As sectarian and political tensions rose after March of 2005 scholars and journalists began to
speculate that Lebanon was heading back into civil war. Much academic literature in fact
showed that the probability of regressing into such a state was very high. Although tensions
did escalate and violence broke out on a number of occasions (culminating in several days of
fighting in May 2008) the Doha agreement provided a peaceful political solution to the
country's crisis. This book offers an answer to the question of why no renewed civil war
occurred in Lebanon as well as to the larger question of why civil wars do - or do not - break
out. The author accomplishes this by developing and presenting a model of informal elite
agreement which he terms consociational conflict.
