The recent protests in Iraq and Lebanon are driven by the effects of inadequate governance, which itself is the result of years of corruption, nepotism, and the appropriation of public authority and resources for sectarian purposes and self-enrichment. The governance model of both countries – sectarian quasi-democracy – is increasingly proving to be a long-term dead end. Both countries stare into the abyss of public bankruptcy, crumbling social services, growing poverty levels and the lingering threat of renewed violence. Yet, the Lebanese and Iraqi political elites are stubbornly refusing to make more than token concessions to the protesters’ demands. If they were acting in the interest of their own citizens, their response to the present crisis would be neither repression nor violence. Rather, a considered undertaking of essential political and economic reforms would be implemented before tensions get fully out of hand. Instead, their ruling elites have made their attachment to the status quo clear through repression and stalling tactics. True, the reforms protesters seek are ambitious due to the many mechanisms that have entrenched elite capture of public authority and budgets in both countries over past decades. These include, in particular: (1) the deep institutionalisation of consociationalism that prevents more radical reform; (2) the pervasiveness of public/private arrangements that political elites use to dominate socioeconomic interactions to their benefit; and (3) the steady courting by many domestic political parties of foreign alliances that sustain the sectarian status quo.

Notwithstanding the roadblocks to reform thrown up by these three mechanisms, this paper argues that today’s mix of political and economic crises offers opportunities to bring about change. This is because these crises starkly expose the deep failure and unsustainability of current governance and developmental mechanisms in Lebanon and Iraq. Both countries produce too few public goods, and too many private ones that benefit too few citizens. However, revolts or mass protests, rapid economic reform or landslide electoral shifts are not really on the cards as viable paths to reform. Faced with resilient, sticky systems that feature many veto players, reform is inevitably bound to be a gradual, long-term process that slowly and painfully strengthens and changes political structures. Key ingredients of such a path are the capacity of civil society structures to influence and guide decision making, the extent to which the international community is ready to challenge the status quo via conditions and incentives for genuine reform, and the ability of protestors to keep pressing for and prioritising domestic agendas despite geopolitical tensions.

In the final analysis, it is essential that domestic civil society and the international community join forces in bringing about a mix of modest short-term change and longer-term structural reforms. Such a partnership is not intuitive, and it will demand effort to make it happen. Each player has a complementary role to play and their synergy will be essential to success in the face of ossified, fragmented and change-resistant ruling elites. In the short term, only local civil society can keep the pressure on reform-resistant Lebanese and Iraqi political elites and monitor the true nature of their reform intentions. At the same time, only the international community (such as the international financial institutions (IFIs), US and EU) have the means to prevent economic collapse. Their support should be tied to strong reform conditionalities and based on loans, not grants. While the IFIs have a good track record of attaching demanding conditions to their funds, their ability as ‘principals’ to monitor their ‘agents’ is less impressive. It is the mix of outside means and inside legitimacy that can create pressure for reform that will really make a difference.