coach, 27.04.12, (6)
52
contact generated through the Community Club programme in the context of these
conditions.
Support of authorities, law or custom
The approval of intergroup contact from source(s) of authority has been specified as an
essential condition in order for intergroup contact to positively affect positive relations
(Allport 1954; Pettigrew 1998). This issue gains particular importance in many post-
settlement contexts whereby, despite their promoters’ claims of political neutrality,
activities designed to foster social cohesion are prone to lack legitimacy and/or be
viewed with suspicion by the societies or governments at which they are targeted.24
In
this respect, the case of Lebanon highlights at least two challenges to peacebuilding
interventions.
First, the tendency for civil society organisations to be affiliated with particular
religious or political movements compromises their impartiality and therefore their
position as universally trusted - and thus effective peacebuilding - actors.25
Second,
geopolitical realities (specifically Lebanon’s involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict)
means that organisations which seek to promote social cohesion by means of explicit
references to ‘peace’ and ‘peacebuilding’ risk conceding their popular legitimacy in
Lebanese society. According to one informant, the discourse of peace, especially when
utilised by western actors, is commonly interpreted within Lebanon as a cynical
Washington-led Trojan horse for normalising and legitimising a regional status quo
24
Sri Lanka provides a good example whereby government rejection of reconciliation activities has
restricted the peacebuilding space available to humanitarian actors (author’s research December 2012.
25 Interview with Community Club coach, 29.04.12, (9)
53
(vis-à-vis Israel) to which Lebanese popular opinion is deeply hostile and regards as
acutely unjust.26
In the context of these challenges, certain features of the Community Club programme
were particularly important with regards to local legitimacy. The first concerned the
fact that the issue of children’s grassroots sport was popularly considered to be
politically and religiously neutral, and therefore an uncontroversial activity. Such
perceived neutrality was viewed by local stakeholders as a key positive factor regarding
the effectiveness of the programme as a bridging initiative. In particular, the neutrality
of sport was perceived to lower the social cost of participation in the programme since
the subject of children’s football provided a means through which individuals could
connect with people from different communities without their actions being questioned
or rejected by community leaders.27
In this respect the strategic use of grassroots
football as a peacebuilding activity was important in ensuring that the intervention did
not inadvertently ‘do harm’ through placing participants in danger as a result in their
involvement.
A second, related, factor which similarly endowed the intervention with legitimacy was
the instrumentalisation of children’s football as an indirect peace-promotion initiative.
As has been noted in the literature, peacebuilding approaches not informed by sufficient
conflict sensitivity risk reinforcing divisions rather than bridging divides. In particular,
the danger that dialogue programmes inadvertently increase cynicism has been
documented (Van Brabant 2010:1). The marketing of the Community Club intervention
as a sports-based rather than an explicitly peace-based initiative mitigated this risk since
it enabled the avoidance of ‘peace’ terminology.
26
Interview with Senior NGO staff member, 8.5.12, (13)
27 Interview with Community Club coach 28.04.12, (6); interview with community club coach 6.5.12 (12)
54
The reputation of the implementing agency (CCPA) as an impartial actor was a third
factor which contributed to the legitimacy of the intervention by means of making the
latter less susceptible to perceptions of co-option by a particular community.28
With
respect to impartiality, one participant remarked that CCPA had an “even better
reputation than UNDP”.29
CCPA highly valued its reputation as an apolitical actor and
sought to preserve it through operating in all aspects of the country and engaging all
religious communities; engaging with media from across the political spectrum; and
entering partnerships with only donors who it assessed would not compromise its
impartial position (CCPA 2012: 37). In addition, CCPA sought to ensure the
legitimacy of the intervention in the eyes of government and public sports authorities
through fostering trusted relations with government departments such as the Ministry of
Youth and Sports (MOYS), Ministry of Education (MOE), National Olympic
Committee (NOC) and the Lebanese Football Association (ibid: 32-33).
Common goals
According to intergroup contact theory, a second condition necessary for intergroup
contact to promote positive relations is the presence of a shared goal (Allport 1954;
Pettigrew 1998). With regards to the Community Club programme, a common interest
in children’s football constituted the mutual goal through which multiple stakeholders
were inspired to interact. Importantly, the chief motivational reasons for the
involvement of many coaches and parents lay in their interest in the issues of sport and
children’s welfare, and not necessarily ‘peace’.30
Similarly, municipalities had their
28
Interview with Community Club coach, 29.04.12 (9)
29 Interview with Community Club coach 28.04.12 (6)
30 Interview with parent, 26.4.12 (2); Interview with two Community Club coaches, 26.4.12 (4);
Interview with Community Club coach, 6.5.12 (12); Interview with Community Club coordinator, 6.5.12,
(10)
55
own vested interests in development of grassroots football, such as the prevention of
antisocial behaviour among children and youths.31
The core point is that, through
emphasising the ‘football agenda’, the appeal of the programme was widened to beyond
those individuals primarily motivated by the desire to engage in ‘peace promotion’. In
this way the programme transcended a frequent limitation of peacebuilding activities,
namely the commonality that such strategies are restricted to the involvement of those
actors agreeable to social change and thus ‘preach to the choir’ (Barbolet et al 2005:11-
12 in Van Brabant 2010:2).
Intergroup cooperation
Intergroup contact theory maintains that a positive outcome is dependent on a third
criteria, namely that the accomplishment of common goals is a process absent of
competition between groups (Pettigrew 1998; Sherif et al 1988; Allport 1954). This
stipulation is highly relevant in the context of sports-based peacebuilding approaches
given the inherently competitive element of sport. Events such as football riots in Egypt
in 2012 (BBC 2012b)32
, in addition to sport’s propensity to become politicised at elite
levels as discussed in the context of Lebanon in Chapter Three, demonstrates that
(competitive) sport, especially football, is not a natural tool for promoting intergroup
cohesion (Ramsbotham et al 2011:351; Kaupuscinski 1990). In their study of interethnic
football games, Krouwel et al (2006: 176) suggest that the competitive element of sport
when organised between ethnic groups serves to increase rather than diminish divisions:
“…as far as these teams encounter teams with another ethnic background in mixed
competitions, the societal tensions manifest themselves once again in the play itself and
31
Interview with Municipality Vice-President, 26.4.12 (3)
32 BBC, “Egypt football riot: Port Said officials sacked, 2nd February 2012,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16848473, viewed 2nd September 2012
56
are sometimes even magnified.” The authors conclude that rather than the contact
hypothesis, intergroup sport resembles the “hypothesis of competition” (ibid). These
findings suggest that, in order to ‘comply’ with the contact hypothesis, the inherent
properties of sport as a competitive activity has to be adapted.
The Community Club programme provides a useful case study of such adaptation: the
qualities of ‘fun’, ‘participation’ and ‘success’ were at the forefront of all football
activities while competitiveness was minimised. Moreover, children were strategically
mixed-up so that there was no competition along ethnic lines.
While the above cited research suggests the non-competitive element was necessary, the
removal of all competiveness proved problematic since it diluted the appeal of the
programme from the perspective of volunteer coaches and children. Thus the
programme’s experience suggested that rather than a wholly non-competitive model, the
realisation of optimum success lay in the identification of a balance between
competiveness and ‘fun’ (CCPA 2012:18-19). In recognition of this, at the time of
research CCPA was in the process of introducing a competitive element to the
programme’s football activities while seeking to ensure that this was not expressed
along sectarian lines (ibid).
Equal status
The necessity of participants to have equal status within the contact situation (Pettigrew
1998; Allport 1954) is the final condition specified by intergroup contact theory in order
for intergroup contact to reduce prejudice. Satisfying this prerequisite was simplified
by certain realities external to the programme, notably the fact that all Lebanese
communities shared a common language, thus eliminating the potential problem of
which (whose) language to use.
57
Conclusion
This chapter has examined the mechanisms through the Community Club programme
fostered inter-ethnic cooperation and thereby bridging social capital. It has argued that
this was achieved through the operationalisation of the ‘contact hypothesis’ in which
contact between multiple stakeholders in society was promoted. In many cases, the
Community Clubs – particularly via inter-club activities - constituted the only visible
spaces for contact across ethnic fault-lines. The findings suggest that children’s
grassroots sport was a particularly appropriate activity around which to facilitate
intergroup contact due to its popularity and its apolitical status in Lebanese society. The
latter, coupled with the reputation of CCPA as an impartial mediating entity, were
highly relevant in the ability of the programme to engage a wide range of individuals
who, due to cynicism or fear, may otherwise have been disinclined to participate in a
peacebuilding project. Concurrently however, the case study did not provide evidence
that sport is ‘automatically’ predisposed to generating bridging social capital. Rather,
the latter was created as a consequence of CCPA’s intervention into the development of
grassroots sport, which strategically engineered inter-communal and inter-regional
interaction between multiple individuals in a non-competitive format.
58
Chapter Five ~
Challenges of sports-based community peacebuilding: case study of CCPA’s
Community Club intervention
“Better let them do a poor solution than you presenting the best. For
theirs is the land and the future and your time is short.”
T.E. Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 1922
The purpose of this chapter is to critically identify the key challenges which the
intervention faced and to examine how they were managed or mitigated. The analysis is
given conceptual grounding through reference to the ‘systemic dilemma’: this is
presented in the literature as concerning issues of local versus external ownership in the
context of international efforts to develop civil society (Belloni 2008:200). Specifically,
it refers to the reality that input from external actors may be required in order to
promote inclusive and bridging structures in civil society but that such strategies
simultaneously risk undermining or overruling local needs, interests and accountability
(ibid).
This chapter identifies two challenges posed by the systemic dilemma in the context of
the Community Club intervention. The first concerned ensuring that the intervention
was contextually relevant, in the sense that it administered local needs and interests
rather than being skewed towards the social agenda of external actors. The second was
that of ensuring that the local capacity of the civil society structures created through the
programme (the Community Clubs) obtained a sufficient level whereby they were able
to operate independently of external resources, particularly in financial and
organisational terms.
59
Challenge of ensuring intervention’s relevance to local context
A frequent manifestation of the systemic dilemma is the problem that external efforts to
generate democratic and bridging structures of social organisation can be skewed away
from local priorities and towards donor interests (Belloni 2008:184). This problem was
relevant to the Community Club programme in two respects.
Promotion of intergroup bridging
The first promoted the mechanisms through which intergroup interaction was promoted.
While there is broad agreement that bridging social capital can play an important role in
generating intergroup cohesion, there is less certainty with regards to how it can be
created. Mac Ginty and Williams (2009:88) have remarked that:
The task of transforming bonding social capital (which can be intuitive,
comfortable, inexpensive and good fun) into bridging social capital (which
can be awkward, artificial and expensive) can be incredibly difficult.
The prime challenge facing the implementing agency (CCPA) was how to promote
intergroup cohesion in such a manner that was relevant and appropriate to the Lebanese
context. As is discussed below, this task was compounded by the fact that the donor,
the Rockwool Foundation, advocated a contrasting approach to bridging, and
pressurised CCPA (although ultimately unsuccessfully) to conform to the former’s
‘bridging approach’.
It is worth noting that Lebanon provides an example of an especially challenging
environment due to the large extent to which Lebanon’s sectarian and political groups
are physically segregated along conflict fault-lines (Haugbølle 2012:15). Thus, in
contrast to certain other divided societies where antagonistic communities live in close
proximity, efforts to create cross-sectarian civil society groups in contexts such as
60
Lebanon face the challenge of bridging physical as well as social divides, with the
practical and logistical challenges this entails.
In the case of the Community Club programme, the principal challenge created by the
physical segregation of communal identity groups was that there was in many areas an
incompatibility between the programme’s twin objectives of establishing locally-
grounded community based organisations (CBOs) and of establishing communally
mixed CBOs. As CCPA (CCPAa:) noted:
The best way to… promote the process of peaceful co-existence, tolerance-
building and social cohesion between different population groups in
Lebanon would be to establish multiethnic clubs all over the country. But
due to the fact that the different population groups are living separated in the
majority of the villages and towns in Lebanon, this is not possible –
especially not without compromising the natural establishment, the
sustainability and local anchoring of the clubs.
Thus, while recognising that homogenous clubs were not as effective bridging
mechanisms as heterogeneous clubs, the organisation considered the local grounding of
the clubs to be the most important factor. This was reflected in the communal identities
of the Community Club members: of the programme’s 107 clubs, 25 represented more
than one religious community while 82 were mono-ethnic (CCPA 2012:11).33
In view
of the limited options for intra-club bridging, CCPA emphasised the importance of
activities and interaction between the clubs (CCPAa).
Importantly however, the programme donor did not concur with this strategy. Rather
than generate bridging through mixing between clubs, the donor advocated that the
programme be restricted to areas in which different communal groups lived in close
contact and where, therefore, the creation of ethnically heterogeneous Community
Clubs would be possible:
33
Of the mono-ethnic Clubs, 33 were Sunnite, 19 Shiite, 13 Christian, 10 Palestinian, 5 Druze, and 2
Allawite (CCPA 2012:11)
61
The Rockwool Foundation has insisted that the projet [sic] should focus on
areas with mixed population groups: where the different national groups live
in close proximity to one another. The approach is to recruit trainers and
children for the clubs from the local population, making every effort to
reflect the local demographic mix as closely as possible. (Rockwool
Foundation)34
.
In the analysis of CCPA, the donor’s urging that the programme be limited to areas
affected by local-level conflict constituted a threat to the intervention’s effectiveness
(CCPA 2012:23). CCPA maintained that the promotion of interaction at regional and
national levels was important in order to address mezzo and macro drivers of conflict.
In this respect, it maintained that while sites of conflict between antagonistic local
communities may have constituted the most visible forms of conflict, they were
symptoms of societal contradictions at other levels. It therefore argued that a “national
focus is a requirement of peacebuilding, in order to address conflict drivers which
stretch far beyond mixed communities and local flashpoints” (ibid). Thus the
implementing agency and the donor maintained substantially contrasting approaches to
the nature of conflict in Lebanon – and therefore also to peacebuilding strategies.35
It is important to reiterate that in actuality the programme was implemented on a
national scale, thus reflecting CCPA’s rather than the donor’s model. Nevertheless, the
core point is that the implementing agency was pressurised by the donor to shape the
intervention in a way which, in the analysis of the former, would have limited the
intervention’s effectiveness. Moreover, the case study demonstrates that while donors
34
Rockwool Foundation, “Football for Peace in Lebanon”,
http://www.rockwoolfonden.dk/programme+areas/international+peace+building/football+for+peace+in+l
ebanol, viewed 12th
July 2012
35 A second grounding on which the donor’s exclusive focus on multi-ethnic Clubs could be criticised
concerns the fact that, as mentioned in Chapter Four, CCPA did not conceive of the Community Clubs
only as mechanisms of inter-ethnic bridging but also as devices for socialising communities into
democratic norms. Thus ethnically homogenous clubs, not just heterogeneous clubs, were considered by
CCPA as mechanisms of positive social change.
62
may be attracted to the most visible and tangible form of bridging of divides (e.g.
between two local communities), such strategies may not be the only, or most relevant,
forms of bridging required.
Challenge of achieving local sustainability
A second problem in the context of the systemic dilemma concerns the fact that
externally-created civil society structures and organisations are often dependent upon
international actors for resources (Belloni 2008: 203). With regards to the Community
Club programme, the key challenge was to ensure that the Community Club structure
would have sufficient local capacity to continue operating beyond the termination of the
external intervention and funding. The following sections analyse how successfully this
challenge was managed by CCPA and its donor partner.
Restricted external input
An overarching principle of the Community Club intervention was that the Community
Clubs should constitute genuine CBOs rather than external creations (CCPAa). In this
regard, the programme adhered to a similar sports-based peacebuilding design described
and advocated by Gasser and Levinsen (2004:466-467) in the context of Bosnia and
Herzegovina: “Because there is enough local know-how to organize events, and enough
motivation to do it even under the conditions imposed, the programme works with
minimal expatriate input in funding or expertise”. Following this logic, CCPA
strategically restricted external input to a level deemed strictly necessary. In material
terms, this primarily consisted of a one-off donation of sports equipment to each
Community Club upon the completion of the training programme delivered by CCPA
(CCPA 2012:10). Interviews with coaches suggested that the provision of equipment
63
was an essential ‘pull factor’ with regards to the motivations of communities to be
involved in the programme.36
In addition to equipment, the other main input delivered
by CCPA was the aforementioned training and educational programme, consisting of a
series of seminars and training sessions focused on both football coaching and on
administrative/organisational matters (ibid). It is important to note that such training
was usually undertaken by experienced local coaches (following a ‘cascade’ format)
rather than by expatriates.
Maximum local participation and responsibility
As hinted above, the strategy of minimal external input was complemented by the
maximisation of local participation and responsibility over the Community Clubs. For
instance, all club and inter clubs activities were organised by the local coaches, club
volunteers and coordinators37
(ibid:18). In this regard local stakeholders were
conceptualised as change-agents rather than as passive beneficiaries.
Interviews with club coaches indicated that the investment of responsibility in them
played an important role in fostering a sense of local ownership of the programme.
Discussions between the author and club leaders suggested that the community
leadership role which was conferred upon the latter had the effect of instilling
enthusiasm and pride. This was true to an even greater extent for the coordinators who
organised inter-club events: because the latter were organised without external input, the
coordinators (accurately) regarded them as their events - and assumed consequent credit
and responsibility.38
36
Interview with Community Club coach, 27.4.12, (5); Interview with parent, 28.4.12, (7)
37 In addition to the club coaches, the programme involved the creation of fifteen ‘coordinator’ positions
(who were simultaneously club coaches) whose role was to facilitate inter-club activities. Each
coordinator was responsible for a regional area (CCPA 2012).
38 Interview Community Club coordinator, 6.5.12, (10)
64
These findings indicate the advantages of bottom-up, locally-led peacebuilding models.
However, the case study also revealed challenges regarding the establishment of full
local ownership. Important in this respect was that the latter was underpinned by
requirements specified by the programme donor. Specifically, Community Clubs were
coerced into undertaking extensive and time-consuming monitoring and reporting tasks
(concerning the number, ethnic identity and gender of participants at events).
Consequently, donor demands for evidence that the project was ‘working’ had the effect
of undermining coaches’ motivation for involvement in the programme thus weakening
their enthusiasm and, ultimately, the continuation of the programme (CCPA 2012: 20-
21). At the core of the issue apparently lay the donor’s failure to comprehend the basic
premise that successful civil society initiatives must satisfy local needs and interests. In
specific relation to social capital, it is worth recalling Lin’s (1999: 30) notion of the
concept as based on investment with ‘expected returns’. In this understanding, social
capital is based on rational self-interest, reaffirming the point that strategies to generate
social capital must be of interest to those who are intended to participate.
A second key challenge regarding the achievement of local ownership concerned the
difficulty of ensuring that the Community Clubs reached a level of financial
sustainability.39
While CCPA attempted to transcend this issue through encouraging the
involvement of local institutional bodies, the financial outputs of this strategy were
limited in practice.
First, as confirmed by previous programmes undertaken by CCPA in Lebanon, the
country’s professional sports clubs were focused exclusively on talent-development and
were therefore not interested in grassroots initiatives based on ‘sport for all’ principles
(CCPA 2012:9). Second, CCPA’s strategy of encouraging local municipalities to
39
The key expenses of Community Clubs were costs related to travel and to replacing sport equipment.
65
provide financial support to the Community Clubs only achieved modest success. This
was due to municipalities’ limited resources on one hand and their prioritisation of
infrastructure programmes over social initiatives on the other.40
Thus, while
municipalities did provide certain resources, these were mainly limited to in-kind
donations such as permitting clubs to use sports facilities free of charge (CCPA
2012:27). Moreover, the option of municipality support was not available to the clubs
located in Palestinian refugee camps due to the camps existing outside of the
jurisdiction of the Lebanese government.41
Therefore municipalities did not constitute a
mechanism through which the financial sustainability of the Community Clubs could be
assured.42
Securing sustainability through connecting to the national sports sector
In response to the aforementioned challenges encountered with regards to obtaining
local financial support for the Community Clubs via municipality funding, CCPA
sought to guarantee the project’s sustainability through formally connecting the network
of Community Clubs to the national Lebanese sports sector (CCPAa). To this end,
CCPA successfully lobbied the MOYS to accept the development of a formal structure
to unify the Community Clubs - the ‘Community Club Federation’ - as one of the
department’s primary policy goals (CCPA 2012: 31).43
While at the time of writing the
40
Interview with Senior NGO staff member, 8.5.12, (13)
41 Interview with Community Club coach, 27.4.12, (5)
42 Interview with parent, 26.4.12, (2)
43 CCPA’s strategy of establishing a Community Club Federation entailed collaboration between the
MOYS and CCPA with regard the amendment of a Lebanese national law, namely Decree 213. The latter
stipulated the legal conditions and requirements under which the Community Cub Federation would be
governed (CCPA 2012: 31). At the time of writing the text had been agreed in writing between the
Director General of the Ministry and CCPA Lebanon and was pending the Lebanese Parliament’s
adoption.
66
formation of the Community Club Federation had not been finalised, CCPA envisioned
that its establishment would ensure the sustainability of the Community Clubs through
enabling the latter to access various types of resources. Specifically, the Community
Club Federation was anticipated to function as a mechanism for attracting financial
resources (through predicted funding from government ministries and national sports
bodies such as the NOC); political resources (through the Federation’s anticipated
capacity as a body able to represent the interests of grassroots sports groups and the
concept of sport-for-all); and expertise (through the Federation’s expected capacity as a
source of sporting, educational and administrative expertise) (CCPA 2012: 32).
The Community Club case study thus provides certain insights with regards to the
sustainability of sports-based civil society initiatives. It has been suggested in the
literature that the development of linking social capital (e.g. connections with
government actors and sports organisations), constitutes a mechanism through which
communities can access certain resources:
Being involved in the governance of services, participants build
relationships with public institutions or officials which give their
community access to valuable external resources like money, support or
political leverage (Skidmore et al 2006 in Coalter 2010b:1384).
However, the lack of commitment to the Community Clubs by municipalities
highlighted that in practice the accessing of such resources may be limited by a lack of
interest on the part of the government (or otherwise public) institutions in question.
Conversely, the formation of a national structure (Federation) connected to the national
sports sector seemed to offer the local clubs a more feasible means to obtain financial
sustainability. Yet the fact that CCPA had not succeeded in finalising the establishment
of the Federation prior to the expiration of the programme’s funding illustrated a final
challenge involved in strategies to create locally sustainable civil society structures:
namely that donor project cycles do not necessarily correspond to needs on the ground
67
(Belloni (2008:206-207). As a consequence of the termination of its funding, CCPA
was required to suspend the programme, thus placing into doubt the establishment of
the Community Club Federation and therefore the long-term future of the Community
Club network.
Conclusion
Through the conceptual lens of the ‘systemic dilemma’, this chapter has examined the
principle challenges which the Community Club programme faced. The first was
ensuring the intervention’s relevance to the local context. With regards to this issue, the
promotion of intergroup bridging was identified as a significant site of tension between
donor interests on one hand and local realities (as interpreted by the implementing
agency) on the other.
The second main challenge was ensuring the programme’s sustainability beyond
CCPA’s intervention. The chapter found that the model of minimal external input
combined with maxim local management served to foster a sense of local ownership
among the club coaches and volunteers. However, achieving complete financial and
organisational sustainability proved to be a substantial challenge, and while this may be
resolved by the establishment of a national Community Club Federation structure, at the
time of writing it was not clear whether the latter would materialise.
68
Chapter Six ~
Conclusion: Towards a conceptually and practically coherent approach to sports-
based community peacebuilding
This dissertation has interrogated the theory and practice of utilising community sport
as a vehicle for promoting trust and cooperation between deeply divided communities.
This analysis has been grounded in social capital and civil society peacebuilding theory
and based on a case study of a community peacebuilding initiative organised around
children’s grassroots football, namely the Community Club programme implemented
throughout Lebanon by the NGO Cross Cultures Project Association (CCPA).
Lebanese society remains acutely divided along communal lines, over a decade since
the end of its civil war. Although conflict has primarily remained latent, Lebanese
society has arguably continued to experience protracted social conflict based on
communal needs-based grievances and deep mistrust. Communal competition has in
turn been exacerbated by the state’s weakness (especially its lack of a monopoly on
legitimate violence, particularly vis-à-vis Hizbollah) and by the interests of international
actors, primarily Syria - but also Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the US, all of whom
have sought to influence Lebanon’s internal dynamics for their respective strategic
interests. Conflict fault lines have been reoriented along a Sunni-Shi’a dynamic
reflecting the current regional cold war which is characterised by a Syria-Iran-Hizbollah
alliance versus a grouping composed primarily of the Gulf states and the US and to
which Lebanon’s March 14th
parties are allied. The current civil war in Syria has
further entrenched these sectarian and political divisions, both at elite and communal
levels, most visibly between Sunni and Allawite communities in the north of the
country.
69
While Lebanon’s civil society is strong, it mirrors society as a while. Thus, a large
proportion of civil society organisations have a declared sectarian affiliation, while
others are de facto organised around a single identity group. Civil society thus is based
primarily on bonding forms of social capital, while bridging social capital is limited
(Mac Ginty and Williams 2009:88).
In this context, the Community Club programme sought to develop bridging civil
society structures at the local, regional and national level through the mechanism of
children’s grassroots football. In stark contrast to many western societies where it is
often among the largest civil society sectors, recreational sport occupies a peripheral
location in Lebanese society, in part due to the prevalence of an elitist and talent-driven
sports culture. Thus, the Community Club programme’s creation of a national network
of 107 grassroots clubs constituted a significant development with regards to the
Lebanese grassroots sports sector. While the intervention was designed to generate
positive social change in a number of respects (such as the promotion of democratic
norms and in the field of psycho-social assistance), this dissertation has been interested
in the insights it reveals regarding the utility and challenges of grassroots sport
specifically as a peacebuilding mechanism.
Peacebuilding Utility
The dissertation found that the Community Club programme effectively generated
intergroup cooperation and thereby social capital through establishing forums through
which a wide range of stakeholders (children, coaches, club volunteers, municipalities)
from multiple identity groups and from different regions could interact. This occurred
through both football-related activities (such as inter-club festivals) and non-directly
football-related activities (such as educational seminars and training workshops). The
case study suggested that sport (especially when organised around children) may be a
70
particularly useful vehicle for developing inclusive forms of civil society due its dual
status as a popular and as a widely regarded non-political or –sectarian activity. In the
highly politicised context of Lebanese society, grassroots sport constituted a rare form
of social untouched by communal competition. Thus, grassroots sport provided an
opportunity for intergroup interaction based on a common interest and in an
uncontroversial and non-politicised context. Consequently, grassroots sport constituted
an effective device for engaging a wide range of individuals who would unlikely
otherwise involved themselves in a ‘peacebuilding’ project.
However, while these characteristics of sport in society made it an appropriate device
for generating cohesion, such characteristics did not in themselves promote interethnic
bridging. Thus the case study did not lend support for popular policy rhetoric (see for
example UNOSDP)44
which maintains that sport possesses ‘intrinsic properties’ (such
as teamwork and fairness) which makes it conducive to promoting peace, Rather, the
peacebuilding utility of the Community Club programme lay in the strategic adaptation
of sport so that it became a site of intergroup contact and social organisation in a non-
competitive format.
Peacebuilding Challenges
The dissertation identified two major challenges to the Community Club programme,
both of which were concerned with the issue of external versus local ownership in the
context of international efforts to develop civil society and have been theorised in the
literature as relating to the ‘systemic dilemma’ (Belloni 2008).
44
UNOSDP, “Why Sport?”, http://www.un.org/wcm/content/site/sport/home/sport/peace, viewed 3rd
August 2012
71
The first challenge in this respect was that of ensuring the relevance of the intervention
to the local context. The primary challenge concerned how to promote inter-ethnic
bridging in ways appropriate to Lebanese societal realties. This challenge was
exacerbated by the large extent to which Lebanon’s communal groups are
geographically segregated, in as much as this problematised the objective of creating
ethnically heterogeneous CBOs. Simply put, geographical realities meant that there was
a tension between developing bridging forms of social capital through civil society on
one hand, and supporting genuinely locally-grounded forms of civil society on the
other.
This challenge was arguably mitigated (certainly from the perspective of the
implementing agency, CCPA) by the intervention’s adoption of a strategy whereby the
ethnically homogenous nature of the Community Clubs was respected (thus reflecting
the demographics of their local communities) and whereby bridging was therefore
primarily promoted through inter-club rather than intra-club activities. Nevertheless it
is important to note that the donor partner adopted a contrasting approach to bridging.
Specifically, the donor advocated the limitation of the project to areas characterised by
local conflict. The core point is that, in the analysis of the implementing agency, the
donor’s approach to peacebuilding through civil society threatened to limit the
effectiveness of the programme by focusing exclusively on local-level conflict and
ignoring conflict drivers at mezzo and macro levels.
The second major challenge identified concerned ensuring the long-term sustainability
of the Community Clubs and attendant inter-communal bridging. The dissertation
found that this challenge was partially mitigated by a model whereby external input was
limited and, conversely, local participation and responsibility was maximised. This
72
model maximised the sense of local ownership which local volunteers and other
stakeholders exercised over the Community Clubs and simultaneously limited their
financial and organisational dependency on international resources. Concurrently
however, local ownership was undermined by requirements placed upon Community
Club coaches by the donor regarding extensive monitoring and reporting tasks, which
counteracted local motivation for participating in the programme. Secondly,
sustainability was challenged by a lack of support offered to the Community Clubs by
institutional actors such as professional football clubs and local municipalities.
A solution to the sustainability challenge may be the creation of a Community Club
Federation, which would connect the Community Club network to the national sport
sector. The Federation was anticipated by CCPA to function as a mechanism through
which the Community Clubs would be able to access financial, organisational and
knowledge resources from government departments (such as the MOYS) and national
sports governing bodies, thus ensuring their sustainability. At the time of writing
however, the Federation had not yet been formed. Moreover, as a consequence of
CCPA’s failure to secure donor funding beyond May 2012, the programme had been
suspended pending future funding and it was therefore not clear whether the
Community Club Federation would be established.
In the final analysis, the Community Club programme successfully harnessed the
popularity of grassroots sport to develop bridging civil society structures at local,
regional and national levels. However, the case study also illustrated the challenges
involved in external efforts to engineer bridging social capital and civil society in
deeply divided contexts and, ultimately, a longer time-scale is required before
judgements can be made with regards to long-term impact.
73
Policy Recommendations
With regards to the Community Club programme implemented by CCPA in Lebanon:
For the Lebanese Parliament:
1. The Lebanese Parliament should adopt the amendment to Decree 213, thus
facilitating the formation of the Community Club Federation. Given that this has been
agreed in writing between CCPA and the Director General of the MOYS, there is no
evident reason why this should be delayed. Failure to adopt the amendment in the near
future carries the risk that current momentum will be lost and thus that the Federation
will not be established. In this event, some of the Community Clubs may disband,
especially in view of the fact that they are no longer receiving support from CCPA.
For the Ministry of Youth and Sport:
1. Upon the formation of the Community Club Federation, the Ministry of Youth
and Sport (MOYS) should commit an annual grant to the Federation, either directly, or
via a publically-funded sport governing body such as the National Olympic Committee.
For Cross Cultures Project Association:
1. Cross Cultures Project Association (CCPA) should focus on securing funding in
order to allow it to resume the programme at the earliest possible moment.
2. Should it secure funding, CCPA should focus its efforts on building the capacity
of the newly established Community Club Federation to act independently as a national
governing body of the national network of Community Clubs. This may involve
activities such as: hosting a national convention of all Community Clubs for the purpose
of agreeing strategy and policy; assisting in the organisation of elections to an executive
74
committee; and functioning as an intermediary between the Community club Federation
and the MOYS.
For a future donor to the Community Club Federation:
1. Any future donor to the Community Club programme should ensure that it does
not place excessive reporting requirements upon CCPA and the local Community Clubs
such that local energies and interests are undermined. Together with CCPA and
Community Club leaders, a new donor should devise a monitoring system which
satisfies both local stakeholders and the donor’s documentation requirements
75
With regards to the wider sports-based peacebuilding sector:
To the Sport for Development and Peace International Working Group
1. The Sport for Development and Peace International Working Group should
commission an in-depth study of sports-based peacebuilding in post-settlement conflicts
with a view to developing a policy framework based on findings from various contexts.
This would provide empirical evidence to current policy recommendations which are
largely devoid of empirical substantiation.
To donors, NGOs and other implementing agencies involved in sports-based
peacebuilding
1. As far as possible, control and responsibility of sports-based initiatives should
be invested in local communities, thus minimising dependency on external actors.
2. Interventions should seek to engage a wide range of stakeholders, thus
maximising their peacebuilding effectiveness.
3. Engagement of local sports governing bodies and/or government actors should
be considered as a means of eliciting resources necessary for long-term sustainability.
76
Appendix 1: List of Interviews
Date Interview
reference
no.
Details of Interviewee(s) Location
18.4.12 1 Regional director of sports-based
development NGO
Beirut
26.4.12 2 Parent involved in Community
Club
South Lebanon
26.4.12 3 Municipality Vice-President
South Lebanon
26.4.12 4 Two Community Club coaches
South Lebanon
27.04.12 5 Community Club coach
(Palestinian refugee camp)
Wavel Refugee
Camp, Bekaa
Valley
28.04.12 6 Community Club coach Hula, South
Lebanon
28.04.12 7 Parent involved in Community
Club
Hula, South
Lebanon
28.04.12 8 Co-ordinator of sports-based
peacebuilding project
Beirut, Via Skype
29.04.12 9 Community Club coach
Tripoli
6.5.12 10 Community Club coordinator
Mount Lebanon
6.5.12 12 Community Club coach
Mount Lebanon
8.5.12 13 Senior NGO staff member
Beirut
16.5.12 14 Employee of sports-based co-
existence project
Beirut, Via Skype
7.06.12 15 Employee of sports-based co-
existence project
York, Via Skype
20.06.12 16 Director of sports-based
peacebuilding project
York, Via Skype
77
Appendix 2: Interview Template
Template interview for:
Community Club coach or coordinator or volunteer member of the community:
1. What is you occupation?
2. How long have you volunteered with the Community Club programme?
3. What were your motivations for becoming involved with the Community Club
programme?
4. How did you come to be involved with the Community Club programme?
5. Have you previously volunteered in other capacities?
6. Is there a culture of volunteering in your community?
7. What do you think is the most important thing about the Community Club programme?
8. What are the main needs of your community?
9. What are the main political/ethnic characteristics of your area?
10. What are the main problems facing Lebanon?
11. Why do you think that sport/the Community Club programme is effective at bridging
divides?
12. Has the Community Club programme made a difference with regards to how you
view/interact with people from other religious communities?
13. What are the main challenges facing the Community Club?
14. Does the municipality provide support to the Community Club?
15. What are your and the community’s views with regards to girls playing football?
16. What are your hopes for the future of the Community Club programme?
78
Appendix 3: Map of Community Clubs
Source: CCPA 2012
79
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